PhizzyBot: Adding Simple Optical Sensors
Approx construction cost US$24
The constructional portion of this article describes the addition of an array of light-dependent resistors (LDRs), which are used to provide the PhizzyBot with "eyes". This addition can be used to demonstrate how the PhizzyBot, with the aid of a suitable computer program, can be made to react when it detects a source of light.
It also demonstrates the principles of how the PhizzyBot can in general be made to respond to externally-generated control signals - whether by being attracted to a stimulus or, indeed, by recoiling away from it! This opens up new possibilities for applying a PhizzyBot in a number of computerized control systems - perhaps as a white line follower, or a buggy armed with magnetic detectors (or Hall Effect switches) which follows an "invisible" metal stripe buried in the carpet underneath.
All it requires is a simple input device, such as the light-sensitive type described next, and an appropriate computer program to help the PhizzyBot make sense of it all (this program is detailed in the associated "Tutorial" article in this issue).
More details on this construction project can be found in the May 1999 issue of EPE Online, the world's first web-delivered electronics and computing hobbyist magazine.
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