Updates

Its been a little while since my last post. Let's go over what I've been doing

The Sumo Bot (Name TBD)
I have slowly been populating the PCB and testing everything as I go along. I have had a series of issues which have been simple mistakes but time consuming to realize.

First, I was having issues with the driver chip not pulling down the low side of the H-bridge, even when I was telling it too. That was easily corrected when I realized the current sense pin MUST be connected to ground.  I am planning to hook the current sense to an ADC pin, but I was holding off just in case the driver sent a lot of current through that pin into the PIC.  So far, I have not let any of that magic smoke out... yet.

Next, the edge sensors were not changing voltage when the line was supposed to be sensed. That again was easily fixed when I realized that the program I was using had the pins set as outputs.
"Why does that matter?" You ask...
Well, when the PIC pin is set as an output (rather than input) there are pull down resistors (resistors which are connected to ground) that are enabled.  These resistors ensure the pin in not 'floating' (when you change states on to off, the pin remains high).  In my case, when I powered the board, they were pulling the output side of the IR sensor down, such that it appeared nothing was happening when the input changed.  I realized that while falling asleep one night.

Here is what the sumo bot is looking like these days.

Current Status of Sumo Bot

Learning C# (C Sharp)
One of my more favorite bloggers is Shane Colton (scolton.blogspot.com).  In general, he does a lot of seemingly advanced things with motor drivers, quad-copters, and robots in general.  He also does a lot of data logging and plotting with a program he created in Visual Basic (or so I have gathered).  I am hoping I can do the same with C# (pronounced C Sharp).  Through the robot club I am part of, a member has given me the code to log incoming serial data... now I am attempting to use the "Chart" tool to also plot the incoming data.  Once I have something worthy of posting... I will include the downloadable program.  The below image is the current layout.

C# Form Layout