Let's start an official ArduRover project

Inspired by John Arne's post, I got a Redcat Rockslide, which is totally cool and a great robotics platform. As you can see, it's really easy to add a mounting platform for electronics (that's APM with GPS and Xbee mounted above) and there's LOADS of room. You could even have it carry a laptop if you wanted. BTW, that's the 1/8 size Redcat shown above, which is $236. I think the 1/10 size Redcat would probably be just as good for most uses, and it's just $159. [Update: the 1:10 isn't big enough. See this comparison]

I've registered the ArduRover name, and am now just looking for the best starting point to modify the APM code for ground rovers. Since James Goppert is part of the APM dev team, we'll probably start with his rover code, which you can see at work here. But if others have code or sensor additions to the basic APM set that would be good to add to a rover, this is the place to discuss and share.

Ideally, we'll get this done in time for the Sparkfun AVC contest, on the hope that APM can have a decent chance of placing in all of the categories--ground, plane and quad. Which would be awesome.

Comment by Brad Smith 1 day ago
awesome john ,,,maybe you could tilt the motor 45 degrees on the arm and put a cone shaped wheel on the other end of the motor shaft then could walk and or drive

Hey thanks Brad,

I'd like to water proof it too so it can swim just under the surface of the water lol,

But for now just getting it off the ground will take some time, and like most people here that time is at the leisure of my wife. So its a very occasional indulgence which I decided to 'put out there' once I realized others might have had similar thoughts.

But one day I'll reappear with a crazy video of it flying and loitering on top of a building, and once thats accomplished, then it'll be a good time for exploring its mod potential so 'watch this space'.

I also like the idea of a Rover with wheels too, and its great to see people here applying their talents to new products. A rover is nice and not too hard, my contraption is "way out there" hard, and I'm still of half a mind that it'll succeed.. but it'll be fun trying, expensive, but fun = )

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Comments

Scott Plunkett October 19, 2011 at 2:05pm

How does a wireless charging solution sound??? The Qi power consortium is in the final approval stages for higher wattage power solutions and I am working with Texas Instruments (who makes the BQTesla series of chips) on a wireless charging solution for R/C Hobby batteries. I am even making it all OpenSource and am working on a Kickstarter project. The website is http://www.OpenQi.com (really just a placeholder at this point) You could build a charging base and just have the rover drive right over the top.
Developer

Randy October 14, 2011 at 8:27pm

@Mark,

Yes, i think that's basically what you need to do. I'm not very familiar with the arduRover code but you should find a declaration for each sonar which specifies which analog pin it uses.

Also you need to daisy chain some of the pins of the sonar together so that they fire in sequence. If you don't do this, you'll get strange values as the sound from one sonar will be picked up by another. Check this link and search for "multiple sensor applications".
d-creator April 23, 2011 at 8:52pm

Chris, guys, i have 3 rc cars WAITING!!! for this thing. I don't have any program skills but i wanna help some how.
Jim February 14, 2011 at 3:05am

This project could be a great for putting all those legacy original Ardupilots to use. I've been hoping to find an excuse to upgrade to APM, but having an old AP lying around doing nothing has been putting me off :)

Jim
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson February 13, 2011 at 3:56pm

I'd estimate that it's about 4mph (walk speed) with the stock 7.4v NiMh, maybe 5-6mph (fast walk) with a 11.1v 3S LiPo and about 7mph (jog) with a 14v 4S LiPo.
bcr February 13, 2011 at 2:21pm

What's the top speed on the Rockslide?
Stefan Barlow February 9, 2011 at 10:51pm

My Rockslide 1/8th scale showed up today. I started with a 7.2V 5000mAH battery which the transmitter is registering as 12V. There's definitely plenty of power for autonomous activity with this battery.

I can indeed go up and down my stairs, full speed up actually. Only problem there is the first step has a deep lip and it is wood vs. carpet past the first landing. It will need an extra step or some backfill for that lip to get up the first step.
Developer

Randy February 8, 2011 at 3:26am

PeauProductions sells lens mounts and lenses which can be glued to the eval board (which I did in this post) but I am unsure which lens would work for the short distance you want. Reducing the update rate of the mouse sensor also helps with low light performance. This is possible using the code here (look for "mouse.set_frame_period(FRAME_PERIOD_FAST);");
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson February 7, 2011 at 11:17pm

The Sparkfun optical mouse dev board showed up and it looks pretty cool. The software outputs delta x and delta y, which is great. But it's really designed to work with reflected light from its bright red LED and the lens is optimized for a fixed distance of about 5mm. I think we'd have to make our lens, at least, perhaps the way Geoffrey did, and maybe have a custom lighting source, too.
John Ryan February 4, 2011 at 4:01pm

Comment by Brad Smith 1 day ago
awesome john ,,,maybe you could tilt the motor 45 degrees on the arm and put a cone shaped wheel on the other end of the motor shaft then could walk and or drive

Hey thanks Brad,

I'd like to water proof it too so it can swim just under the surface of the water lol,

But for now just getting it off the ground will take some time, and like most people here that time is at the leisure of my wife. So its a very occasional indulgence which I decided to 'put out there' once I realized others might have had similar thoughts.

But one day I'll reappear with a crazy video of it flying and loitering on top of a building, and once thats accomplished, then it'll be a good time for exploring its mod potential so 'watch this space'.

I also like the idea of a Rover with wheels too, and its great to see people here applying their talents to new products. A rover is nice and not too hard, my contraption is "way out there" hard, and I'm still of half a mind that it'll succeed.. but it'll be fun trying, expensive, but fun = )

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