TECHiE TALKS

MOBOT – Mobot is the term used for a Mobile Robot. A mobile robot consist of wheels that serves as the feet of a walking robot, sensors as the eyes, and a micro controller that serves as the brain of the mobot. Mobots can be made with robot kits, it can also be created by merely designing your own circuit and make it synchronize with your micro controller or mobots can be made by hacking toys and other devices that suits the function you need the mobot to perform. Mobots are created for fun, educational purposes and to help us on our daily activities by using kits and other ways stated above.

In the previous years the interest and development of robots/mobots in our school (MPSC now MUST) was not that high. Robots where made at those times but the use of hardware and computer peripherals was so limited and proper dissipation of internet access was confined that most of the higher years tried to code things as if they where coding everything.   Kits where not also available that time or it already existed but no information was relayed. Then came attempts on creating line followers but it lacks speed and accuracy and to some it was a failure. Last year 2008, mobile robots was implemented and started out as a competition. And as a prize a higher grade will be given. A standard track was created so there will be no bias during the presentation. All where fun to see that all your hard work is fulfilling. There are mobots that performed very fast and with small lapses on the track, there were also mobots that where very slow but was able to follow the line with an average accuracy of 99.99%. There was also a mobot that runs not so fast and not so slow  but with the lights that glow and the music that it performs while following the line makes it a hot mobot. No robot kits where used but it performed well with only a limited time for accomplishment.

Earlier, a group of graduating Computer Engineers led by Jovencito Talasan attempted and has succeeded on implementing an artificial intelligence mobot with the use of a robot kit called intelli-brain bot. Java was used to control the robot. They used q learning as the method for the mobot to learn the pathways. The development of mobile robots was increasingly progressing and its a good sign that sooner a speed, accuracy and way of learning will be perfect. Below is the video of their mobot and the next post will be the program and flow chart.