Jo-Bot

Yes that's what my roomies (N&N) who made it, call it - "Jobot" :)

The idea for making a robot started 3 months back, when a cat regularly visited our house early in the morning and tore off our milk packets. The angry roomies decided to make a robot that will scare the cat off. Quite funny for a project requirement isn't it :)

Well the thought could be funny but it seriously sparkled the idea of creating a robot. After all, they were bored in the evening after coming back from work. They wanted something challenging to occupy their evenings. They decided to go for it. They searched internet for circuits, but nothing worked out satisfactorily. So they decided to design it from scratch. Studied different circuits and finally arrived at their own circuit design. After couple of months of various trial and error, they were successful in making a working model of a wired robot. They made a circuit for joystick, which through long wires was connected to the robot and was used to control it from a distance.

The experiment did not stop there. They wanted to make it wireless. With the help of RF transmitter and receiver, they made a wireless circuit which is now triggered through the keys of a computer keyboard. A program sitting in the computer does all the key translations and moves the robot through the wireless circuit. This is a next big achievement for them!

I am totally amazed at their dedication (sometimes they work through the night) and all their efforts to get the robot to the shape where it is right now. It may be just a tutorial robot but it is definitely a great achievement to understand something, design it and making it work in real time.

They do have more plans to work with that robot. But for now its more like a moving remote control car, which is already available in the market :)

Note: The project requirement has changed now, the Jo-bot is not just going to chase the cat :P