Stiquito Controlled - Book information by the author, James M. Conrad

Stiquito Controlled - Book information

Stiquito(tm) Controlled! Making a Truly Autonomous Robot, James Conrad, ISBN 0-4714-8882-8, Wiley Books, February 2005.

Stiquito Controlled! is a widely accessible, user-friendly book that provides step-by-step instructions for building Stiquito, a small, multi-legged robot that resembles a "walking-stick" insect. The book includes comprehensive instructions and all the parts needed to complete assembly. Most notably, the kit contains a microcontroller board that allows Stiquito to walk on its own. Key features of the book include:

Complete kit to build Stiquito—no additional materials necessary (common tools and batteries required)
Detailed, step-by-step instructions for assembly of the robot
Comprehensive lessons on how to make Stiquito "walk" using the microcontroller

Engineering teachers and students, researchers, and science enthusiasts will find Stiquito Controlled! a fascinating and fun hands-on project.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: An Introduction to Robotics and Stiquito

•Chapter 2: Introduction to Embedded Systems and the Stiquito Controller Board

•Chapter 3: PCB Layout and Manufacturing

•Chapter 4: Building Stiquito Controlled

•Chapter 5: Stiquito Programming using Texas Instruments MSP430F1122

•Chapter 6: A Two-Degree-of-Freedom Stiquito Robot

•Chapter 7: Optimizing the Stiquito Robot for Speed

•Chapter 8: More Stiquitos Controlled

UNCC email: jmconrad@uncc.edu

Go to Dr. Conrad's main web page

General

To purchase Stiquito Controlled items, visit the Stiquito Store.
View a movie of a walking Stiquito Controlled Robot: Movie 1 (11 meg), Movie 2 (9 meg), Movie 3 (18 meg)
Go to the Texas Instruments MSP430 website to learn about this microcontroller.

Software

Download the Texas Instruments MSP430 code used in the Stiquito Robot, and view the readme.txt file
Go to the Texas Instruments website to download free development tools (IAR Kickstart).

Hardware

View the schematic of the final Stiquito Controlled printed circuit board.
View the layout of the final Stiquito Controlled printed circuit board.
A prototype was developed using ExpressPCB:
- Visit the ExpressPCB Website
- Here are the single board files (schematic, layout, PDF of layout)
- Here is the three-board layout
To learn more about the TI MSP430 microcontroller used on the Stiquito Controller Board, read the TI MSP430 Selector Guide

Manufacturing

The Stiquito PCB was manufactured and tested by M&M Technology, 7711 Idlewild Road, Indian Train, NC 28079, 704-882-9432.
View a movie of the pick-and-place machine at M&M Technology while it builds the Stiquito Controller Board:
Movie 1 (9.4 meg), Movie 2 (7.4 meg)

	Here are two detailed photos of the pick-and-place manufacturing process.
	This photo is of the board test (Brian is testing the potentiometer here) and hand soldering-packing.	Click on the photo for high resolution.