EyeBot Junior

Now that you have constructed all the hardware for the board you can program the PICAXE microcontroller to get the Eyebot Jr. working.

In this project we're using the version 40X of the PICAXE running on 4 Mhz. For faster processing the 40X1 PICAXE can be used as well. It runs on 16 Mhz and automatically scales down to 4 Mhz when running the servos. The version and frequency values have to be set up correctly in the editor.

If you have never done a genesis project and never programmed a PICAXE microcontroller before, you should now continue in our PICAXE section. There we provide you all the necessary information you need for programming.

Even if the general PICAXE programming is the same as in the other projects, there are some difficulties in loading the EyeBot Jr. operating system we've linked in the attachments part of this article. As the internal memory of the EyeBot Jr. is quite small and the operating system we programmed is to big for it, we have to load the program in three parts to the board. Fortunately you have already installed a CMOS memory module that can store some data for us.

Here is a short guide of how to load the operating system:

• turn the power on at the EyeBot Jr. and load the Graphic.bas file onto the PICAXE
• the microcontroller will beep several times. Wait for two short beeps, which means the data was stored to the CMOS memory.
• load the Text.bas file now
• wait for the two beeps
• load OS.bas, which is the main operating system file and wait until it is executed automatically. The display should show the EyeBot Junior logo and go into the main menu.

A complete operating system is now installed on your EyeBot Junior. You can control motors and servos out of the menu by selecting the right options through the push buttons. It should be easy to navigate through the menu, as the next action a button will initiate is printed above each button on the display.

If you want to customize the EyeBot Jr. functionality you should modify the JR_4.1.bas file and write in the code you want to execute.

If you want to control the EyeBot Jr. via the build in infrared sensor you can buy the PICAXE remote control available on the PICAXE website. The four buttons of the Junior are already mapped to the buttons of the remote control and it can be used without any change in the program.