Text Message-Controlled Robot

Here’s a fun project I created for Digi International a while back. I just wrote up for them as an Instructable so that anyone can make their own. All materials, steps, diagrams and necessary code are included in the instructions. You can get started right away.

The Digi XBee3 Cellular SMS ActivityBot is an educational robot that can be controlled with text messages from any cell phone, anywhere in the world. The ActivityBot, made by Digi’s friends at Parallax Inc. is designed for first-time robot-builders and is widely used in technology and engineering education.

SMS text messages sent to the robot can command it to drive forward, back, or the left or right. It has a built in roaming mode where it becomes self-driving, using two “whisker” sensors to detect obstacles to the right or left. The ActivityBot uses the Digi XBee3 Cellular module to report back what it’s sensing in real time. For example, any time one of the “whisker” sensors is triggered, that event is immediately reported back to the cell phone as a text. (Of course, only robots should text and drive.) You can see all of these behaviors in the video below, then build your own using these complete instructions.