BalBot - Anyone seen this?

[Nuttyman54]

there is none. We saw some at RoboNexus in 2004 and asked the designers about it. They said it's just an educational platform for programming, etc. you can mount a good host of sensors on the vertical rails and give it all sorts of navigation capabilities, but it doesn't have the support to actually hold any sort of actuator mechanisms. It can wear hats tho!

[ChuckDickerson]

It uses infrared sensors pointed at the ground to balance rather than gyros. It can't travel on an incline. That seems to limit it's usefulness to me.

[Eria4044]

If it can't go on an incline, then it makes me wonder how easily it would tip if pushed. Still, it's an interesting idea, and one I'm willing to bet will make it's way into one team's robot design one of these years (after being worked on quite a bit, no doubt).

[pwilczynski]

I'm not sure that it would serve a useful purpose in F.I.R.S.T. game play, no matter what the game was.

With that being said, however, it seems to me that it could be an useful tool for programmers who want more experience with coding unconventional robots.

[Alekat]

Originally Posted by DeepWater

It uses infrared sensors pointed at the ground to balance rather than gyros. It can't travel on an incline. That seems to limit it's usefulness to me.

So would these sensors give you an actual distance from the ground at two ends of your bot? If so I believe it could be programmed. There would have to be some tricky stuff done with when you're changing from flat to inclined. I'm no expert programmer, but I have some ideas.

[selerky]

Probably.
Why else would they have sensors there?

[otimos]

Wait...FIRST members interested in something with dare i say practical applications? nearly sacrilegious to the theme of FIRST

In that lucid realization that all things practical are left to the Lego league kids
(well rescuing plastic block mammalia and returning them into the magical world of aqua blue plastic is debatable) but none the less entertaining

my first thought was "well why not ride it?"

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by otimos

my first thought was "well why not ride it?"

heh...Kamen's already WAAAAAY ahead of them..not to mention it's awfully small (think 5"x8" footprint)