Cristian Rotundu

I know that this little serious toy of mine had a monopoly on my attention lately, but what can I say? It does deserve it.

After I completely assembled ASURO, I read the manual two more times, crossed my fingers and switched it on. If something was bound to go wrong, that would have been the moment. The robot has an ATmega 8L-8PC processor that comes preloaded with a self-testing program, which is very nice, because it helps you determine if and where things went wrong during the assembly.

The program tested the LEDs (passed), phototransistors on the bottom (passed), switches (passed), odometer (not sure), engines (passed, wow such a sweet sound ), IR interface (passed BUT...read below).

At this point everything seems to be ok, except for the odometers and one of the axles preventing the robot from going straight ahead. My real problem is the IR interface, though.

There are good things and not-so-good things about ASURO's IR interface. Some good things: it really rocks that you can program your robot without using any cables. The other things: the IR range is very short (about 50cm) and sometimes transmission problems can appear even within that range. To be more precise, the current charge of the batteries weights heavily in the way the interface works. Just as heavy is the effect of the surrounding light sources, which tend to inhibit the transmitted signals.

There goes my plan of using the IR interface to allow communication on a two meter radius (at least) between the computer and the robots. What good is an explorer robot that can explore only the triple of it's own length, anyway? At this point I'm facing two decisions: one involves admitting this huge setback and just carrying on with the project, the other involves replacing IR communication with Bluetooth. But that solution doesn't come alone, it has friends. It comes with a price equal to the robot's price, plus additional electronic components, then another 10-20-30 hours of research and soldering/desoldering work.

Still, the choice tends to go towards the Bluetooth module, for obvious reasons: no robot of mine will accept its destiny, unless it's the one decided by me (oh, and the 100m limit for communication, of course)

I'll add some pictures of the completely assembled robot soon.