Help with high school robotics project

[KSores]

Soooooo

Here's the story 

I'm in a robotics class in my school and we have a project to design and create a circuit, it's pretty cool they even have a dark room for making circuit boards

Anyway we need to make a circuit, u thought it would be cool to make a Sata to usb adaptor as I need one anyways, but I can't find any plans for one anywhere on the Internet, all the foroum posts I find everyone says just buy one, so you know how it could be done or have suggestions for other projects?

[GhostEther]

Build a small robot that follows a wall. The PCB is pretty easy with a H bridge to control the DC motors and there's a lot of information online about the requirements to build one.

[sazrocks]

That's a pretty hard thing to build from scratch...

 

Also what does a USB to Sata adapter have to do with robotics?

[tim0901]

I agree with sazrocks, as useful as a usb to sata connector is, it is a fairly complex circuit and probably isn't the intended purpose of the course. It also doesn't make for a particularly exciting presentation "I made a cable." Do you actually need to print your own circuit board, or just use components to make a circuit to use? If so then using some kind of breadboard would allow for much easier development of something useful/fun. If you do need to make the PCB then you can just copy the finished circuit from the breadboard once you know it works correctly.

 

What kind of a budget/what components do you have available? Something fairly simple like an audio amplifier might be a possibility if you have limited access to components. If you have access to more expensive and higher-level components then controlling motors with light/touch sensors using an Arduino is a fun learning exercise (one I had to do at uni last term).

[KSores]

7 minutes ago, tim0901 said:

I agree with sazrocks, as useful as a usb to sata connector is, it is a fairly complex circuit and probably isn't the intended purpose of the course. It also doesn't make for a particularly exciting presentation "I made a cable." Do you actually need to print your own circuit board, or just use components to make a circuit to use? If so then using some kind of breadboard would allow for much easier development of something useful/fun. If you do need to make the PCB then you can just copy the finished circuit from the breadboard once you know it works correctly.

 

What kind of a budget/what components do you have available? Something fairly simple like an audio amplifier might be a possibility if you have limited access to components. If you have access to more expensive and higher-level components then controlling motors with light/touch sensors using an Arduino is a fun learning exercise (one I had to do at uni last term).

I have a budget of about $20 and the project is not about making a robot we need to make a circuit, board and all

[tim0901]

4 minutes ago, KSores said:

I have a budget of about $20 and the project is not about making a robot we need to make a circuit, board and all

In which case I'd have to go for an audio amplifier. They're simple yet fairly impressive and there are many places online giving detailed descriptions as to how they work and how to put them together. Get it working using a breadboard and some wires, then just convert the wires to traces on a pcb and solder on all the components once they're etched. 

[straight_stewie]

On 2/24/2017 at 2:01 PM, KSores said:

Sata to usb adaptor

You'll need to the file at this link: USB 3.1 Specification (you could also choose to read an older one because the specification/circuits will be simpler, and USB is backwards compatible, so a USB 1 cable will work in a USB 3 port, but not necessarily the other way around).

You'll also need this: SATA 3.0 specification 2009. (The same USB style one way backwards compatibility applies to SATA).

As a warning, from some preliminary research, it looks as if the easiest and cheapest way is to use a microcontroller to do the job. Good luck, you'll need it.