McComb - Robot Builders Bonanza, 4th Edition

ROBOT BUILDERS BONANZA

Gordon McComb has written 65 books and thousands of magazine articlesover a million copies of his books are in print, in more than a dozen languages. For 13 years, Gordon wrote a weekly syndicated newspaper column on computers and high technology, which reached several million readers worldwide. Hes a regular contributor to SERVO Magazine and other publications, and maintains an active Web site dedicated to teaching the art and science of robot building.

GORDON McCOMB

FOURTH EDITION

Copyright 2011, 2001, 1987 by Gordon McComb. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-07-175035-6

MHID: 0-07-175035-5

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For Lane and Firen,
keeping the legacy alive

to Locate Parts

Once more Ive climbed the mountain. And once more I look back to those who have helped me turn my vision into reality.

To my friends at the San Diego robotics group; to John Boisvert and his amazing robotics emporium; to Mike Keesling, Alex Brown, and Tony Ellis; to those Ive met over the years on the comp.robotics.misc newsgroup for their great ideas, wisdom, support, and advice; and to Frits Lyneborg and the entire LetsMakeRobots.com community;

To Russell Cameron, roboteer extraordinaire, and to Jan Malasek of Pololu, Mario Tremblay of Robotshop, Clive Seager of Revolution Education, Jim Frye of Lynxmotion, Nathan Seidle of SparkFun, Gerry Coe of Devantech, and Claudia and the crew at DAGU;

To the makers and keepers of the Arduino, PICAXE, BASIC Stamp, FIRST CAD Library, and Fritzing for great tools, great software, and great art;

To Judy Bass and the editors at McGraw-Hill, whove put up with me all these years; to my agents at Waterside Productions; and to Bill Gladstone who first helped me take on this project way back in 1985 (how time flies!);

And last but certainly not least, to my wife, Jennifer.

I offer my heartfelt thanks, one and all.

Adafruit Industries (

Christopher Schantz (

Cooper Industries (

Devantech (

General Electric:

Hitec RCD (

Lynxmotion (

iRobot Corporation (

Maxbotics Inc (

Miga Motor Company (

Parallax Inc (

Pitsco Education (

RoboRealm (

Pololu (

Russell Cameron/DAGU Hi-Tech Electronic:

Scott Edwards Electronics (

SparkFun Electronics (

The author expresses his deepest gratitude for the use of 3D CAD objects developed by Ed Sparks at FirstCadLibrary.com; to the developers and contributors of the Fritzing project ( www.fritzing.org ); for public domain art developed by Wikipedia user Inductiveload, and others; and to the talented artists of the 3D models used throughout this book.

This publication contains images used under license from Corel Corporation, Hemera Technologies, Shutterstock.com, and other licensors.

Which of these fields are involved in robotics? You may choose from the following: engineering, electronics, psychology, sociology, biology, physics, artificial intelligence, math, art, mechanical design, mechanical construction, computer programming, sound synthesis, vision, ultrasonics, linguistics, microelectronics, process control, system automation, musicology.

If you said all of them, youre right.

And if you think I missed some, I have. Robotics is all of these things, and much more. Its popularity comes from all the disciplines it embraces. When you build a robot, you can explore everything from mechanical design to computer engineering to behavioral science.