We actually did not use any FIRST hardware. We used Phidget Motor Speed Controllers -
http://www.phidgets.com/products.php...roduct_id=1064 - and yeah they can only do 10amps continuous...
But they are really cool in sense that they connect to a regular computer via USB. and the code is really intuitive looks like this -
Code:
if (ws.ButtonState.Two == true)
{
leftmotorcontrol.motors[0].Velocity = -100 * (ws.AccelState.Values.X - ws.AccelState.Values.Y + turn); // front left
leftmotorcontrol.motors[1].Velocity = -100 * (ws.AccelState.Values.X + ws.AccelState.Values.Y + turn); // rear left
rightmotorcontrol.motors[0].Velocity = 100 *(ws.AccelState.Values.X + ws.AccelState.Values.Y - turn); // front right
rightmotorcontrol.motors[1].Velocity = 100 * (ws.AccelState.Values.X - ws.AccelState.Values.Y - turn); // rear right
}
else
{
leftmotor.motors[0].Velocity = 0.00;
leftmotor.motors[1].Velocity = 0.00;
rightmotor.motors[0].Velocity = 0.00;
rightmotor.motors[1].Velocity = 0.00;
}
This is the heart of the mechnaum drive system, kinda simple... Just adding up all the victors...
As for the Wiimote I used the wiimotelib. Here is some nice open scr code and a the dll download -
http://www.codeplex.com/WiimoteLib
I did all the coding in C# using Microsoft C# IDE...
The little black box on top of the bot is a fitpc2 -
http://fit-pc2.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page, yet another very nice piece of hardware
And to top it all off the entire bot with Ultra sonic sensor a Digital/Analog IO board, motor speed controllers, frame/wheel/hardware, and cpu was under 2k,a very attractive price in my opinion.
Extra info -----
Auto Programming and better video coming soon...
Here is our wheel config -
\ --------------------- /
\ --------------------- /
\ --------------------- /
\ --------------------- /
|----------------------|
|----------------------|
|----------------------|
|----------------------|
|----------------------|
|----------------------|
|----------------------|
/----------------------\
/----------------------\
/----------------------\
/----------------------\