If you are a starter in building robotics and playing with robotics kit, LEGO MINDSTORMS is a good kit for you to get your feet wet. If you are a serious robotics researcher, hobbyist or educator looking for a teaching platform, you will need something that's both easy to use and powerful enough to build projects or applications upon. The R1 Mobile Robotic Platform from Robotics Connection is designed for this purpose. It comes with powerful motors, durable and easy to work with material, very flexible programming options and a system that can be easily expanded to fit your needs as a robotics platform.

In the box

The R1 kit is very expandable thanks to its "stack" design. If you need one shelf space for your robotics project, you can get the Level 1 kit. When you need to expand the shelf space, mounting platforms and height, simply add more platters to create space. Robotics Connection did a good job of providing a variety of combination kits so that you can choose the one that fits your project best.

We received the Level 3 R1 kit with microcontroller and IR sensors for this review. This kit includes three R1 Platters with appropriate spacers for stack mounting, two Futaba servo motors, two 3.5 in. diameter rubber rear drive wheels, two 2 in. diameter wheel and caster combos, two Hamamatsu P5587 Wheel Encoder Modules, two wheel encoder disks, and two battery holders. The kit also includes an Oopic-R Microcontroller and four Sharp GP2D120 IR Sensors. All the hardware and wires needed to assemble the kit are included.

Material

The platters in R1 kit are made of very sturdy plastic that can carry weight, yet it's very easy to drill holes and put screws in them. The platters have pre-drilled holes for stacking with the spacers and for mounting the OOPic microcontroller. All platters have a large hole in the middle for you to put wires through when mounting sensors. The bottom platter is the platform for the battery holders, wheels, servos and the microcontroller. You can mount sensors and parts for your projects on all platters. The platter material is lightweight yet strong.

The R1 kit comes with two Futaba S3104 servos that have been modified for continuous 360 degree rotation. A servo is a small device with a built-in three wire DC motor that can drive wheels when connected to battery power, and can be controlled via the signal input line. Servos are often used in radio controlled cars, planes and boats. The S3104 is one of the larger servos in Futaba's product line and provides 128 oz. stall torque. The servo also has a gear train, a potentiometer drive and an output shaft bearing that can drive the two 3.5 in. rear wheels. One of the three wires takes a command signal from any microcontroller or microprocessor, which makes the servos turn forward, reverse, or remain still. The wheel encoder modules provide a "pulsed" feedback to the microcontroller to let it know how far R1 has traveled, and how fast. You will mount the servos on the bottom platter next to the wheels and close to the microcontroller. The servos have 12 in. connector wires.

The Level 3 R1 kit bundles the OOPic (Object-Oriented Programmable Integrate Circuit)-R microcontroller that's designed for robotics hardware. The OOPic operating system uses an Object-Oriented approach to hardware control and Virtual Circuits method to process and perform various robotics functions. The OOPic system simplifies programming and provides the flexibility you need to write any programs for your robot to perform certain tasks. The OOPic-R board includes:

* Small Footprint: 2.5" x 3"       
* RS232 serial port for the new serial control protocol for programming, debugging, and remote control
* 16 I/O lines configured for RC Servos (while other I/O lines are configured for DC Motors), serial LCDs, I2C network, etc
* 6 Digital I/O lines arranged for dual DC motors with control for Speed, Direction, and Brakes.
* 1 Digital I/O line for controlling a Serial Display and Serial Video overlay.
* Each I/O line has a solder-able test point labeled with the I/O number. 
* I2C Network Connectors + Coprocessor connector
* The OOPic-R board comes equipped with two (expandable to three) voltage regulators
* Three programmable push buttons
* One reset push button
* Three indicator LED's
* Power Good LED
* A speaker
* The OOPic2+ firmware
* DB-9 serial programming cable
* 9V Battery clip

The R1 robotics kit comes with four Sharp GP2D120 infrared sensors that have built-in wiring connecting to the control board. The sensors can detect distance from 4 cm to 30 cm and will consistently measure the distance which proves to be very useful in turning tests and maze navigation. You can mount these sensors to any of the platters in your kit using the included mounting hardware, mounting blocks and wire tubing and wire mounts. The kit provides pretty much everything you will need to install these sensors on the robot.

Construction

Even though the R1 comes with many parts, multiple platters and various hardware and wires, the construction is surprisingly easy. Anyone with moderate or a little experience with building electronics like radio controlled cars can easily handle the task. If you don't need to make much modification to the stock kit, you shouldn't take long to assemble it and get on with programming.

All the platters and connecting spacers come pre-drilled so that you can just screw them in to build the body of the robot. The OOPic-R is a "solder free" board. It has four holes with screw threads and you can easily mount it on your bottom platter. The Robotics Connection web site provides a document that gives you step-by-step instructions on how to assemble the servos, wheels, encoders and more. To read or download this assembly guide, visit http://www363.pair.com/robotics/documents/R1_assembly_manual.pdf.

Wiring is quite easy since many wires are built into the components. All you need to do is to find the right connections on the microcontroller.  Veterans will be able to easily connect all wires between the various hardware parts and the microcontroller. Novices should find help both on the microcontroller and from Robotics Connection site. The Microcontroller has all the power and signal connectors marked and color coded. If you need a full wiring diagram, look at this diagram: http://www363.pair.com/robotics/documents/R1_Wiring_Diagram_Cool.gif.  

Here are a few things I've learned in assembling the R1 kit. First, make sure you have the right tools. The documentation tells you what kind of tools you will need to put the kit together. Having the right tools will really save you a lot of time in building and modifying the robot. Second, it'd be easier to have a vision of what you want to build. If you are building this kit for your own robotics project and need the kit to be a certain height, shape or sensors need to be in certain positions, have a blueprint either on paper or in your mind before you start drilling the platters. The last tip is to keep the work neat when you connect wires, tighten the screws and solder connections. It's much easier to get everything done right the first time rather than having to trace your steps and figure out what you've done wrong.

Programming

The R1 kit gives you the space, the processor and the power to create a dynamic robotic platform. You can really make it into very powerful one by writing the right programs. The OOPic system allows you to write programs in C, Basic or Java syntax and will compile and download it to your R1 microcontroller via the included I/O cable. As we mentioned before, this system is Object-Oriented which allows you to create Objects and set their properties to define their behaviors and interactions with hardware. By linking the Objects you can create Virtual Circuits in the OOPic development environment to perform functions that provide continuous processes.

The installation of the OOPic system is fairly simple. Download the software from www.oopic.com, install the compiler on your PC (no Mac support) and you are ready to write programs. You don't need to be a programmer to write applications, but it helps if you have some general knowledge about programming. One of the most useful resources is the OOPic Programmer Guide found on OOPic's web site. It not only provides you with instructions on how to create programs and Virtual Circuits but also gives you plenty of examples which help you understand the instructions. Robotics Connection also has some very cool starter programs ranging from servo and sensor testing to small maze navigation. They are indeed very useful to try on your R1 robot before you have time to get into programming. You can download these programs and use your OOPic system to compile and download to your robot. These programs and movies showing the tests can be found at www.roboticsconnection.com/oopic_robotic_documents_and_downloads.html.

Conclusion

The R1 Mobile Robotics Platform is an affordable, powerful and flexible robotics kit that will attract robotics hobbyists, professional robotics researchers and educators.

Pro: The kit has a very durable material that will withstand bumps and carry some weight. The material is also very easy to work with when you need to drill holes and mount other parts to the platters. It's highly customizable in the "stack" design. Good quality servos and encoders give the robot good mobility. The IR sensors expand the functionalities of the robot in your applications. The OOPic Microcontroller is a great choice for this kit. You can make your robot perform some amazing tasks with the OOPic programs.

Con: Not too much to complain about here. The R1 kit certainly isn't for small children as the assembly requires soldering and careful handling of processor boards. The top line models aren't cheap, though they do come with a very nice set of components.

Price: $337.99 for the Level 3 R1 (Range $149.99-$635.99 in various combinations)
Web site:  http://www.roboticsconnection.com/