So after the spirographic robot patterns thing appeared in the Make Blog, I'm appealing to anyone savvy (knowledgeable) enough to recommend a dummies guide to attaching two 14v drill motors to the PICAXE chip. The idea is to run the robot off a motorbike battery (or similar) so that I can generate enough power to leave decent imprints in the sand. I'm imagining two full bridge chips like these, one for each motor and I'm assuming that the PICAXE will generate enough of a signal from an output channel to control the full bridge chips. Then I'm assuming that the Full bridge chips will be able to handle between 10V and 20V to drive the drill motors. I'm such a novice, I guess I'm just hoping that I won't burn anything out, or worse, that I'll solder it all together and nothing will happen.
The previous idea of leaving one enormous pattern hasn't been completely ditched, but has been replaced by the concept of around 10-20 patterns accessed by using tiny DIL switches attached to the PICAXE inputs, four switches giving 4 factorial (=24) possible input combinations and therefore 24 patterns that I can call up on demand. Take the robot to the beach and let it draw numerous, maybe interlocking patterns and then KAPing them like I did with the rake art.
To do the KAPing I need POWER to make a really decent impression in the sand by dragging a rake/plough shaped object behind or underneath the robot. Your input would be most excellent and there would be much love (although I am married, so there might be some love-limits).
Don't even mention the possibility of PICAXE powered pooh sticks
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