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Frankenfollower

CIMG7879Part Lego, part Arduino, part BoeBot, this is Frankenfollower. This robot was programmed in ROBOTC for Arduino, a port that is still in alpha stage of development but can be used quite nicely for programming the Arduino Duemilenova.  Other Arduino variants will be supported very soon.

The Arduino port of ROBOTC has some really cool features:

  • Easy to use sensor and motor configuration UI
  • Breakpoints and a debugger
  • Ability to watch your variables live
  • Multiple tasks (4 at the time of writing)

I’ve taken some pictures of the UI, so you can have a look.  Please note that the appearance of these UIs will probably change before the final version, so keep that in mind.

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Main UI with some code (Frankenfollower’s code, actually) Debugger UI with variables window docked on the right. First configuration tab. This one allowed you to configure the platform and possible shields (up to 3 at the moment)
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Motor and servos are configured here.  Encoders are currently not supported. Analogue pins are setup in this tab. Digital pins can be configured as PWM, input and output.

So as you can see, it’s all quite functional at the moment.  I’ve made a small video with some additional pictures of Frankenfollower and some footage of it in action.

Frankenfollower, the Arduino/ROBOTC powered line follower.

I’m sure I’ll expand on Frankenfollower in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out on my blog!

About Xander

Xander Soldaat is a Software Engineer and former Infrastructure Architect. He loves building and programming robots. He recently had the opportunity to turn his robotics hobby into his profession and has started working for Robomatter, the makers of ROBOTC and Robot Virtual Words.