WALTR - Introduction

Project WALTR (Wireless, Apple II, Logo, Turtle, Robot)

From my early computing days I remember wanting a computer controlled robot (either a turtle robot or a robotic arm). Robot control using home computers started becoming popular in the 1980s however not popular enough in my part of the world as the only ones I ever got to see were the ones in magazines. They were very expensive and since we were unable to afford an original Apple II the chances of getting a robot was even more remote. Over the past few years I have been getting back into the Apple II world and my desire to obtain or build a turtle robot has grown.

I considered purchasing an original turtle robot but they are still very expensive due to their collective appeal. If you can find one they are most likely incomplete and/or require restoration. Rebuilding one from scratch using the plans from magazines also sounded like a huge job. With today's cheap robotic toys I wondered if anything existed that could easily be retrofitted and made to work like an old robot. When I came across the Parallax Scribbler 2 (S2) I knew it would be a great fit.

I had other Apple II projects on the go but Peter's Logo presentations at the last KansasFest resparked my interest and I was pleasantly surprised that I was not the only one looking in this direction and wanting to find a solution.

When looking at the S2 robot it looked like lots of fun even without having it hooked up to the Apple II but I think I have learnt more in a shorter amount of time by having a defined goal. The bonus has been having other fun gadgets to play with along the way. To make the S2 into a Logo controlled turtle robot it was going to need a few modifications. The main one being a pen lifter. The horn, lights and touch sensors could be emulated by using the existing S2 objects. Finally, since I am not trying to build an authentic replica, in today's world a turtle robot would not be complete without having a wireless interface.




Serial wireless (Bluetooth) connection for the Parallax Scribbler 2 Robot.

When I first looked into making the S2 wireless I concentrated on finding something that would plug into the S2's RS232 port (like the IPRE Fluke). Basically I wanted to swap the programming cable with a seamless wireless alternative. The Bluetooth RS232 modules looked rather expensive so I looked around and found the less expensive XBee modules and Bluetooth TTL modules. My preference was to get Bluetooth over XBee so that one day I could control the robot using my mobile phone. Bluetooth TTL modules use the RS232 protocol but at the hardware layer they use TTL signals. They cannot be plugged straight into an RS232 port. TTL and RS232 use different voltage levels (TTL: Off = 0V, On = +5V. RS232: Off is between -3V and -25V, On is between +3V and +25V). However they can be plugged into the S2 hacker port. The disadvantage was that the S2 could not be programmed wirelessly but it had several advantages. It was by far the cheaper option, it was hidden away inside the S2 case and it bypassed the RS232 hardware layer so potentially could be run at higher speeds.

I didn't know much about Bluetooth communication before I started this project and the funny thing is that I still don't. That is the beauty of these modules. The setup is miles easier than trying to pair a Bluetooth device with a computer. The default settings are adequate for a serial connection and the only setting that I needed to make was to the working mode. By default the modules come preprogrammed as slaves so I needed to change one of them into a master. This was achieved by connecting the module up to the "USB to TTL converter", setting it into AT Command mode and sending it "AT+ROLE=1" using a terminal program (I used HyperTerminal). That was the PC side done.

The type of Bluetooth TTL modules that I purchased needed to work with five volt signals and the settings needed to be easily changed in case I did wish to learn more about Bluetooth and reprogram them so that they could talk with other Bluetooth devices. The connection of the slave module to the S2's hacker port was straight forward. To test the S2, via the serial cable and wirelessly, I used the demo code titled S2_test.spin. It's a great utility that allows you to test all the objects of the S2 including the motors. Only one line needs to be changed in S2_test.spin to make it work wirelessly ie "sio.start(s2#RX, s2#TX, 0, 19200)" to "sio.Start(s2#P0, s2#P1, 0, 9600)".

I was very impressed with how quickly I had the S2 moving about. The support for the S2 is amazing. A lot of low level functions have already been written for the S2 objects (speaker, motors, sensors, LEDs) so all one has to do is to include these and call the higher level functions. The serial protocol has also been written and there are plenty of good examples detailing how to interface with other objects like servos. I managed to get the S2 up and running in no time and my simple serial control test only takes around twenty lines of code (not counting the included libraries).

Parts
2 x 5V Bluetooth module ("Mini Classical Serial Bluetooth Module" from eBay) - WARNING, sleep mode, see next blog entry.
1 x USB to TTL converter ("PC USB to RS232 RS485 UART TTL Signal Converter New" from eBay)






Apple II Control

Once I had the control of the S2 down pat using the PC I moved over to getting it working with the IIGS. I had an adapter (IIGS Serial Mini-DIN 8-pin to RS232 DE-9) already made up from when I was using ADTPro to transfer disk images over to the IIGS. I made the adapter so that I could connect up the IIGS to serial devices that have the DE-9 connection.

The Bluetooth TTL module could not be plugged straight into the RS232 port. An RS232 to TTL converter was sourced to do the job. This converter and the Bluetooth module require an external five volt supply but an RS232 port can not supply power (not without software and hardware modifications) so currently I have it externally connected but I have plans to source the power from the IIGS. Once the hardware was setup all I had to do was use a terminal program (I used ZLink because it was the first one that I found lying around) to send the commands through.

There are a number of remaining sections to get working including the pen lifter and the interface with the Logo language. There are a few implementations of the pen lifter already constructed for the S2 so I have some examples to work with. The first lot of turtle robots for the Apple II used parallel cards for communication however I will be trying to get my robot talking via a serial connection. Finding a serial protocol that has already been implemented in an Apple II Logo program is proving to be a challenge.

Parts
1 x RS232 to TTL converter ("RS232 MAX232 COM Serial to TTL Converter Module Board" from eBay)