Solar Powered Robot — UV Index vs. Solar Energy

If you’ve been around the Digilent Blog, you’ve probably seen a lot of robots. Remember Susan the Line-Following Pig? Well, I recently found a small, portable solar panel in the MakerSpace at Digilent and I was inspired to build a solar-powered robot. Similar to Susan, I will be using the chipKIT Pro MX4 and the Digilent Motor Robot Kit (MRK) for my solar-powered design. However, when I first came up with this idea, it was the middle of winter. That being said, sunlight was quite a bit more scarce, especially up here in Pullman, WA. I first had to ask an important question: will I have enough sun?

The “Boring” Robot

Two California hotels tested autonomous service robots over a six-month period. Reviews from their customers were overwhelmingly positive (except when aforementioned customers were intoxicated). They will be rolling out their next wave of autonomous service robots, called the Relay.

Plasma Arc Microphones

In a previous post, I talked about how plasma can be used to build high-fidelity speakers. Plasma isn’t limited to only producing sound– it can also be used to record it. Being made up of physical particles, plasma can be affected by vibrations through the air. This means it is possible to build a plasma arc microphone using the proper circuit. This application is far less common than using a plasma arc for a speaker, but research has still been done on the subject.