CHAPTER 27
Encore
You’ve gained an understanding of the items and methods needed to get a good start at robot building.
You’ve read schematics and hopefully experienced prototyping, soldering, and tweaking. Maybe you’ve even
built your first robot.
Where do you go from here?
It seems that there’s a never-ending stream of new parts, tricks, and technologies in the world of
robotics. That’s half the allure. Besides the everyday challenges that remain to be solved by robots, there are
also plenty of organized contests. This chapter highlights some of the components, challenges, and contests
that may interest you as next steps.
Robot Components
The line-following robot contains the primary electrical components encountered in almost all robot
designs: batteries, resistors, diodes, transistors, IC chips, LEDs, potentiometers, and switches. In fact, you’d
be hard pressed to build a decent robot without these pieces.
As this book is aimed at novice backyard scientists, a few noteworthy parts were excluded to reduce
the complexity of the robot presented. Before closing, I decided to examine all of my robots (both real and
imagined) to make a list of useful components that otherwise would have gone unmentioned.
Logic Chips
At one time, logic chips ruled the circuit board. Like the comparator used in the line-following robot, each
logic chip performs a very specific function. For example, an AND logic chip turns on the third pin when the
first pin is on and the second pin is on. An OR logic chip turns on the third pin when the first pin is on or the
second pin is on.
A portion of the numbers printed on the chip indicates the industry-standardized function. For
example, a 7404 chip (see Figure 27-1) is an inverter. When the input pin is on, the output pin turns off.
When the input pin is off, the output pin turns on. This chip is useful if you need an “off ” condition to turn
something on.