[henryBsick]

Back on topic... Mike said try using IR distance sensors... good idea. Another may be trying to go as uber simple as you can. Get a shaft encoder and gear is down (for better resolution to the encoder once the shaft rotates) to a shaft with which a counter balance would hang. The robot tips, the "pendulum" stays perpendicular, rotating the shaft, spinning the gears, in which case the encoder would then detect rotation. Just code it out like a joystick from there on, with a lot of tweaking to get it just right. The robot tips one way, the encoder reads it and send power to the wheels to keep it upright. It will probably be a very wobly robot though, without a lot of resolution on the encoder to detect the smallest change, also there must be a large "power curve" to the motors, to make very small adjustments at first, then get larger as the rotation of the shaft becomes greater.

Sorry if that cam out in a jumble, I have been thinking about it for a long time now. They are just my personal non-programmer, Lego oriented views.

P.S. I really really really think this is possible with Lego's and am going to hop on it as an Independent Study Project as soon as school starts again.


Anxious for School,
-Henry