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Last update: 11/7/97

MYRO


MYRO wins the second place in Second Atlanta Hobby Robot Rally

Welcome to the fascinating field of robotics. MYRO I was my first robot and the name was derived from MYRObot. MYRO II is the latest version. My ultimate goal is to build a robot that can do household work such as vacuuming the house, serving drinks to visitors and also work as a security surveillance unit (in the night or when we are out). I am slowly working on these aspects.
Right now MYRO has a black and white micro camera that is mounted on its head (top) with a home made transmitter/amplifier (built from a video modulator and an antenna amplifier). This can transmit a black and white video signal to my upstair bed room TV (channel 3 or 4)without a loss of signal strengh. There is also a modified passive IR module mounted in MYRO's head to sense human motion (senses IR disturbance). This will be working in conjunction with a sonar unit to confirm human presence. There are two flash lights on MYRO's head which comes on if there is a power failure/sound/human presence. These features will be activated in its secuity service mode.
MYRO has a cup dispenser I build with miscellaneous things, a pump to dispense soft drinks, and a rotating tray that holds six cups. The whole tray can be moved forward and backward when needed. I used IBM parallel port initially to control all these with GWBASIC programming. I am in the process of moving to Basic Stamp II since I need more input/output pins and other functions without adding a lot of weight. I also modified a broken household vacuum cleaner to run on 12 V (I changed the AC motor in the brush unit and made a whole new vacuum unit with another DC motor). I will have pictures of individual units soon. I haven't put this together yet. I hope to have most of these working at the time of 1997 Atlanta Robot Rally.

Voice recognition, speech synthesis and the robotic arm are still in the early development stages. I am not an expert in either robotics or electronics (I am a biochemist). So building MYRO I and II was a learning experience in both robotics and electronics. I met some great people like Charles Redwine who enjoys helping beginners by giving almost everything we need. I never thought I would get a helping environment like this. I decided to share this with beginners by providing the details about the development of MYRO. If you have comments/suggestions to improve these electronic circuits please send an e-mail to me. I learned all these after joining the club with the help of some great members of AHRC.

H-Bridge
MyRO I could follow a line. I used two H-Bridges shown here as part of the motor driver that had a IR emiter/receiver configuration (No modulation)with a comparator. It worked very well and contested at the 1996 Robot Rally. It has very limited applicability. MYRO II uses a base with two geared motors driven by two H-Bridges that has pulse width modulation incorporated in to the previous circuit. The electronic brain is a BASIC STAMP II for the time being. I will upgrade it to an advanced microprocessor in the near future.

COLLISION AVOIDANCE
This is the schematic for the obstacle avoidance used in my robot.

IBM PC/STAMP interface
This shows the schematics for the interface I am presently using in MYRO II to control two unipolar stepper motors and two bidirectional DC motors used in MYRO. I will give more details about the specific uses of these motors later.

limit switch :
Myro has a tray that moves forward and backward and this uses a limit switch that stops the motor as soon as the tray reaches the limit switch. I didn't know how to do it until one of our members (Charles) explained me in our electronics help class.

Some of my experience with electronic suppliers:
I bought most of the stuff from electronic surplus places such as MECI, Herbach & Rademan, Hosfelt Electronics and Elelctronic Goldmine. I found that MECI is a really good place for motors and other gadgets(generally cheaper than other places I have shopped). Electronic Goldmine doesn't have a computerized inventory. Although they accept your order you may not get some stuff you ordered (It happened to me a couple of times).