HERO (robot)

HERO stands for Heathkit Educational RObot and is the name of a series of robot kits the company Heathkit during the 1980s. The development of the project began in October 1979 and the first devices in 1982 were available. In 1990 the last units were produced. At first kit - the HERO 1 -. Followed the HERO and the HERO Jr. 2000 During the HERO 1 and the HERO in 2000 teaching and training purposes served, the HERO Jr. was intended as a personal Robot more than electronic toys.

  • 2.1 Optional Accessories
  • 2.2 Specifications
  • 3.1 Optional Accessories
  • 3.2 Specifications
  • 4.1 Hardware
  • 4.2 Software
  • 4.3 Specifications

HERO 1 (ET -18)

Construction

Under the gray plastic housing of about fifty centimeters high equipment is a rugged metal chassis that is mounted on two wheels and a rotatable drive wheel. The robot is powered by four large batteries with energy and brings it to a total weight of about fifteen kilograms. To the chassis around various sensor and control boards are mounted on the rotatable head located in the sensors can be controlled. With its sensors, the HERO 1 is to recognize the situation sounds, movements and light sources as well as to measure distances by sonar. He can give whole sets of About the speech synthesizer optionally available. A movable in five axes gripper arm, which was available as upgrade kit expands the possibilities of the robot model. Is programmed the robot via a head-mounted Hexadezimaltastatur and six 7-segment LEDs or via an optional BASIC module. An interface for a cassette recorder lets you save the entered programs. Also located on the head of a patchbay, whose experimental circuits can be built using.

Optional Accessories

  • Robotic arm movable about five axles with a capacity of approximately 450 g
  • Speech synthesizer
  • Two different remote controls
  • ROM with demo software
  • Monitor ROM Listing
  • Memory expansion card
  • Auto mode ROM, allows the robot to autonomously navigate
  • BASIC module
  • Serial RS- 232 interface
  • Compact Cassette with demo software

Trivia

During the first presentation in Germany the HERO 1 sang all my ducks.

Specifications

HERO Jr. ( RT-1 )

HERO Jr. is a smaller version of HERO 1 and hit the market later. The smaller brother of the HERO 1 is also based on a 6808 CPU, but only has 2 kB RAM, and a reduced range of functions. In contrast to the two other HERO models that have been developed by the department of education systems, the HERO Jr. Robot was as a product of the staff department for Consumer Electronics.

Optional Accessories

  • Infrared motion detector
  • Remote control
  • Serial RS- 232 interface
  • Additional batteries
  • Plug-in module adapter for modules with 8 kB RAM

Specifications

HERO 2000 ( ET -19)

The much later published HERO 2000 is considerably better equipped. It has an Intel 8088 CPU and various sensors and can be extended by plug-in cards. In contrast to the HERO and HERO Jr. 1, which can only be programmed using assembly language, has the HERO 2000 on a complete BASIC implementation.

Optional Accessories

  • Robot carrying case
  • Two different remote controls
  • Car dock ( automatically runs the system at a low charge level of the batteries to the charging station )
  • ROM with demo software
  • Experiment card with buffered Ein-/Ausgabe
  • Memory expansion card

Specifications

In December 2007, Heathkit introduced after more than a decade back, a robot model for training purposes before. Identical devices under the name 914 PC -BOT from other companies (eg White Box Robotics Robotics and cogmation ) offered.

Hardware

The device is based on an industrial PC with an Intel Core Duo processor on a mini -ITX motherboard and a 80 GB hard drive. The built- in peripheral device consists of a webcam, a CD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive, a USB host, LED headlamps, eight infrared sensors, speakers and a wireless chipset. About an I / O board with eight analog inputs, eight digital inputs and eight digital outputs, sensors and other circuits can be controlled. Optionally, a second I / O board to be installed. The chassis, which makes the robot move is driven by DC stepper motors, which are powered by two 12-volt lead-acid batteries.

Software

The HE- RObot can be programmed by the included Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 in each of. NET supported language. Here, algorithms for speech recognition, navigation, and artificial intelligence are supported.

Specifications

Mini-ITX .NET Framework
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