Circuit Cellar Ink 141
April 2002

Table of Contents

6 Rob Walker	Task Manager On the Move
8 John Gorsky	New Product News ICON H-Bridge motor driver module from Solutions Cubed Windmill 750 USB data acquisition unit from Windmill Software Ltd. AD9874 IF digitizing chip from Analog Devices, Inc. PPM-TX PC/104 Pentium SBC with Ethernet from WinSystems, Inc.
11 David Tweed	HTML Test Your EQ
12 Tom Baraniak	A Noncontact Infrared Bumper A robot that can't "see" where it's going isn't very helpful, so Tom took the common IR LED method of proximity sensing, added a PIC12C67204 to the mix, and came up with an effective pair of eyes that works great for robots or any other object-sensing application. Download: baraniak141.zip
22 Mike Rigsby	Rovervac -- A Robotic Vacuum Cleaner What do you get when you attach an ultrasonic detector and a PDA to a hand-held vacuum cleaner? It may not be lean and mean, but Mike's mobile cleaning machine project provides ongoing enjoyment as he continues to develop his household helper. Download: rigsby141.zip
28 Joseph Jones Ben Wirz	RoCK Specifications Part 1: Overview of a Winning Robot Kit Designing robots can be a daunting task that requires electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and programming skills. To make the process easier, Ben and Joseph used an AVR AT90S8535 to help convert a radio-controlled car into an autonomous robot.
34 James Wilson	Cyber Robotics Experimenting with Robot Simulation If you could do all of the testing and training for a robot in a simulated environment, you would be able to cut down the design time, and therefore reduce the development time and cost. James introduces an open-source project that allows you to first work with a virtual robot.
48 Scott Vu James M. Conrad	Racebot A Two-Degree-of-Freedom Stiquito Robot Some of the best designs are inspired by old favorites. Building on the classic Stiquito model, Scott and James modified the robot to walk with steps rather than push itself along. Read on to learn how they used the BASIC Stamp II to control the nitinol muscles. Download: conrad-vu141.zip
Embedded PC 54 Fred Eady	HTML Applied PCs Replacing Relays with Ladder Logic, Part 2: The T100MD-1616+ Last month Fred introduced us to the T100MD-888+ and discussed some of the basic functions and potential of the PLC. This time around, he steps up to the 16 I/O port model and delves into a communications application that talks over an RS-485 LAN.
60 Ed Nisley	Above the Ground Plane Switches and Glitches Although most of the switch-related problems you run into aren't of epic proportions, there are a lot of little things that can go wrong. This month, Ed sorts through a variety of problems related to switches and provides plenty of insight for your next electronics project.
66 Jeff Bachiochi	HTML From the Bench You Too Can Design with SoC, A Design Challenge 2002 Primer With cash prizes on the line in the PSoC Design Challenge, Jeff details working in the world of SoC. Anyone new to designing with SoC parts will walk away with enough insight to implement an SoC in their next project.
76 Tom Cantrell	Silicon Update Home Is Where the Plug Is Although working with X10 can be troublesome, Tom is still turned on to the idea of an intelligent home control system. He says the HomePlug Standard looks like a promising solution to home control.
94	Advertiser's Index / May Preview
96 Steve Ciarcia	HTML, HTML Priority Interrupt Those Insidious Pop-Ups

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