Having some fun with the family dog...
What good is building robots if you can't build one to occasionally chase the family cat or dog...
I received an email this last weekend from Andreas, asking me to post some more building instructions for some bots. Well, I've got some time this week so I'll try and post a few more.
I'll have to tear this bot down and photograph it, so the images aren't up yet... but I'll be posting the building instructions on flickr.com (hopefully) today. I'll update this post when they're up, but for now, here are some images of my DogChaser...
The dog doesn't like the Ultrasonic sensor... if I point the bot at the dog, the dog gets uncomfortable because the Ultrasonic sensor never blinks... try it... dogs go crazy when you stare at them without blinking. Anyway, I have the bot move slowly towards the dog... when the Ultrasonic sensor detects movement (the dog moving somewhere else in the room) the bots stops and waits for about 10 seconds. Then it starts rotating in place with the Sound sensor listening for my voice. I tell the bot to stop when it's facing in the general direction of the dog and it begins to move forward and starts all over again... good for a laugh and it'll drive the dog crazy for about 10 minutes before the dog just leaves the room. She's a sweet dog, so I then go play with her for about 30 minutes to make it up to her...
Comments
Of course, you that know we cannot condone animal abuse. :-)
-Jonathan
But it does raise an interesting point... is the dog running from the US or from the intimidating look the bot is giving her?
I'll ask the dog and get back to you...
Jason
I've built bunches of bots around this dog and she's never left my side...
Evedence in and of itself that it is the sound? Dogs are atracted to sounds like dog wistles, but then, why would she get annoyed by the ultrasonic sensor at some times and not others. I think it is just the fact that the US sensor won't blink.
Because my son and I aren't programmers, we're looking for online tutorials for programming the US sensor to detect motion, and for programming it to detect voices. (We can get it to detect stationary objects easily enough).
Know of any place to steer us? (The NXT online help doesn't seem to get into this).
Thanks.
I'll look around, but have you tried the NXT Tutorials link I put on the right side of the screen?
http://www.ortop.org/NXT_Tutorial/index.html