I’ve finally achieved end-to-end control of the Mecanumbot’s LEDs! The latest hurdle which prevented me from writing the LED code was a RAM limitation on the microcontroller side. The solution involved swapping over from an Arduino Duemilanove with 1KB of RAM to a Seeeduino Mega with 8KB of RAM. The increased RAM also opens the door for me to code up the Mecanumbot low-level telemetry including items like bus voltage and bus current. This will be the final low-level Mecanumbot development!
In the video above, I demonstrate control of the internal, forward, and side LEDs via an Xbox360 controller. For the forward lights, I am actually varying the brightness with one of the triggers on the controller. (The Mecanumbot also has 16 LEDs directly below the transparent deck, but I didn’t bother to program a key to control these. They will be autonomously event-driven later on.) I then turn off the lights in the room and gauge the effectiveness of the forward lights on the scene in front of the robot. Works pretty well if you ask me!