Our R&D department has struck again with another example project, and yet again we've gone and put together a bundle for it.

This project allows the Brutusbot to negotiate its present environment using a panning micro servo with an infrared distance sensor (GP2Y0A21) on it. After assembly the Adafruit Motor shield is placed onto the Freeduino (or Arduino) to allow it to control the Tamiya twin motor gearbox. We've even put together some sample code and a circuit design diagram ( both under the Resources tab).

We have designed this bundle to use a split supply to cut down on any noise from the motors affecting the sensor data, so you'll need 9V battery to power the Freeduino and the 6-cell 'AA' battery pack with be hooked up to the motor shield.

By using the Freeduino plus Adafruit Motor shield this bundle becomes a 2-hit combo of open-source electronics so not only does your tank travel in style but it is part of the world-wide OSHW movement. As a heads up, you will need to install the Adafruit motor shield library into your Arduino librairies folder in order to use the code sample provided. You'll need to rename the folder to something without dashes, cause Arduino doesn't like hyphens, weird, we know.

You can find a circuit overview under the Resources Tab.

The bundle includes:

• 1 x HXT900 9g / 1.6kg / .12sec Micro Servo
• 1 x Adafruit Motor Shield
  
• 1 x Sharp GP2Y0A21 - Distance Measuring Sensor 10 to 80cm
• 1 x 3-conductor JST terminated cable, 14cm long
• 0.5 x 11.5" (29cm) 3-conductor servo cable - Futaba female connector
• 1 x SB-Freeduino
• 1 x 9V Battery Snap
• 1 x 2.1mm Male Barrel Jack

Please Note: This bundle does not include the Brutusbot Chassis, but it is available here for all your tanking needs.

Another Note: While appearing un-used the servo cable can be used to plug into the Adafruit Motor Shield if you install a male 3-pin header on analog port A0, just be aware that the pinout doesn't follow the common GVS (Ground-Voltage-Signal) standard so you may have to re-arrange a couple wires when connecting the servo cable to your JST sensor cable.

• [Documentation]: Brutusbot Circuit Overview
• [Sample Code]: Brutusbot Arduino Code