Monthly Archives: October 2016
Simplified Sumo State Machine for Zumo
This post will talk about a simple state machine that could be used for robot sumo. The target here is the Robofest Senior BottleSumo rules, so the state machine is adapted for long searching on large tables. If you want … Continue reading
Zumo 32U4 Unregulated, Unsynchronized Motor Steer Block
This post brings us back to motion and navigation. One of the goals was to make the Zumo behave a bit more like a LEGO EV3. The EV3 has these very useful MoveSteer block. While this seems like a very … Continue reading
Zumo 32U4 Sensor Read Times
Last post had the Zumo rotate and face a target. I’ve been working on driving towards the target in an attempt to push it off of a table like done in Sumo competitions with great success with the rare occasion … Continue reading
Zumo 32U4 – Using the Proximity Sensors to Point Towards the Closest Object
Assuming you want to use the cute little Zumo for a Robot Sumo competition, you need to make the Zumo turn in the direction of the highest proximity. This may be a competing robot, or in the case of Robofest … Continue reading
Zumo 32U4 – Squaring to an Edge or Line
This post talks about a common step for any robotics competition, namely, squaring the robot to a line or an edge. This builds off of previous post where you worked on having the robot drive to an edge. The program … Continue reading
Display of the Zumo IR and Light Sensors on the Serial Monitor
In this post, we are going to measure both the downward facing light sensors and the proximity sensors, and display their data. The previous several posts discussed the reading of the light and proximity sensors, so we will not spend … Continue reading
Reading the Zumo 32U4 Proximity Sensors
There are three IR proximity sensors on the Zumo. All of them are on the lower sensor board that contains the downward facing light sensors. In addition to the sensors, there are four IR emitters. There are two front IR … Continue reading
Zumo 32U4 Drive to Edge
This post discusses a common issue with any sumo event or competition that involves navigating to a line. Our goal with this post is simply to drive the robot placed on a light colored surface until it reaches a dark … Continue reading
Zumo 32U4 Downward Light Sensors, Part 2 – Calibration
This post will discuss how to calibrate the downward facing light sensors, and to read the calibrated values. I went a little over the top on the calibration function, but it makes it that much nicer. You can certainly do … Continue reading
Reading the Zumo 32U4 Downward Facing Light Sensors, Part 1
The Zumo 32U4 has 5 downward facing light sensors on the front light sensor array. The light sensor array board also has 3 IR sensors used for proximity sensors or IR receivers for remote control. However, two of the light … Continue reading
Zumo 32U4 Simple LCD Display Test
I realized that before we can work on reading the light sensors, we probably should cover an easy way to display the data. There are a couple of ways to display data on the Zumo. One, which we will cover … Continue reading
Zumo 32U4 Motor Encoders
In the previous post, we walked through how to turn the motors on for a specific amount of time. In this post, we will turn the motors on for a specific amount of encoder pulses. Like the EV3, encoders count … Continue reading
Zumo Simple Driving Program
These blog posts on the Zumo will start out very simple. This is assuming the reader has little to no Arduino experience. The goal of this post is simply to teach the reader how to write a program that will … Continue reading
Pololu Zumo 32U4
Last week, I got a Pololu Zumo 32U4. I am quite impressed with this little robot and Pololu did a heck of a job putting this guy together. I’m in the process of teaching a group of kids how to … Continue reading