Poppers

From BEAM Robotics Wiki

Photopoppers react to light. This photopopper will work it's way toward the brightest source of light.

AKA Photopoppers.

• A robot consisting of two motors with separate solar engines, which relies on differential sensors to achieve a goal, e.g. to track and appraoch the birightest source of light in its environment.

Essentially two motors are mounted so as drive opposite sides of the robot. A separate solar engine is used to provide power to each motor. Each solar engine circuit is biased using a photo sensor of some type.

This configuration allows the robot to respond differences in the amount of the light detected by each of the photo sensors used to bias the two solar engines. Typically the motors are wired to the solar engines in such a way that they cause the robot to turn and/or move towards bright sources of light as the solar engines fire. This phototropic behavior is why the term photopopper is also used when referring to these bots.

[edit] Typical Poppers include:

• FRED Photopopper
• Miller Photopopper
• ShokPopper
• Solar Bug Tutorial
• Solar Revolver
• Steve Bolt's Photovore
• Steve Bolt's Sun Eater V
• Twin Engine Solar Roller