Project Description

 Vivus the GoBot has been under development for a long time. I chose to use the picaxe axe023 microcontroller board because  it was low cost and small. The geared motors I used were very frustrating to assemble as it was made of lots of tiny pieces with little instruction on assembly. However, they had a good gear ratio and were very low cost considering the alternatives (pricing $15 for one little motor should be a crime!). I would have liked to use different bumper switches, but the Omerons were the only ones I could buy and were cheap, they actually ended up working really well. I used a 6v power supply which was heavy, but also great because I ended up not needing to solder in a voltage regulator. I would have liked to add two more wheels, but refrained from doing so because of the cost ($4.95 for 2 wheels?!). I used two tongue depressors as a chassis as they ended up being nearly the perfect size. I tried to accomplish this project without soldering because I don't have good ventilation and my respirator broke. However, this paid off big time as I would easily reconfigure wires in 1/3 of the time it would have taken me if I had soldered the joints.

Anyone who has ever attempted to build a robot from scratch know the challenges it presents, often time resulting in failure if one tiny thing goes wrong like using a different transistor than you should or accidently giving your bot one volt too many (Both of these mistakes I have made during other attempts). This is by far my best robot, and its nice to know that its possible after failing so many times.

By far the hardest part was coding Vivus. The picaxe microcontroller runs on BASIC code, which was created in the late 60's. I spent at least 4 hours testing tons of code bit by bit to get it to finally work.

Inspiration

 I've been an avid MAKE Magazine reader for a long time, and reading their magazine and blog taught me a lot about robotics. This latest edition is especially interesting to me as it features multiple robot projects.

And I've always wanted to create something that comes close to alive. It's amazing to me that little bits of plastic, silicon, and copper can come together to make something almost living.

Who will enjoy this the most?

 I hope anyone with at least a mild interest in robotics will find Vivus interesting. I love making a robot that can do the same thing as a $200 lego bot for less than 1/4 the cost.

The Project

 I made this little video of Vivus in action. Enjoy!