Comment by Ron Jacobs on June 18, 2010 at 2:15pm

Bit off topic, but does anyone know of a case sold anywhere for the Xbee modules? Seems it could use some sort of protection from the elements and such...

Comment by Patrick Mccabe on June 18, 2010 at 2:18pm

I do not know of one but would like to make one.

Comment by Bill Porter on June 18, 2010 at 5:15pm

Nice Patrick!

I have been working on my own control station for my UGV. I ended up writing a PS2 Controller Arduino library in the process.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMgzF7qeeEY

How did you define your communications between your controller and robot? Did you make up your own protocol, or stick a standard like NMEA?

Comment by Patrick Mccabe on June 18, 2010 at 5:24pm

Right now the controller is not used. But i do plan on writing my own protocol for it when i do start to use it.

Comment by Bill Porter on June 18, 2010 at 7:02pm

Purely as an educational prepare you for the real world thing, I would suggest looking at maybe using NMEA sentence strings. I assume you are thinking about a degree in engineering of some sort. One thing you will learn is that following standards is a HUGE deal in an professional engineer's life. Pretty much all the robots I deal with at the Navy use NMEA strings to convey data across different sub-systems. It's a form of communication that is easy to implement, understand, and debug. More importantly, it's an accepted standard for communications. i did a quick write-up about communications and NMEA stings here

So, if you take the time to learn and implement it now on your project, you will have gained a valuable skill useful for you future professional life.

Just a suggestion.

Keep up the good Work!! Looks like you are going to be a formidable opponent at next years Sparkfun challenge.

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