Motor controller also does nyan cat

As a freshman at UC Berkeley, [Keegan] has been helping out with his school’s Pioneers in Engineering program that gives high school students some hands on experience with engineering principles, usually by building robots. This year, [Keegan]’s project is a motor controller that just so happens to play the nyan cat song over the motor PWM output.

The motor controller is meant to replace the Pololu simple motor controller the PiE team is currently using. Onboard is an H-bridge chip and an ATmega328 that takes commands from an I2C bus. The ‘328 is loaded up with the Arduino bootloader making the firmware very accessible – a good thing for the high school students that will be building and programming these robots.

[Keegan] put up the Eagle files for the board up on the PiE Wiki. For now, just enjoy the dulcet tones of the pop tart cat theme song after the break.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flp0m_UXWkE&w=470]

Comments

  1. DrLuke says:

    Just what I always needed!

  2. Roberto says:

    The EM interference will affect all of my AM channels, not just one, but for just a fraction of the time XD
    Looks like an effective way to implement a stall alarm for a VFD. If manufacturers haven’t already patented it, they will try once they see this.

  3. M4CGYV3R says:

    That is awesome.

    Nyan Time: 1:45

  4. Physics_Dude says:

    Related: I recently got my Makerbot to play Nyan Cat.

    http://goo.gl/582Kf

  5. Chris says:

    now imagine if machinery and elevators did this when they got stuck oh wouldnt that just be so funny.

  6. Happy Heyoka says:

    Stalling a motor is pretty easy to do while you’re prototyping so maybe a fuse would help with the reliability thing.
    I know it’s horribly low tech, but cheaper and easier than replacing the h-bridge.

  7. DrAvIn says:

    …. i want this .. for my RC powerwheels …
    stall on a hill and nyan cat rattled through the plastic body . O___O

  8. Here’s the page on the motor controller:
    https://pioneers.berkeley.edu/wiki/PiE_Motor_Controller

    Cheers!

  9. Sven says:

    I don’t get why people keep designing boards for integrated H bridges, it’s so easy to build your own at a lower price and with much higher current capability.

    It’s one thing if you get a bridge driver with step and direction, or with over current protection but plain bridges just make no sense.

    • Shinanagans says:

      I helped with the motor controllers production. The board was produced for a high school robotics competition and we got the H-bridge chips donated. Plus they have over current protection, and current sensing which we used to prevent the burnout of motors when students inevitably stall them. But your right next year were looking into making our own mosfet h-bridge for high current motors and for funsies.

      • andres ortiz says:

        my personal favorite is igbt ipm modules. current monitoring, gate driving, all sorts of integrated goodness. and crazy high amperage ratings, i’ve got a couple bricks that would melt my thickest wires without so much as blinking. ohh, how i love igbt <3

  10. physis_dude says:

    This has to go on a cordless drill.

  11. shaan says:

    this thing is superb

  12. racing says:

    WHERE DO you see toyota avensis here??this is a toyota yaris sedan…

  13. Denise Mann says:

    This is awesome!!!

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