MrDotBoto Heads West!

I'm sitting in the Qantas Club (yeah I know, but along with traveling Business Class, MDB insists on the comforts of the QC!) with MDB, and apart from his overwhelming celebrity status (I lose count how many people rock up and ask about him, then go glassy eyed when I fire up about .NET and robots...), I'm surprised by how few objections I get from security and airline staff about bringing what appears like some kind of highly wired device into a secure airport area and a plane! At least I haven't gotten to that WIT request from Mitch to update MDB's hardware with a laser!

So a couple of updates to MDB since he traveled to the Robot Olympiad...

First, again, all thanks to my "pusher" James, I got a BlueTooth kit and wheel encoders, but alas, as with most things, getting them onto MDB and setting them up were not as easy as me after two shandies!

BlueTooth foist! So installing the BT module and post onto MDB was pretty easy actually, just had to find a slot on his chassis and screw the post onto it, and done. Wiring also seemed quite easy from the doco... if the doco is correct! Spent half a day wandering why I could get power but no comms! Quick email to James revealed the doco was wrong, and the RX and TX wires needed to be inverted!!!! As Shanemo would say, hrumph!

Then the wheel encoders... again, not too much drama installing, other than the fact that I literally had to "stick" them on with duct tape... don't be alarmed, most of MDB is held together with duct tape and/or zip ties! But again, turns out the doco that comes with the encoders is a little off the mark, and when you're dealing with three wires, one being power and one being ground, you kind of want to get it right. Anyway, with a little bit of experimentation, I get the right wiring, and shazam, BT and wheel encoding is working a treat!

So that's it, MBD is now complete. Fully integrated, wireless, ready to rock. I think it's time for MDB to head off to QLD to spend some time with Joel so he can drop in a new brain!