Bluetooth and the Physical Model

Being a mobile robot, radio communication is essential for both control and debug. 

It took me ages to integrate it (~ 4 hours). My first problem was not knowing about the protection for the non mask-able interrupt pin that is shared with the tx line for uart 2. The second was actually pairing the Bluetooth with my PC. I could pair, but it would immediately go offline. I did not realise that it would actually only pair correctly once I had opened the comm port. It did not help that there were a few weird errors in the windows event log either.

The model it self  has a training sled and is very top heavy, especially when the batteries are added. Essentially components have just been screwed onto a block of timber. The pcb on the bottom is the dc motor driver. It has a 5v dc regulator output so the logic components can either be powered from the usb jtag or battery with a flick of a switch.

The batteries will be NiMh and currently only 8 of 10 the battery slots will be used. The Lego motors will be powered by 9.6V! All good.