removed this control board and replaced it with his own, powered by a TI MSP430 microcontroller. The stock Spider has a small circuit board that allows for the control of two motors with a remote. sought to remedy this and came up with a line-following board replacement for the Hexbug Spider. While they’re able to be commanded to move forward, backward, and spin around on a dime, there aren’t any external sensors to make it really exciting.

You may be familiar with the Hexbug Spider, a small electronic robot toy sold at Target and Walmart for $20.

You can see the OpenCV-controlled Hexbug in action after the break, along with a video build log with showing everyone how to tear apart one of these robot toys.Ĭontinue reading “Giving The Hexbug Spider A Set Of Eyes” → Posted in Toy Hacks Tagged hexbug, hexbug spider, opencv Turning The Hexbug Spider Into A Line-following Robot It’s a neat build, and surprisingly nimble for a $20 plastic hexapod robot. The smartphone app detects a user-selectable hue – in this case a little Android toy robot – and sends commands to the MSP430-powered motor control board over the headphone jack to move the legs. This time, instead of a few LEDs, turned to an Android smartphone running an OpenCV-based app.

Previously, we’ve seen turn a Hexbug spider into a line following robot with a pair of IR LEDs and a drop-in replacement motor driver. With a few extra parts, though, it can become a vastly more powerful robotics platform, as shows us with his experiments with a Hexbug and OpenCV. The Hexbug Spider is a neat little robot toy available at just about any Target or Walmart for about $20.

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