14 SERVO 09.2013
Mr. Roboto, I have a RoboBuilder
Creative kit that I’ve had for three
years and have just gotten around to
experimenting with again. I’ve been
working with the Motion Builder and
Action Builder tools to make my own
“moves,” but the manual is not very
clear about how to build custom
motions. I am not having any luck at
all with making an Action file. Can
you help me Robiwan Kenobi? You
may be my only hope!
The answer continues ...
Behavior with Action
This month, I’m moving on to
the RoboBuilder Action Builder
program. Action Builder is used to
create fully autonomous robotic
behavior. It isn’t as complex as
Motion Builder since you don’t have
16 servos, frames, sequences, etc., to
account for, but it does use Motion
files to carry out its behaviors. The
motions are the Motion files that are
assigned to the remote control’s
buttons, so they have to be motions
available to the user via the remote.
Figure 1 shows the whole interface.
The left side of the window
details the Index, Step Name,
Condition, Execution, and finally
the description of the steps. The
right side of the window handles
the specifics of each step. The
Statement Name and Description
are obvious. Next is the Condition;
there are six possible conditions
shown in Table 1.
The IR distance sensor
measures in cm (approximately)
and the Sound input is some
arbitrary sound level. Level 15 is
more or less a hand clap within
about 20 cm of the robot. The
Action Builder tutorial has a good
example (using the accelerometer)
that shows how to determine if
the robot has fallen down. It is
The summer heat is over. Let the fall and winter robot competitions begin! October sees lots of things happening in the Rockies where I live. Being a total geek, it is time to make cool Halloween costumes
about scientists and robots. None of that mamby-pamby sparkly
vampire stuff for THIS guy! High tech, rockets, and even steam-punk are the way
we roll. Anyway, I'll wrap up my discussion of the RoboBuilder robot and system
for the RoboBuilder "Creative" robot. The Action Builder program allows the user
to make an autonomous robot that can do some interesting things using its built-in sensors. Finally, I'll show you how to boost your performance with an 11.1V
LiPo three-cell battery to replace the 8.4V NiCd pack the kit starts with. Onward!
by Dennis Clark
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