instruct

For information on obtaining Altera UP 1 boards and tools for an instructional lab contact:

Tower Hobbies http://www.towerhobbies.com

P.O. Box 9078
Champaign, IL 61826-9078

800-637-6050

IR Proximity, Line Tracker, and Sonar sensor kits for robots can be obtained via mail order from:

Lynxmotion, Inc. http://www.lynxmotion.com

104 Partridge Road

Pekin, IL 61554-1403

309-382-1254

Mondotronics http://www.robotstore.com

4286 Redwood Highway #226

San Raphael, CA 94903

800–374–5764

IR data sheets and Polaroid Sonar sensor kits can be obtained via mail order from:

Wirz Electronics http://wirz.com

P.O. Box 457

Littleton, MA 01460-0457

888-289-9479

They also have a new low-cost IR ranging device, Sharp GP2D02, at

http://www.hobbyrobot.com/sensors/GP2D02.html

At a Sharp electronics distributor in quantity 10 the price is as low as $11

Polaroid Sonar sensor kits can also be obtained via mail order from:

Acroname http://www.acroname.com

P.O. Box 1894

Nederland, CO 80466

303-258-3161

Low-cost digital and analog compass sensors are available via mail order from:

Dinsmore Instrument Co. http://www.dinsmoregroup.com /dico

P.O. Box 345

Flint, Michigan 48501

810-744-1790

We had problems with students not adding a time delay for compass measurements after turning the robot,

so we made a movie of a real compass.

Here are some sites with instructions and more pictures of servo modifications:

http://www.seattlerobotics.org/guide/servohack.html

http://www.rdrop.com/users/marvin/

Here is an interesting paper from CMU on building small robots:

Rapid Prototyping of Small Robots

Here is a UP1bot test program used to adjust the servo dead zone at 1.5ms.

servo_tune.zip was developed by Kim Newman at GT-Savannah (GTREP).

Here are several contributions from Tyson Hall, GTA - Georgia Tech

scomp.zip is a version of the simple computer design (chapter 8) with video output.
compass.zip is a VHDL program to test a robot with a compass sensor.
ir_rem.zip is a VHDL program that uses a universal TV IR remote control and an IR detector for remote control of the UP1bot. A low-cost RCA universal TV remote is used with code 062 (Magnavox?). Mike Furman has documented this code in a new lab project in the files lab12.zip

Here is a program to turn off the MAX displays and reduce the power drain when running FLEX designs

maxoff.zip is a design that should reduce the current through the voltage regulator so that it does not get so hot.
You need to program the MAX chip once with this design - don't forget to change the jumpers.

Here is a fast way to find chips and get prices from electronics distributors:

http://www.findchips.com

Here is a nice tool to help students understand LFSRs from Jean Nicolle:

LFSR testbench will generate schematics, show sequences and generate VHDL or Verilog code.

Here is a larger character generation ROM with lower case characters:

CGENROM is a 4K by 8 ROM MIF file with lower case, some graphics, and reverse video characters. Unless you have a CPLD larger than a 10K20, you will need to reduce the size of the ROM and edit out some of the characters to get it to fit in 12K bits of EAB memory on the 10K20.

Here is a Verilog version of the simple computer design:

Scomp.v and Scomp.scf are files for a Verilog version of the simple computer. The program.mif file is the same as
the VHDL version that comes on the book's CDROM.

Here is a link for free MIPS and the SPIM simulator documentation:
MIPS information contains a detailed list of MIPS instructions and a free MIPS simulator called SPIM. A PDF version of appendix A from Patterson and Hennessy's text is available there.

Here is a nice utility to make slides or listings from VHDL code:
MVP - Georgia Tech's DOS version of Make VHDL Pretty, cleans up messy VHDL code and makes a text, html, or ps output file. VHDL keywords can be put in bold and comments in italics in the listing file. HTML output files have colored text like the Altera editor. Type mvp without options for command line syntax. Here is a typical command line mvp -uKF6 -S"My Subject" -N"Who am I?" my_file.vhd > outputfilename. Use "> printername" to redirect postscript output directly to a printer instead of a file. Text output can also be produced. Windows beta version of MVP from Scott Barnes. Latest version of MVP from Jason Trammell. (Known bugs: HTML output will strip off ">"s in VHDL code (PS output is OK)).

Here are some relevant Newsgroups

FPGA (comp.arch.fpga)
VHDL (comp.lang.vhdl)

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