[home]
[pockets]
[robotics]
[what's new]
[email me]
[links]
[tour]
PicAxe
Some Assembly Required
This started with a series of coincidences. I found Fred Martin's "Handy Cricket" and started thinking about rebuilding Ria using one of them. We visited Legoland at Windsor and I found myself riveted by the model railway. This has most of the intelligence built into the locomotives, with simple controllers on the track. I did a lot of hacking around web sites, a lot of thinking and a little building. But then things got busy and I started the project but never finished it.
The coincidences picked up a few months later. I had an hour or two to wander round town. First off, a copy of Everyday Practical Electronics caught my eye. I leafed through it and Idly noticed a cheap PIC controller system with projects like and egg-timer and the obligatory electronic die. I wandered off. One of the local toy shops had a lego train set in the window, billed as the Intelli-Train system (although I'm not sure GM know about the name). The thing runs with and intelligent locomotive and trucks that interact with simple program blocks that clip to the track. Just like the trains at Legoland, and like my notes. A closer examination revealed that curses the system is based around the Duplo trains, not proper Lego. It's also curses again rather too expensive for butchery.
Aha! How about a pic controller system? I wandered back and bought the copy of EPE. I discovered that PicAxe is a Basic-based PIC controller that can be programmed using a serial cable. It's available in three versions a 28-pin, an 18-pin and an 8-pin. I flipped over to the web sites for Revolution Education and the shop, Tech Supplies. I wanted the 8-pin motor driver board, but they were out of stock, so instead I ordered an 18-pin standard board. This turns out to have been a good move, although I'll get an 8-pin board when they're in stock. The 18-pin board is posed next to my RCX to give an idea of the size.
My email query was answered in about thirty minutes flat, the shop site was a pleasure to use and the goods arrived before I got back from work the next day. A quick trip to Maplins, conveniently next door to the pub where my morris side was performing next day, purchased the parts for building a cyber-pet with the board (the project is in the PicAxe-08 documentation set. However, it being almost Hallowe'en, someone suggested (after a couple of drinks) that a flashing pumpkin would be appropriate.
Now, it seems to me that the flashing pumpkin may be the electronics equivalent of helloworld.exe. I have a handbook on neon oscillator applications, published in about 1950. The last project in the book is yes a pumpkin with flashing eyes (scarily enough, using a 70-volt rail. I guess people worried less about such things in those days.. Okay then. First, procure a small pumpkin.