Arduino Robot to Drive Robotics Concepts on Wheels

Perhaps you have already found some time to do a bit of tinkering with Arduino. It's a popular open source electronics platform based on a microcontroller and microprocessor with I/O capabilities that allow it to drive many kinds of surprising inventions. We've covered the platform and the community that creates with it before.

Now, it looks like Arduino could become a promising platform for open source robotics. The Arduino Robot puts some interesting capabilities on wheels, and the robot is fully programmable so that tinkerers can get it to perform many functions. 

The Arduino boards have become increasingly popular with roboticists, and the Arduino Robot platform is designed for flexibility. As noted on the project site:

"The Arduino Robot is the first official Arduino on wheels. The robot has two processors, one on each of its two boards. The Motor Board controls the motors, and the Control Board reads sensors and decides how to operate. Each of the boards is a full Arduino board programmable using the Arduino IDE."

"Both Motor and Control boards are microcontroller boards based on the ATmega32u4 (datasheet). The Robot has many of its pins mapped to on-board sensors and actuators."

 There is also a TCT LCD screen available for use with Arduino Robot applications, as described in a blog post. It includes an SD card for storing photos and data that may be integrated with robotics concepts.

You can read an interesting account of the creation of the Arduino Robot here, and watch a video of one in action.You can also watch video of Arduino Robot at the recent Maker Faire event.

As we've covered before, some of the most interesting work in the field of robotics is coming from the open source community. There are now several free platforms for building robots on, and the Open Source Robotics Foundation continues to help drive work in this field. The Arduino Robot looks ready to drive some interesting new concepts.