Pololu 3pi Detail

Overview

The 3pi robot is designed to excel in line-following and maze-solving competitions. It has a small size (9.5 cm/3.7" diameter, 83 g/2.9 oz without batteries) and takes just four AAA cells (not included), while a unique power system runs the motors at a constant 9.25 V independent of the battery charge level. The regulated voltage allows the 3pi to reach speeds up to 100 cm/second while making precise turns and spins that don't vary with the battery voltage.

The 3pi robot robot makes a great platform for people with C programming experience to learn robotics, and it is a fun environment for ambitious beginners to learn C programming. At its heart is an Atmel ATmega168 microcontroller running at 20 MHz with 16KB of flash program memory and 1KB data memory, enough space to run complicated programs. An extra 512 bytes of persistent flash memory is provided on the microcontroller for data logging or long-term learning applications. The popular, free GNU C/C++ compiler works perfectly with the 3pi, Atmel's AVR Studio provides a comfortable development environment, and an extensive set of libraries provided by Pololu makes it a breeze to interface with all of the integrated hardware. The 3pi is also compatible with the popular Arduino development platform. We provide a number of sample programs to show how to use the various 3pi components, as well as how to perform more complex behaviors such as line following and maze solving.

Required Accessories

An external AVR ISP programmer such as Pololu's Orangutan USB programmer is required to program the 3pi. This is listed seperately.

The 3pi is powered by 4 AAA batteries, which are not included. We recommend rechargeable NiMH cells, which may be purchased from your local store carrying electronics.

Optional Accessories

We currently offer two expansion kits for the 3pi that give you room to augment your 3pi with your own custom electronics. The expansion kit with cutouts lets you view the LCD below and allows you to reach the power button, reset button, and ISP programming header on the base. The expansion kit with no cutouts gives you access to more I/O lines and more prototyping space but you must remove the LCD display.

	3pi Expansion board with cut outs to access switches and LCD display.	3pi Expansion board with no cut outs to access more controller pins.

Visit the resources page for guides and software.