Let’s make Robots
Sudar Muthu (@sudarmuthu)
Research Engineer, Yahoo! Labs
http://hardwarefun.com
http://github.com/sudar

Why hardware for a software hacker?
Fun!
#asimijs @hardwarefun

Let me show you how fun it is..
Demo
http://hardwarefun.com/projects/asimijs
#asimijs @hardwarefun

Participate in the demo 
Visit
http://hardwarefun.com:3000
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Control the bot at stage
http://hardwarefun.com/projects/asimijs
#asimijs @hardwarefun

Isn’t that fun?
Now let’s see how you can
build one
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Anatomy of a Robot
Sensors Motors
Processor
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Sensors (Input)
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Motors (Output)
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Processor (Brain)
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Arduino
 Visual Basic for hardware
 Treat it like a computer
 Sensors are inputs
 Motors are output
#asimijs @hardwarefun Photo credit Arduino team

Demo
Let there be LIGHT
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Code
void setup()
{
pinMode(13, output);
}
void loop()
{
digitalWrite(13,HIGH);
delay(1000);
digitalWrite(13,LOW);
delay(1000);
}
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Hardware setup
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Demo 2 - Reading sensor data
What you need?
A Light sensor and a LED
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Reading sensor data
void setup()
{
pinMode(13, OUTPUT);
}
void loop()
{
int val = analogRead(A0);
if (val > 50) {
digitalWrite(13, HIGH);
} else {
digitalWrite(13, LOW);
}
}
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Exotic uses of Arduino
 Making YQL (REST) calls
 Parsing JSON
 Interacting with USB devices
 Interacting with Android phones
 … and lot’s more
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Simple Moving Robot
 2 DC Motors and H-Bridge
 2 wheels and a body frame
 Battery
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Teaching robot to crawl
Move Forward
Both motors rotate in the forward direction
Move Backward
Both motors rotate in the reverse direction
Turn left
Left motor stops. Only right motor rotates forward
Turn Right
Left motor moves forward. Right motor stops
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Teaching robot to avoid strangers
 Two IR LED’s. One receiver, one transmitter
 Both face the same direction
 Keep transmitting IR waves
 If receiver receives waves, then there is a obstacle
 Otherwise keep moving
… same logic applies for Ultra sound as well.
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Putting everything together
You have your first fully autonomous
robot ready.
Now take her for a walk 
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What’s Next?
Do join us upstairs.
We are going to implement Machine
Learning Alogo to Asimi 
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BTW, this is how the demo worked
Node.js Server
Node Client
Admin page
User page
User page
User page
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Links
 Arduino – http://arduino.cc
 AsimiJS – The demo that I showed initially
http://hardwarefun.com/projects/asimijs
 Asimi – A simple bot using Arduino
http://hardwarefun.com/project/asimi
 Getting started with hardware programming
http://hardwarefun.com/tutorials/getting-started-with-
hardware-programming
 Getting started with Arduino
http://hardwarefun.com/tutorials/getting-started-with-arduino-
and-avr
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Questions
Thank You
Sudar Muthu (@sudarmuthu)
http://hardwarefun.com
http://gitbub.com/sudar
#asimijs @hardwarefun