Page 23 - The Ultimate Palm Robot

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Bots / The Ultimate Palm Robot/ Mukhar & Johnson / 222880-6 / Chapter 1

6 The Ultimate Palm Robot

Not only does it need to be programmed, its designers developed their own
unique programming language for the robot. Read more at www.cse.ogi.edu/
PacSoft/projects/Timber.

The Palm Pilot Robot Kit
The Palm Pilot Robot Kit (PPRK) was developed at Carnegie Mellon Univer-
sity (www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~pprk). One of the design goals was to create a ro-
bot that anyone could build. The body of the robot is made of easily obtained
materials, and construction requires just tape, glue, and a little soldering. For
its brain, the original PPRK used a first-generation Palm Pilot. Why? PDAs
like the Palm are small, have a very long battery life, use a graphical display,
and are relatively easy to program. This makes the PPRK ideal for hobbyists
who want to experiment with more complex robots. The PPRK design relies
on three wheels rather than four. Because of the unique design of the wheels,
the robot can rotate in place and can move in a straight line.

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