Page 156 - The Unofficial Guide to Lego Mindstorms Robots

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7
A Remote Control for Minerva

In this chapter:

• Two Heads Are Better Than
One

• The Allure of Telerobotics

• Building Instructions

• Programming the Remote
Control

• Programming Minerva

• Online Resources

In Chapter 5, Minerva, a Robot with an Arm, you read about a mechanically complex robot that could be built from one RIS
kit. One of Minerva's shortcomings, however, is that she isn't very smart about searching out things to pick up. She simply
drives forward, looking with her light sensor for something dark.

One way to improve Minerva's performance is to have a human being control her. This is called teleoperation or telerobotics.
This chapter describes the construction and programming of a remote control for Minerva. It is based on a second RCX, which
sends IR messages to Minerva. Minerva also needs a new program that will respond to incoming IR messages.

Two Heads Are Better Than One

If you're a MINDSTORMS enthusiast, you're probably always hoping to get more stuff: more motors, more sensors, and a
better programming environment than RCX Code. A second RIS set is a great investment, if you can afford it or if you can
convince somebody to buy it for you. If you're on a tighter budget, you can buy a single RCX, by itself, for about $120US. If
you have a friend with a MINDSTORMS set, of course, you can always pool your resources.

There are several interesting things you can do with two RCXs:

1. Build a giant robot. The two RCXs can coordinate their actions by communicating over the IR port. With two RCXs, of
course, you can build a robot with six outputs and six inputs.

2. Build leader and follower robots. One robot tells the other robot what to do by issuing commands over the IR port. This
chapter illustrates this technique by describing how to build a remote control for Minerva.