Build Your First Robot

In this instructable I'm going to show you how to build a really simple robot which can be controlled with a laptop or mac.
This robot is powered with a arduino uno and is very cheap and easy to build . This robot can take temprature values and can transmit it through Bluetooth . You might have already guessed this runs through Bluetooth . For those who don't know what an arduino is it is a micro controller and is easily programed on your PC or mac . It is very user friendly and easy to program .
And you will be needing the arduino software to program it (it is quite similar to processing software). You can visit the arduino web page for more info http://www.arduino.cc/ . For the software visit http://arduino.cc/en/main/software .

So enough of the talking lets start building!!!!


I have worked hard on this instructable so please vote for me in the contest. 

Now that we have all of the parts lets start building the robot . First lets start with the body and the motors.
For this project there's now much of a body its just the motors strapped on the battery holder with of double sided tape.
You can take a look at the pic for more reference . Attach the wheels to the motors with the help of the provided screws and if have a look at he pic you can also see that I have soldered small wires to both the motors and the battery holder.

An arduino doesn't supply enough current to run the motors on its own, so we uses a motor driver to control it.   You can either buy one over eBay or just use l298 IC which can control 2 motors .

For motor driver  l298, refer the pic and connect the pins as mentioned bellow.

1----Ground

2----Pin 1 of Left Side Motors  

3----Pin 2 for Left Side Motors

4---- +12v battery

5---- Arduino Pin 2 

6---- Arduino Pin 3

7---- Arduino Pin 4

8---- Ground

9---- +5v from Arduino

10---- Arduino Pin 5

11---- Arduino Pin 6

12---- Arduino Pin 7 

13---- Pin 1 of Right Side Motors

14---- Pin 2 of Right Side Motors

15---- Ground

Connect battery to pin 4 and arduino 5v+ to pin 9.  Pin 11 and 6 act as enable pins make sure these are high in the code.
If low the motors will not function. Connect all the ground pins together , from arduino and supply .

Enable pins like the note suggests turns the motor on and off . If these pins are set low in the code . Then the motors wont turn on.

As seen in the pic the arduino goes over the motors and stuck with some tape again the arduino is powered with a 9V battery. So you could get a power pin as shown in the pic strapped to the battery. For the Bluetooth and connecting the module refer this instructable
https://www.instructables.com/id/Cheap-2-Way-Bluetooth-Connection-Between-Arduino-a/ . It has a easy step by step instuctions on how to connect the arduino to HC05 module. Find some place on front or near of the arduino to get the module taped.

Finally your done with the building and the coding begins, If you skipped  to this step i recommend you read the previous steps.
For fist time users of arduino try the example codes before trying this one . In the previous steps you would have seen hoe to connect an arduino to PC or mac . Now you can download the code from the attachment and upload it to the arduino.
Download teraterm form here http://www.ayera.com/teraterm/ and connect it to the arduino.
And thats it your done. This is  the list of commands to run your robot
w - forward
s - backward
a - left
d - right
The code also includes servos and other stuff , thats for another robot which im going to post soon.
Teraterm uses only one case as a command so it is not possible to enter word commands.