Waiting for parts and looking for old electronics I can take apart and salvage useable parts and recycle the rest. Once I get some parts accumulated, i will start experimenting with controlling motors and sensors more (not just silly LED tricks). Hard to play all the time with AVR when you are limited parts. Plus, I have a wife and child (4 year old who demands much attention).

I have a 30 year old plastic made in Japan wind up toy robot that hasn't worked in years (I have a collection of mostly tin windup robots), so I plan to give it a upgrade with a hack from a NerdKit AVR kit. It's chrome like toy with a see through opacity (see through) red front breast plate where I want a 8 led Cylon Fighter effect array and make 2 other leds glitter/winkle in the eyes (more clear red plastic for eyes). Then I want to get a relay switch to power on/off (maybe reverse) a 3volt CD hobby motor that I will hook into the mechanical system and hopefully replace the windup system completely. It will not be a fantastic robot/toy hack (it will be a start), but the robot should walk and make some similar "flashy" effects like the original did back in the 60s. Originally in this robot toy, the eyes and chest light up from sparks produce by a wheel striking flint (wore out long ago, this will be removed and replaced by 8 to 11 LED chaser). This project should be simple for a first toy hack and to get used to programming microcontrollers.

I already have the codes for flashing/glittering eyes and the LED chaser effects. Waiting on order for a relay switch before I can give this project a go, also some learning to do about MOSFET.

Playing Musical Notes With AVR:

Also need to learn about oscillating (changing voltages rapidly) a piezoelectric buzzer to give the robot some 1bit sound effects. Here's some working & tested code I tweaked from nerdkits.com that plays several tones from low to high:

/* Make music with piezo (piezoelectric buzzer). Put the buzzer on MCU pin 15 (PB1) Hacked by www.Nerdful.com */ #define F_CPU 8000000UL // 8MHz #include <avr/io.h> #include <util/delay.h> void play_tone(uint16_t delay, uint8_t duration) { uint16_t tmp = 100 * duration; uint16_t delaysm = delay / 50; uint16_t cycles = tmp / delaysm; while(cycles > 0) { PORTB |= (1<<PB1); _delay_us(delay); PORTB &= ~(1<<PB1); _delay_us(delay); cycles--; } } int main() { // oscillator @ 8MHz. OSCCAL = 176; DDRB |= (1<<PB1); while(1) { play_tone(1000, 50); play_tone(950, 50); play_tone(900, 50); play_tone(850, 50); play_tone(800, 50); play_tone(750, 50); play_tone(700, 50); play_tone(650, 50); play_tone(600, 50); play_tone(550, 50); play_tone(500, 50); play_tone(450, 50); play_tone(400, 50); play_tone(350, 50); play_tone(300, 50); play_tone(250, 50); _delay_ms(2000); } return 0; } http://nerdkits.pastebin.com/f5328d6f

I am thinking I really need a ISP programmer and a bunch of chips as there are a few fun projects I would like to do like this and then sell the end results on ebay.