The "fastest" computer (or rather carputer) ever!! (56K beware)

[Nephewkp]

Hey all,

The moment is soon arriving in which a almost year long project will reach fruition. Some members may already be aware, but I am in the process of building a robot with some navigational logic. The brains of the bot is the super powerful (not really) VIA C3 at 800Mhz. I actually am using this not for it's power, but rather lack there of. The low power consumption made it perfect for my project (although future modifications may include something more powerful). It will be running linux of course, and I have the ability to monitor everything from afar using the onboard 802.11g. To push this guy along, it will use two motors from NPC rated at just under 1hp each running at 24V. It will have onboard sonar and a ccd camera on a pan/tilt mount to aid with navigation. To power all this stuff I have 3 Hawker SLA batteries, 1 for the pc, 2 for the motors. The pc batt is feeding into a 200W DC ps, and the motor batts are connected to a pair of home built OSMC's which interface to a homemade serial interface. I say that it is the "fastest" because the pc is actually slow, but also that the robot is capable of doing about 20mph with the right gearing (I don't know many computers that are that fast without being in a actual car or plane).

I did all the designs myself in AutoCAD and I will also be doing most of the fabrication. I sure hope it all goes together easily.

Many props to It_the_Cow and CPFitz14 for contributing to the project.

Here is the cad drawing
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/Robot%20Final%20Designs.JPG

Here are pics of it in pieces
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/105_0551.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/105_0552.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/105_0553.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/105_0554.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/105_0555.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/105_0556.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/105_0557.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/105_0558.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/105_0559.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/105_0560.JPG

[subtotal]

this looks interesting, can't wait to see how it turns out

[Brundle Fly]

This sounds fantastic, but I can't see any pics! Nor can I dwnld the pics and view them. Is it just me? Firefox 1.1 here. :confused:

**EDIT**

Not working with Exploder either. :(

[SniperXX]

I see the pics. Wow that looks like it will be sweet. I have always loved robots, they are just soo cool.

[Brundle Fly]

Yeah, I see the pics now, must have been a server prob. Nephewkp, could you shrink them to 8x6, so we don't have to scroll sideways? :D

NM, fixed already, FF is slow sometimes. :rolleyes:

[PLOBBY]

O wow this looks pretty sweet, ill keep an eye on this thread.

[Nephewkp]

Here is an update

My roomie and I have been working hard on the "brains" and insides of the robot. So far we have all the electronics mounted and have begun on some of the structural details. Some more aluminum is to arrive Tues., so I have to wait til then to finish the chasis.

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/105_0562.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/105_0563.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/105_0565.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/105_0566.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/105_0569.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/105_0570.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/105_0571.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/105_0572.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/105_0573.JPG

[ghettocomp]

Cool so far. I am interested in seeing how this turns out..
what will you be doing with it?

[Nephewkp]

I was initially going to do it for fun....but then I decided to enter as a project in engineering open house at my college (school pays for part of it that way). I have plans for going to schools in my area and showing it to students to get them interested in engineering. The world always needs more engineers right??

[man_utd]

Nice workshop ;)
Good luck with the project, looks very promising.

[Nephewkp]

Here is an update and pics of something that looks closer to the final product. There is much tweaking to be done, and if you look, none of the sensors are mounted yet. (camera, sonar, etc.)

pics are here (https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/seekBot_day_5/)

[Quailane]

Very cool. With it moving arounf and bumping along couldn't that be detrimental to the hard drive? It doesn't look cushioned at all.

[Nephewkp]

I thought about that but I am not sure how much rubber gromets would help and solid state is out of the question. The only other option would be to go with a laptop hd that is designed to be jarred around a little more.

[man_utd]

What about a nice layer of foam? Probably would be better than nothing.

[SlipViper]

dude...resize your pics to 800x600 so the screen doesn't get f'd up....

That's a sweet "case"!!! Needs my favorite bumper sticker of all time though.....

"My computer is faster than your car.... :cool: "

with this add on just for you!!
"and my car is faster than your computer!!!! :cool: "

[Verymanynames]

I was initially going to do it for fun....but then I decided to enter as a project in engineering open house at my college (school pays for part of it that way). I have plans for going to schools in my area and showing it to students to get them interested in engineering. The world always needs more engineers right??

You sir are correct!

Sweet project.

[zulfy26]

what are those circuts you made for? They look quite interesting.

[diggingforgold]

I thought about that but I am not sure how much rubber gromets would help and solid state is out of the question. The only other option would be to go with a laptop hd that is designed to be jarred around a little more.

How about a suspension type enclosure. If you are into quiet computing, you might know what I'm talking about. Get 4 strands of thin elastic rope and suspend your hard drive in some sort of enclosure. It's supposed to make hard drives silent in a case, but in your project- it will most likely save it. Just make sure you have very stretchy rope and enough clearance so the hard drive doesn't smack into the enclosure when you go over bumps. But I think this would be a cost effective way to reduce shock damage to your hdd.

Combine this with a nice suspension system that your chassis rides on, and I think it will work. Check out silentpcreview.com.

[em00guy]

I was once building a computer for my car and i decided to enclose the hd in a cage built with r/c car shocks. How are you power supplying the different voltage rails?

[Nephewkp]

what are those circuts you made for? They look quite interesting.

Which Circuits are you refering to? If you are talking about the one on the breadboard, that is a prototype for a PWM (Pulse width modulator) that is connected to the serial port of the computer. For some reason, when I have attempted to solder the prototype to a circiut board, the circuit is screwed up somewhere, so I just haven't gotten to making a working board yet. The prototype on the breadboard works fine, so that is what I am using for testing for now. The twin circuits are each a H-bridge with 4 IRF1405 (I think) power MOSFETS on each leg, that runs the two motors. Each motor is about 90 amps at stall, so I needed beefy legs to the H-bridges. The h-bridge circuits can handle up to 300 amps for a sec or two, so I think that the system is robust enough for anything.

I don't have regular internet access this week, so I won't be able to resize the pics until at least next week.


Oh yeah, and for comments regarding the hd, there are two cables that run under the hard drive due to space restrictions...so if I design a new way to suspend the hard drive, it will have to accomodate the cables.

[Electron Chaser]

Looks great so far. You are correct there can never be too many people who base all of their decsions using pure logic (engineers).

[firebat45]

looks like your carpet is destroyed, but IMO, its worth it, that looks awesome. (also cause its not my carpet)

[Nephewkp]

Well, I think that the carpet will be okay after a few hundred more passes with the vacuum. I'm glad that you all are liking the project so far. I just can't wait to get her up and fully running.

[XTTX]

Oh wow, you have really done a lot. Seems like a cool car. Maybe you can make a bigger version and then have a actual seat in it, just remove the camera, and then put some cushions. You would have a pretty cool Go-Kart right there. I would never be able to do something like this. I don't really understand how circuitry works.

[Nephewkp]

After much time has passed, Engineering Open House was upon me. In response, I was forced to do more work on the project. Here are some pics from EOH:


My partner working on the onboard image processing software.
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/113_1330.JPG

My partner and myself giving a presentation on the robot.
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/DSCN1451.JPG

[Nephewkp]

Some pics of the completed robot.
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/113_1331.JPG

This pic shows the first steps of image processing done by the onboard computer to do object detection.
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/113_1335.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/113_1337.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/113_1337.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/113_1338.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/113_1339.JPG
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/DSCN1449.JPG

[Nephewkp]

And a pic of the award notification.
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/113_1336.JPG

And a pic of me with the award plaque.
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/113_1343.JPG

[Burdman27911]

It looks very nice. Gratz on the award! So now the important question, do you feel like you've learned a lot from doing this project? If there's anything you can walk away with from something like this, it's an amazing experience.

As a side question are you an Electrical Engineer? I'm currently studying Mechanical Engineering, but my roommate in EE, so I was just curious.

[Nephewkp]

As a side question are you an Electrical Engineer? I'm currently studying Mechanical Engineering, but my roommate in EE, so I was just curious.

I'm a senior in computer engineering. I learned tons and applied most skills that I do know in order to complete the project. It included serious ME, EE, CompE, CS, and architecture/drafting skills for me to do this.

[Kevin007]

nice robot..hehe

[Nephewkp]

thanks

[goodgod]

wow, awesome project man.... I can't even understand how it all works together....ok, I give up. :rolleyes:

[Nephewkp]

wow, awesome project man.... I can't even understand how it all works together....ok, I give up. :rolleyes:

Here is a graphic I made for the display board when we were presenting the project. It sorta describes how everything works:

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/sumlar/www/seekBotMotors.jpg

[Shelnutt2]

I so am buying one when they go retail :p.

[Nephewkp]

Considering it cost about $4000 for me to make it, I doubt that anyone would want to buy one.

[-aDaM^]

wow.... Great job dood.

[Nephewkp]

thanks