Hello all! I am behind everyone else I realize - I will do my best to make up for this in the coming weeks! I'm a full-time student going into finals, so I've been quite busy!
I also thought I'd share another side project which has robbed me of my pi time. I'm involved in the Science Outreach Club at my college. We do hands on activities for students in our (quite rural) area. It gives them the opportunity to experience STEM in a way they might otherwise not have been able. I spearheaded an upcoming event in robotics, and have been diligently working to build a small fleet of 8 autonomous mobile robot kits. They use Servocity's Sprout "Runt Rover" as a frame, as it allows them to be assembled without tools. I used Picaxe boards with LD239 motor controllers to control the bots, and added SRF-04 Ultrasonic Sensors to allow them to sense and navigate. I've spent most of my free time this last week slaving over a soldering iron to that end.
On to the task at hand...I have set up my RPi, and am getting acquainted with it - it's actually my first time using one, and it's been fascinating. I've gone through what I've recieved so far of the kit, anyway, and looked at what exactly I want to hook up. As the full details of my proposal are perhaps outside of the scope of the timeframe and budget of this challenge (though I intend to continue to work on it after the challenge has closed) I have felt that I need to prioritize aspects of it. Specifically, I'm going to work on mobility and sensing first. That being said, I will be using the GertBot for motor control, and using the Microstack GPS, Xtrinsic Sensor Board, and Picamera module for basic sensing. I'll be interfacing all three with the RPI 2 via a Pi Face Pirack GPIO extender. I'm currently enrolled in a computer vision course taught by Prof. Peter Corke which I believe will give me a definite foot forward in terms of image acquisition and interpretation from the Picamera. For the frame I am considering using a Servocity "Bogie" rover, as it utilizes the rocker-bogie suspension that I want to implement. We'll see - it may be too small for this application.
I really am looking forward to spending more time on this project, and I will be sure to keep everyone posted!
