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Who doesn’t like to play around with robots? Make them do cool stuff.
So when I saw a six-legged remote control bug (called an N.S.E.C.T) at the thrift store I thought; that would make a cool base for a robot. The NSECT is supposed to be remote control but this one did not come with the controller. But otherwise was complete and worked. Along with walking on six legs it has a front pincher and a rear six shot gatling gun.
First thing I did was take the entire thing apart. Here is a good page with a description and pictures.
The legs are moved with a complicated set of gears and cams by 2 DC motors. One motor from the left, one for the right. Perfect for something like a motor driver chip to handle.
I already had a Arduino Motor shield from Adafruit. But after some investigation I realized I’ll need something else. The Adafruit motor shield max’s out at 600mA per motor. The NSECT’s motors took 800mA+. I toyed with the idea of making an H-bridge motor controller from scratch but then saw a 2A motor shield from RobotShop in Quebec.
I ripped most of the NSECT’s guts out and wired in the motor shield and Arduino.
DIYode now has a good Robot Platform we can use to experiment with robots!
I plan to add some IR sensors so the robot will be able to detect objects. Plus a biggie is to get the pincher working, and I won’t forget about getting that gatling gun working!
