Is there a way to program a robot with python (ex, an electric motor, control it's speed, etc)

[Carsten Haese]

On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 19:18 -0700, socialanxiety at gmail.com wrote:
> On Jul 8, 5:37 pm, Carsten Haese <cars... at uniqsys.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 17:06 -0700, socialanxi... at gmail.com wrote:
> > > i hope someone here can help me.
> >
> > > basically, me and my friend have a summer project.
> >
> > > in this project, we need something that would basically function as a
> > > blender. we know we'll need to buy a motor that spins, but what we're
> > > having trouble with is figuring out how to program it. we want to be
> > > able to control the speed of the motor. how would we accomplish this?
> >
> > > i'm new to all of this, so i'm having a hard time wrapping my mind
> > > around how it'd be possible to program one of those things :\
> >
> > > ex: what if i want the motor to turn for 10 seconds. stop for 5. then
> > > turn the other direction.
> >
> > > would you program it the same way you would on a personal computer
> > > (via c, python, etc)?
> >
> > The answers to your questions depend very much on what you're working
> > with and how the motor is controlled. Is this supposed to be a
> > self-contained machine, or is it supposed to be connected to a personal
> > computer as a peripheral device?
> > [...]
> I would like the robot to be self contained. basically, I'd like to be
> able to program functions in python, ex:
> 
> while True:
>     motor.rotate(1)

Good luck with that. Your best bet IMHO is to find a single-board
computer (commonly referred to as SBC) that is small enough to fit your
form-factor, capable of running Linux, and equipped with a suitable I/O
interface (e.g. serial or parallel port). In theory, this should allow
you to put Linux and Python on it and control your motor in Python as if
it were a peripheral device connected to a personal computer. In
practice, I've never done anything like this, and the devil is in the
details that you'll need to work out for yourself.

-- 
Carsten Haese
http://informixdb.sourceforge.net