[Yaaarc] What is a JanBot?

[Janet Plato]

Somebody asked this, but I seemd to have
thrown the email away.  Yes, I am the Jan
for which the JanBot is named.  The basic
idea was a simple to build platform that
would spur the interest of new members.  I
made the specific design choices to simplify
construction, and leverage the experience
of the active club members of the time.

I personally am pretty agnostic about processor
choice, drive train details and what not.  The
best robot is the one you will build and program.
The best processor is the one you can get 
help using.  The best telescope is the one you
will take out of the closet and look at the
stars with.  You get the idea.

So I chose a PIC 16f876, and a simple protoboard.
The drive train is nothing more than double
sided sticky tape holding on a pair of 
prelobotomized servo motors.  The wheels are
inexpensive plastic disks with rubber tires
that fit directly to the servo motor.

The parts list is available online with 
recommended vendors, so you can place an
order and build one in an hour.  I was working
on open source software for programming when
I moved to Wisconsin.  I have the dev kits
and all that, but the vision I had was any
high school kid with $20 could build a
JanBot, and for another $20 could build
a programmer for it.  I think it ended up
being a little more, maybe $60, but I still 
want to get the total cost to around $20-30. 

Once I build the on board programming 
interface and do some coding, I think 
I can get there.

I have this pet theory that in the same 
way people needed capital to buy 
machines to participate in the economy 
of the 19th century, people will need 
knowledge, intellectual-capital if
you will, to participate in the 21st.  I 
figure this is a small step towards 
encouraging the development of those
intellectual-capital resources.  

But I digress.

Here is the parts list:

http://www.clock.org/~janet/Hobbies/Robotics/janbot.html

PS I'd love to hear about people's experience 
with this.

Janet Plato

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