It's been a crazy month and much progress has been made!
I am finally feeling good and comfortable using eaglePCB and can now pop out PCB designs quickly. This means that the V2 Gerber files are now %90 complete; all that is left is to buy the components and double check the footprints and pads. Then the files will be sent off to china for fabrication!
Serial inter-robot communication is go! I've tested the code and circuit that will allow V2 and it really really works. A large amount of study was needed for me to get these guys "pinging" each other, including some research on the history of serial data. Turns out that all of our codes and computing are loosely based on telegraphs. ASCII isn't much more than a revised version of a code that some french guy developed more than a century ago. His name is a common term today: The speed at wich data is transmitted is called the "baud rate" in honor of Émile Baudot, a French engineer from the 1800's.
I plan on publishing the details of this communication as its own instructable so that later on I can be link to it the main PBV2 article. There is enough amazing history alone to warrant it, and the technical aspect needs a fair chunk of explanation as well.
I've chosen different LEDs for the robot eyes. Jameco has some standard size bi-color LEDs that only use two pins. Using these instead of surface mount versions simplifies the PCB design, and the new LEDs will be tall enough to stick up through or next to the shell. The are a much better choice.
Do Pingbots need a Kickstart? The purpose of Kickstarter is a bit blurry to me and I'm really not sure if Pingbots need it. It seems like the point is to get a product to where it can be pitched to distributor, but I am almost there already.
However, if the point is to get enough resources to build 100 PBs and then send them off as samples to tantalize potential distribution companies then it would be a good idea. I could get some stickers made for the lower priced rewards and actual bots for the higher contributions. This really would be a kick start for me, a way to build and source a large quantity of robots in hopes of having someone else buying and selling them. I really don't know enough about the homebrew PCB retail world yet to be sure what to do at this point.
-TF-
I am finally feeling good and comfortable using eaglePCB and can now pop out PCB designs quickly. This means that the V2 Gerber files are now %90 complete; all that is left is to buy the components and double check the footprints and pads. Then the files will be sent off to china for fabrication!
Serial inter-robot communication is go! I've tested the code and circuit that will allow V2 and it really really works. A large amount of study was needed for me to get these guys "pinging" each other, including some research on the history of serial data. Turns out that all of our codes and computing are loosely based on telegraphs. ASCII isn't much more than a revised version of a code that some french guy developed more than a century ago. His name is a common term today: The speed at wich data is transmitted is called the "baud rate" in honor of Émile Baudot, a French engineer from the 1800's.
I plan on publishing the details of this communication as its own instructable so that later on I can be link to it the main PBV2 article. There is enough amazing history alone to warrant it, and the technical aspect needs a fair chunk of explanation as well.
I've chosen different LEDs for the robot eyes. Jameco has some standard size bi-color LEDs that only use two pins. Using these instead of surface mount versions simplifies the PCB design, and the new LEDs will be tall enough to stick up through or next to the shell. The are a much better choice.
Do Pingbots need a Kickstart? The purpose of Kickstarter is a bit blurry to me and I'm really not sure if Pingbots need it. It seems like the point is to get a product to where it can be pitched to distributor, but I am almost there already.
However, if the point is to get enough resources to build 100 PBs and then send them off as samples to tantalize potential distribution companies then it would be a good idea. I could get some stickers made for the lower priced rewards and actual bots for the higher contributions. This really would be a kick start for me, a way to build and source a large quantity of robots in hopes of having someone else buying and selling them. I really don't know enough about the homebrew PCB retail world yet to be sure what to do at this point.
-TF-
