I’ve been fascinated by robotics for a long while but have not done very much - mostly because I like programming a lot more than I like hacking hardware. However, in 2006 I decided to have a go at building a hexapod (6-legged robot) using parts from lynxmotion.com. I got all enthusiastic for a while and then moving from Antibes to London and staring a new job led to me putting the project to one side for over 18 months.
When I ordered the mechanics of the hexapod from Lynxmotion I knew I wanted a fairly powerful microcontroller that could handle at least 18 servos. The servopod(tm) from New Micros Inc looked very interesting - it can control up to 26 servos, has 22 GPIO lines, 2 x 8-channel 12-bit A/D converters.
I’d originally planned to run all the servo connections under the legs and up through the hub, however that seemed like a recipe for snagged cables and so I gave up on that idea and ran the cables from the "hip" servos up through the hub and the overs over the top of the legs.
Moving servos using ASCII commands typed into a terminal emulator to control the servo controller via a serial link soon lost it’s appeal.
I’m currently working on a little Java Swing app to allow me to configure a robot and interactively adjust servos in order to derive configuration parameters such as minimum/maximum movement angle and the best "rest position" to start the servo up in.
