Baby steps
In this picture, the robot is up on a stack of boxes while I try to get it walking. As you can see, I got my WiPort working. It's an incredibly cool device. I can now control the bot via 802.11b. It is actually manufactured by Lantronix, but WiBots produces a very handy breakout board that gives access to all the ports (2 serial, I2C, ethernet, GPIO). So far, the default firmware it comes with has served my purposes, but I suspect I will eventually end up tinkering with it.
The WiPort represents my decision on the "onboard/offboard" computing dilemma I mentioned. I'm gonna put all high-level stuff on a regular computer. I will probably end up putting some simple stuff on the WiPort, such as motor comms.
Got it walking with a variety of gaits. Forward only so far. I'm working on getting it to translate smoothly in any direction.
Here are some videos of my hexapod moving:
- Tripod Gait Walking (211 kb)
- Active Body Positioning (225 kb)