Page 208 - 15 Dangerously Mad Projects for the Evil Genius
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CHAPTER 15
Surveillance Robot
electric screwdrivers to provide powerful geared
PROJECT SIZE: Large motors to drive it along, and an infrared distance
SKILL LEVEL: ★★★★ sensor to prevent collisions (although this is not
always successful).
If you want to learn a bit more about robotics,
THE EVIL GENIUS’ LAIR IS PATROLLED by a security
this project provides an excellent starting point,
robot. This robot (Figure 15-1) wanders around the
and you can extend the project in several ways—
lair in a random manner, occasionally tripping up
for example, by adding a wireless camera and
minions. It also serves the more practical but less remote control.
amusing role of monitoring the lair when the Evil
Genius is asleep at night.
The robot is equipped with a passive infrared Assembly
sensor and a loud alarm. It will move around,
This is a complex project, so to simplify matters
occasionally stopping and monitoring the area in
we are going to divide it up into a number of
front of it with its PIR movement sensor. If it then
modules, each of which can be assembled and
detects any movement, it sounds the alarm.
tested separately. The overall arrangement of the
This is another project based on an Arduino modules is shown in Figure 15-2.
microcontroller board. It uses modified low-cost
You can see that we are going to use two
batteries: one 9V PP3 battery to power the Arduino
and other components such as the PIR sensor that
require 9V, and a second battery comprised of six
rechargeable AA batteries in a battery holder. This
battery supplies the power to the electric motors.
We will start by building the motor controllers,
and then build the rest of the electronics into and
onto a project box.
Figure 15-1 Surveillance robot
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