 HydroBot Robot
This Project was submitted to Parallax by Jonathan Peakall
The HydroBot is a hydrogen fuel cell powered robot built by members of the Mendocino High School Science Club. As far as we know, the HydroBot is the only one of it’s kind. Now entering it’s third school year, the robot is finally taking shape.
The HydroBot uses a number of Parallax products. The “main brain” is a Basic Stamp 2p40 microcontroller, and the servos are driven with a PWMPAL servo controller. The sensors include a Devantech SR04 and a BOE version of the CMUcam, which are mounted on a 180 degree pan/tilt sensor array, along with a Sharp GP2D-12 infrared ranging sensor.
 The robot has a Bluetooth wireless link to a PC, provided by an EB500 module. This allows us to control the robot via a PC, and we have written a GUI application in Visual Basic to accomplish this.
Power is provided by an eight membrane hydrogen fuel cell capable of producing about 10 watts. The hydrogen is stored in a flexible pillow type tank, and oxygen is taken from the air, so no O2 tanks is required. The only exhaust is water, and the HydroBot can run for between a ½ hour to an hour on a tank of fuel, depending on the type of use and terrain.
More details on the HydroBot can be seen at:
http://madlabs.info/H2_FCRobot_Chron.shtml
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