Scribbler Robot Checkout And Underhood Peek

The Parallax Scribbler robot is a well-rounded platform with lots of basic performance items. It seems to be oriented more toward robotic competitions with built-in line followers and all that. It seems, to me anyway, that it's a bit like buying your way into the fun, but very much a starter. 'Cuz, who hasn't got their own ideas when it comes to line following, object avoidance, etc? So build your own "bot." You'll learn a lot and get familiar with both hardware and software

I realized I'm inconsistent with the Rating System.. Using the same scale as the TrakBot, here's the numbers on this bot...

Fun Factor: 6
Stuckness: 4
Potential: 3

However, this bot was pretty nice, so I used a couple more numbers. I'll add those to the TrakBot eval and we'll start to get something usable for you to compare bots.

Added -
Jam Factor: 6
Autonomy: 4

Jam Factor means somebody put some thought into making sure it didn't jam up, and this bot gets good ratings forward, but absolutely dismal backing up. Which, with the sensor they used, is problematic.

Solution: Ya got to mod the box to make it fun. I did the mod, it's so easy it hurts, but it makes the bot a lot more fun in a small space, which is basically what I'm rating... It's so simple, you'll have to try on your own. Take a small patch of black tape and give the thing an eye-patch. Yep! It works great. I started with the pinhole, but alignment was painful, so I simply put a patch. My best luck was bottom up. Line up the tape so it is covering about 2/3 of the input hole. I put the patch at an angle, it worked great. I'd like to know what worked best for you. Anyhow, it boosted the performance of the IR system. No help with black however. The IR detector system they used can't see black objects well at all.

Pretty fun base, but not for bot hackers like me. The software is complete, but I got a feeling most will be bored in minutes. On the other hand, you can program it through its own ser port and that gives you lots of flexibility. If you had a few mounting holes around for experimenting, its a solid base platform to compare your own bots against. And I love the stall detector - except it doesn't work in reverse when it would be most helpful with the backing up in the demo software...

Other fun robotics: robot mods, DIY builds, and robot projects http://meandmyrobots.blogspot.com

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Robot
• Scribbler
• gadget
• robotics
• robots
• aviation
• space

[RichiepooProductions]

Can the Scribbler discriminate?? LOL!!!