Is it possible to hook up and test optical sensors and/or gyro chips to an EDU Bot, and if so how?
Yes. It’s easiest if you can get some small electrical connectors found on the LED and switch connections on most modern computer cases, specifically 3 pin connectors (even better if they have wires already attached). These just slide onto the solid pins on the EduBot’s motherboard, and, if you scrounged the connectors with attached wires, you can twist the bare wires together, and bind it with Scotch tape. Well, that’s what I did, anyway. 
The pinouts for the connections to the EduBot are documented and published in the EduBot documentation.
http://www.innovationfirst.com/FIRSTRobotics/pdfs/EDU_Robot_Controller_Reference_Guide.pdf
Pages 8 and 9.
For the analog inputs, White is +5VDC, Red is the analog input, and Black is Ground.
For the digital inputs, you just short them together.
One problem I faced when connecting the provided optical sensors to the EduBot was the fact that they require 12VDC to operate. The battery pack on the EduBot only provides 5VDC through each individual analog input port. To circumvent this problem, I connected the Vin pin on the optical sensor to the positive terminal on the EduBot’s battery pack. The battery only supplies 7.2VDC (perhaps it was 7.6VDC, I can’t really remember), but it seemed to be enough to run the sensor. Perhaps popping a single 9V battery on the chassis of whatever you’re doing would be a better idea than what I did, but oh well.
If you have any more questions, or need any clarifications, please feel free to ask.
*Originally posted by FotoPlasma *
**One problem I faced when connecting the provided optical sensors to the EduBot was the fact that they require 12VDC to operate. **
We just gave them their own battery pack and strapped it on. It worked pretty well.
Thanks a lot for the help, but just to clarify, there is a blue, brown, black and white wire on the optical sensor. What gets hooked up to what? And does anyone know how to hook up a gyro chip?
the pinout 4 the opto sensors is printed on the of the sensor,
to of the wires are power, one is NC, and the other is NO. depentdant on how/ what u are using them 4, either the NO or the NC goto the digital input on the RC/edubot
as 4 the gyro chip, there was a paper the came w/ it, that told the pinout. ive seen it on delphi a few times so try searching 4 it.
hope i could be of some help
Thanks a lot everyone, if anyone else has n e thing to add, please feel free to post a reply!
You can get the connectors for the EDUBot header pins from www.jameco.com.
The part numbers are:
100811 - 2 pin housings ($0.27 each)
157382 - 3 pin housings ($0.27 each)
100765 - female crimp pins ($0.11 each)
You crimp the pins to the wire then slide them into the housings. They have a little tab that locks them into place. You can get a pair of crimpers at Radio Shack, the kind with the square teeth at the front. These pins are crimped with the notch farthest from the handle. Buy 2x as many pins as you need, they’re harder to work with than you think.
When you connect the optical sensor you need two pins: one to either NO (normally open) or NC (normally closed) and one ground.