Redbot Robot Build: Unboxing

I recently purchased a Sparkfun Redbot Kit from Littlebird Electronics. This is a simple two wheel robot chassis that comes with everything you need to build a simple line-following robot.

The reason for this purchase was my 7 year old sons' interest in robots and hope to be able to introduce him to simple electronics and programming using this kit. My 9 year old daughter has also recently been using Scratch to create programs so this may interest her.

The kit consist of the Magician Chassis, a Redbot MainBoard and a variety of sensors (IR and Accelerometer).

The Redbot Mainboard  is a Arduino compatible microcontroller which also includes a 2 channel motor-driver and an XBEE header.It can be programmed using the standard Arduino IDE and Sparkfun includes a link to a library that simplifies the interface with the motors and sensors.

Redbot Mainboard and Sensors

Motors, Wheels and Castor

Redbot Chassis

Over the next couple of posts I will document the build process and any issues I encounter with either assembly of the chassis or programming the robot to perform line-following.