Slouching Towards Skynet: Building a Robotic Car With Python and Raspberry Pi

Abstract

Robots are taking over the world. This talk provides an introduction to robotics with Raspberry Pi and Python, as the speaker explains a journey to build a robot that chases a ball around. Topics include electricity, hardware, ultrasonic sensors, image processing, and relevant Python libraries.

Talk Description

Introduction

• Speaker bio (1 minute)
• Inspirations for the talk
• Quick Overview (scaffolding) of the talk and what we will cover (2 minutes)

What is Robotics (5 minutes)

• Basic Definition
• An interdisciplinary field.
• Robotics role in the world today - social and technological
• You should learn about robotics.

The requirements for robot locomotion (1 minute)

• Diagram of robot (power + form factor + set of instructions)

Form Factor (3 minutes)

• Explain the chassis

Power (6 minutes)

• Electricity
• Electrical Motors
• Explain hooking a DC to the chassis

Set of Instructions and How All These Things Connect (5 minutes)

• Raspberry Pi
• GPIO
• The Python gpizero library

Making the robot locomote (5 minutes)

• Conceptualizing Movement in 2-D space.
• Gpizero library introduction

Additional Hardware: Ultrasonic Sensors (5 minutes)

• Obstacle detection with ultrasonic sensors
• Programming for the Sensor With gpizero

Additional Hardware: A Camera (10 minutes)

• Attaching the Camera
• Image Processing: RGB and HSV
• Programming for the Camera with picamera, OpenCV, and other libraries
• Chasing the Ball

Wrap-up (2-3 minutes) and Questions

About the Talk

• Type: talk
• Expected length: 40min
• Intended audience: All