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Archive: Robotics

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January 13, 2010

Lifelike robots teach students about marine life

This playful killer whale (orca) is actually a robot. One of a series of over 100 different creatures, it was built by Masamichi Hayashi to teach children about marine biology. There isn't much information about how they are made, however they look beautiful. Lucky kids! [via inhabitat]

Intern's Corner: Makey robot's sonar and maiden voyage

MAKE: Intern's Corner
Every other week, MAKE's awesome interns tell about the projects they're building in the Make: Labs, the trouble they've gotten into, and what they'll make next.

By Kris Magri, engineering intern

How I designed Makey, Part III: The Ping sonar rangefinder and maiden voyage

As we return to our robot design saga, making Makey the Robot for MAKE, Volume 19 ...

The actual robot is still just a prototype with 2 wheels and motors and no sensors, electronics, or brains inside. The better body exists only in the computer. Maker Faire is looming. I've been tapped to give two "Make Your Own Robot" workshops, and I reckon that having a working robot would be a very good idea.

I'm trying to get the Arduino into the robot body. Suddenly I learn a profound lesson regarding computer-aided design. In real life, circuit boards cannot morph through walls into their desired resting place. In the computer, it happens all the time. With a simple motion of the mouse, the Arduino circuit board has glided into place, right through the aluminum robot body ... but in real life, it won't fit. There is no possible angle or tilt that will get the Arduino into the robot. Out come the Vise-Grips and hacksaw. I saw, bend, and twist off the offending aluminum tabs. This is reality-aided design.

The battery pack doesn't fit because it hits the nuts and bolts that hold the motors in. It fit just fine in the computer model, since I didn't bother including the nuts and bolts. I'm ready to toss the computer out the window.

I show up at the Make: Labs with my fail robot. Our crew has been working like demons for weeks getting ready for Maker Faire -- preparing demos, packing everything under the sun, buying materials -- the lab is a madhouse. Eric, myself, and Steven are practically tripping over each other. I'm frantic to get the Arduino into the body and get the sonar sensor mounted somehow. Eric suggests double-stick tape. I refuse. Tape and glue, I assert, are for people who don't know about bolts and rivets. Eric manages to cram the Arduino in sideways. It barely fits, actually, it doesn't quite fit, it sticks up a little. When I drill a mounting hole, 1/3 of the hole isn't there. But the bolt manages to hold.

At this point I only have a vague idea of what motor will be turning Makey's "eyes" or how to fit it inside. We zoom off to the local hobby shop and pay way too much for the smallest servomotor they have in stock.

Steven offers to take on the servomotor/sonar sensor mounting problem. He's making detailed measurements and calculations, trying to figure out how much space there is and where the servomotor will fit into this 3D space without hitting the electronics. He marks everything and explains his calculations to me. I can't follow them, but it sounds good and looks like it might just fit. I drill the holes, we put the servo in, then close up the robot. It fits! There is much rejoicing.

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From MAKE magazine:
make volume 19 cover.gif

In MAKE, Volume 19: Robots, Rovers, and Drones, learn how to make a model plane with an autopilot and a built-in robot brain. We'll also show you how to make a comfortable chair and footstool out of a single sheet of plywood, a bicyclist's vest that shows how fast you're going, and projects that introduce you to servomotors. All this, and lots more, in MAKE, Volume 19! Subscribe here. Buy the issue in the Maker Shed.

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Robotagger

A cool use of GML by Golan Levin and Jeremy Ficca, called Robotagger:

GML (Graffiti Markup Language) drawings from 000000book.com are converted into DXF via a small Processing utility. Motion paths for a robot arm are planned from this DXF using Rhino and MasterCam. The ABB 4400 series arm is wielding a 2" Montana Hardcore marker.

[Thanks, Jamie!]

More:

January 11, 2010

Printable cross-link ellipse gears

Thiingiverse user natetrue created this printable version of user stickoutrock's laser-cut cross-linked elliptical gear toy. Somebody post some video, please!

More gear pr0n:

January 9, 2010

CupCake CNC build, part 7: Building the Y-stage and adjusting the Z-stage

Before we go ahead and make the Y-stage, lets go ahead and level the Z-stage. It's a really easy process. All you need to do is adjust the nuts on the Z-stage threaded rods until they are all the same height. You did add an extra nut on each of the threaded rod, didn't you? I used a mechanical pencil as a reference point, but you can use anything, just get them all at the same height. Note: It's always best to get a second opinion, be it human or feline.

Now it's time to build the Y-stage. This only takes about 30 minutes and goes together fairly easily. One thing to note, some of the parts are laser etched on the wrong side. Take a close look at the pictures and make sure everything is going together the proper way. Apparently this is only an issue with CupCake CNC machines from batches 6-9.

Let's start by assembling the build platform. My kit came with a few extra, which is a good thing since the one in the picture doesn't work! The build platforms need to have (3) holes in the top to accommodate the (3) screws that are on the Y-stage assembly. I guess they redesigned the Y-stage and forgot to change the build platform. Oops! However, I received (2) additional build platforms in the kit, and both of them have the (3) holes allowing them to sit flush with the Y-stage. Problem solved!

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January 8, 2010

Self-feeding robots hunt for power outlets

Planning to build a host of robot minions, but don't have time to plug them in when their battery goes low? Well, then you need to enable them to feed themselves by finding their own power, and Brian Mayton might have just the solution for you. His electric field sensing robot, featured above, uses a series of electromagnetic sensors to hone into the 60 Hz signal produced by an electric outlet, and then plug itself it. This is a neat approach because it is actually detecting the thing that it wants (power), rather than relying on a computer vision system to find something that looks like an outlet.

It should come as no surprise that there is a long history of robot designs to accomplish this task. If you want to learn more, Hizook has an excellent write-up of the history of self-feeding robots. [Thanks, Travis!]

January 7, 2010

Swimming robot snake

Creepy-cool snakey water robot goodness. Not much info about the maker, here; all I know is that the video was taken at the Odense RoboDays festival in the summer of 2007. If you know whodunnit, feel free to enlighten us in the comments. [via Boing Boing]

More:

January 6, 2010

Gameboy as robot remote control

Today I checked in with Make: Labs to see what our faithful interns are working on, and Kris Magri showed me the setup pictured above. A while back she was given a Tomy i-Sobot and tasked with hacking it. The thing she liked least about the i-Sobot is how complicated and clunky the remote control is, namely the fact that the action button sequences are long and not easy to remember.

Given that the Gameboy Advance SP can be found on eBay starting at $20, has a great little screen and buttons, and the link cable connection is actually a serial port, she started working on programming it. Kris built onto an existing program (thanks, Avelino Herrera Morales), hooked 4 LEDs to the port, and got the lights to blink. The next step will be to hook it up to the XBee wireless module, hook another onto the i-Sobot, and get to programming. She intends to make graphics to illustrate the i-Sobots movements. Here's a quick video of her current setup in action:

World's tiniest "snow" man

If you're like me, you may be disappointed to learn that the world's smallest snowman is, in fact, not made of snow at all. It's tin that's been etched with a focused ion beam (FIB) instrument, with bits of ion-welded platinum for the nose and to hold the tin spheres together. I guess it's impractical to work with actual ice when you're at the 10 micrometer scale. For comparison, a human hair is about 50 micrometers across. It's the work of Dr. David Cox and co-workers at the National Physical Laboratory in London.

CupCake CNC build, part 6: Building the enclosure

It's finally time to build the enclosure! The wax finish is fully cured, buffed out, and all the parts are ready for assembly. So, lets get on with the build.

The first step is adding the bearing brackets to the middle panel. These screw on the bottom of the middle layer with the included M3 nuts and bolts.

One in each corner, and... Done! Easy.

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January 5, 2010

MAKE visits MicroRAX HQ

In November, I had the opportunity to travel to Seattle for a Magic: The Gathering tournament. While I was there, I visited the headquarters of TwinTech, a small company run by identical twin brothers, Steve and Chris Burrows, who manufacture a small rack-building set called MicroRAX. At the time, a similar set, called MakerBeam, was hot in the news for its innovative funding angle -- getting capital via the microfunding site KickStarter. I was intrigued because MicroRAX was a nigh-identical product, lacking only MakerBeam's marketing moxie. But also unlike MakerBeam, it was a product already on the market, with starter sets available from TwinTech's online store.

Chris Burrows picked me up at my hotel and we drove to TwinTech's workspace. The company works out of a small warehouse, sharing it with other small industrial firms. Set up in one corner of the space, the workshop was gloriously messy, filled with a variety of machinery and half-finished projects.

TwinTech's core business is making couplers that let you connect multiple tubes at once, however, it was the MicroRAX that interested me. Obviously they had tons of beam lying around. In addition to boxes of beam waiting to be cut -- both plain aluminum and their awesome black anodized version -- there were numerous examples of the MicroRAX used for practical purposes. The Burrows' rule is that they won't build anything for the shop (e.g., shelves or an iPod stand) using any other material besides MicroRAX.

Unlike some systems where you're expected to use the sizes of beams you're given, MicroRAX fully assumes you're going to hack off specific lengths off the standard .9-meter beams available from their store. This also means that if you had a need for larger pieces, the guys can cut it special for you -- I saw lengths of MicroRAX beam in the 5-10' range used for practical purposes around the shop, as well as huge cardboard boxes holding uncut 12' beams they'd gotten back from the extruder.

I asked Chris about the open-source angle. One aspect of MakerBeam which appealed to potential donors was their claim to be open source, though this is not the case thus far -- still in alpha, it lacks the documentation, user-contributions, and open standards that are the hallmarks of open projects. A better example might be Contraptor, a fantastic VEX-esque building set that sets the benchmark for openness and community cooperation.

While MicroRAX isn't open, Chris told me that when you deal with engineers, you can't hold anything back. A company can't really have an industrial product like TwinTech's multi-tube couplers or MicroRAX without divulging everything to a potential customer. They'll want to know the precise dimensions and characteristics of your product before they'll buy it. From an end-result standpoint, how is that really different from publishing your 3Ds?

The brothers are thinking about taking MicroRAX open, but in the meantime, they published their core product design, the "snowflake" cross section of the MicroRAX beam, to Thingiverse, potentially allowing anyone to extrude their own beam.

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Whoa! Keanu supports FIRST

Keanu Reeves doing a public service announcement for FIRST robotics. Wait a minute, should Neo be a spokesperson for robots/AI? [via Robots Dreams]

FIRST

Open source swarm robot project

I love these swarm robots and the relative simplicity of the design, the means on motility (BEAM-style direct-drive pager motors), and the charging scheme (the bots in the lower image, to the right, are at the charging rail). The wiki that's been set up doesn't have too much info yet. There's even going to be a kit you can buy of a mostly-assembled bot (you just have to solder on the motors, battery, and a few through-hole components).

This is the community portal for the formica project which has developed and built a swarm of miniature robots. The robots, only 30x28x15mm are fully autonomous with programmable and natural emergent behaviour. The robots work using biological algorithms to complete a task as a group. They also exhibit a collective swarm memory.

The robot designs are completely open source and have also been released as a kit which is an ideal beginners soldering project for individuals or groups. The robots are currently programmed using an inexpensive programming tool.

Formica

Encoder wheel generator

Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool:

Need to build a custom rotary encoder wheel for that precision motion device you are making? Well, Nick Ames has you covered with his encoder wheel generator script.

What would you want this for, you ask? Well, a rotary encoder is a device that uses a fixed-position sensor (in this case an optical one) that measures a series of markings to determine the speed, position and direction that a part is spinning in. By using a generator like this one to print a custom pattern, you can create one that works well for the application that you want to use it for.

January 1, 2010

Most useless machine

Inspired by Claude Shannon's Ultimate Machine, Instructables user SaskView designed this excellent most useless machine.

I can sympathize with the poor box not wanting to be disturbed. I know I do the same thing with my alarm clock every morning. Maybe if someone gave it some coffee, it won't be so grumpy? [via neatorama]

December 29, 2009

Awesome flying drawbridge

This thing is called the "Slauerhoffbrug," and it lives in Leeuwarden in the Netherlands. The road section is lifted on a single massive counterbalanced arm up to 90 degrees in the air. There's a good photo gallery, including aerial views, over on frozenly.com. [via Neatorama]

December 26, 2009

Servo mount for Ping)))

A simple 3D printed servo mount to house the Parallax Ping))) sensor.

Servo Mount for Sonar Sensor

December 24, 2009

Nifty caterpillar BEAM bot

I love this bicore with five "slavecores" caterpillar BEAM bot. It is a photovore (light-seeker) with two operating speeds and rechargeable Li-Ion batteries (via USB). The builder has an Etsy shop too where you can buy his bots.

Middle Creek Merchants Robot Page
Middlecreek Merchants Etsy Shop

December 23, 2009

How-to: Connecting a 7-segment LED to the Arduino

Jeff posted this nice how-to on wiring up a 7-Segment LED to an Arduino. His code uses the 'map()' function to scale the sensor data and display it's relative value on the 7-Segment display. This is a good project to try out, after you make the infamous pin 13 blinking LED. [via arduinofun]

In the Maker Shed:

Arduino Family
Make: Arduino

Hidden ping pong gun is best office prank ever

Some enterprising pranksters at Willow Garage hid a ckBot robot in the ceiling of their office, then used it to shoot ping pong balls at an unsuspecting co-worker. Awesome! [via gizmodo]

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