Comments on: Arduino: Controlling the Robot Arm

By: mudasir

mudasir — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 13:47:28 +0000

sir i m getting this error while run the program in processing,
[0] “COM1″
Exception in thread “Animation Thread” java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 1
at sketch_jan01a.setup(sketch_jan01a.java:82)
at processing.core.PApplet.handleDraw(Unknown Source)
at processing.core.PApplet.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662)

By: dudleyjohn

dudleyjohn — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 03:55:50 +0000

I can use the wiimote as a sensor for an interactive whiteboard. It is pretty precise in the 2 dimensions of the screen. I can click on small buttons and such. The wiimote is actually a hi res IR camera. Have you seen Johnny Chung Lee’s wiimote projects? they are pretty amazing. I would be surprized if something like what I’m imagining can’t be done. If it works, it would bypass the whole encoder/stepper technology and use a human-like guidance system to contol the motors. If someone could write the controlling software, which I don’t know how to do.

By: larry

larry — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:07:32 +0000

Sorry, bit late in getting back to you on this… I reckon you can use the wiimote – never don it myself but I’m guessing you can get some fuzzy 3d data from it, by fuzzy I mean it won’t be accurate since it’ll be fairly erratic data.

By: dudleyjohn

dudleyjohn — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 04:36:34 +0000

I’ve put this project together and finally gotten it to work! Thanks for the great tutorial. Now I’d like to use a wiimote, ala Johnny Lee, to sense the position of the gripper. Do you think that can be fed back to the computer to control the motors? It seems like human propriocention. It feels like it would work if the wiimote has fine enough 3d resolution.

By: dudleyjohn

dudleyjohn — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 03:25:41 +0000

Have you seen my post about using a Wiimote to sense the arm’s position and feedback to the computer to determine how to move it? It seems to my non-programmer’s mind that it should work. I know it works really well with the Interactive Whiteboard I built based on Johnny Chung Lee’s Wiimote setup.

By: dudleyjohn

dudleyjohn — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 03:22:31 +0000

Why can I only see my previous posts if I post again? I can find no way to advance pages here. Is it my Chrome browser?

By: dudleyjohn

dudleyjohn — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:08:18 +0000

OOPS! It seems to still be here. I don’t know why I couldn’t find it.

By: dudleyjohn

dudleyjohn — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:07:19 +0000

Did I do something wrong? I posted here 2 days ago about using a Wiimote to control the Edge arm. It showed up right away, then disappeared the next time I looked for a reply.

By: dudleyjohn

dudleyjohn — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:58:09 +0000

Have you ever considered using a Wiimote to sense the position of the gripper and feedback to the computer to move it to any 3D position it can reach? I’ve built Johnny Chung Lee’s Wiimote Interactive Whiteboard for my classroom, and it seems this technology could work if it can resolve locations with sufficient precision. All you would need is to replace the led with an IR led and possibly aim it upwards instead of forward. What do you think? It’s way beyond my non-existent programming skills to do that, but it seems like it would be basically a software problem rather than a hardware one.

By: Wes

Wes — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 22:57:38 +0000

HI Larry,

Great stuff you have it here, posted on your blog!! Thanks for publishing this!
I have the ROBOTIC ARM EDGE and I did the upgrade using the Arduino, but it didnt work.
I only did the first part, controlling by the keyboard.
The program is fine, since it didnt show any ‘error message’. The compilation went fine. But when I press the keys doesnt do anything.
All the wiring connections are fine as well, because I did a much simpler program controlling the arm by time ( few sec to left, few sec to the right) and all the motors worked.
Any idea of what went wrong? Could it be the fact that I used L293D instead of the SN754410?
Thanks anyway.
Keep up the good work!