Constructive criticism

is alive and well and working hard at the moment.

Build 1 is up and running. However, it falls over a lot due to the wheels being set too high on the chassis. The wheels also have a slight tendency to fall off if treated roughly because of the mistake I made with the cutting of the base panel. Whatever, the remote control is fitted and, although a bit rough and ready, is also working well enough to be a proof of viability. I am using a very simple 315Mhtz transmitter/receiver set up because of the ease of interfacing to the Arduino and also that the size just fits the shield. A closer look at the front view will explain how the two boards are fitted together. The new shield from Creative Robotics is, as is usual, plugged into the Arduino. In this instance, a Duemilanove is used due to cost and size considerations. The receiver board is stuck to the central prototyping area of the shield with hot glue and hard wired into the power and ports used. (Please note, not the ports you can see in the photo as I have changed two of them for a simpler software option whilst testing.) The wiring for the wheels has been carefully twisted to avoid the wheels themselves due to the small gap between the wheel and board on this build. For anyone contemplating a robot of this type, I would offer some advice based on what this first build has taught me, leave more space between the wheels than this - at least an extra 10mm on each side - extend the base board to at least the height of the vertical panel - in this instance 90mm - and make sure the wheels and the ball at the rear are at the same height as, though amusing to watch the first couple of times, the sight of your little robot falling over can get annoying after a short while. 

Advice for the longer term would be to use one of the new Arduino Due boards for all sorts of reasons and, for the greatest stability, a four wheeler with servo steering. My next build will still be a two wheeler, although with most of the improvements mentioned and a wifi card instead of the 315Mhtz system. I will talk about my software in a later post as the current version is very crude and simply makes the robot work for test purposes.