Comments on: Awesome robots love Fanta

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:22:53 +0000

Is that really 1mm between the cans? It looks more like 1cm

By: Spork

Spork — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:01:50 +0000

I’m pretty sure it’s 1mm. It looks like a standard 20 penny framing nail to me.

By: bhartley

bhartley — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:44:00 +0000

I thought he meant centimeters too, but he actually says “the distance between the cans and the pin” which does look to be about 1 mm.

By: Easy_E

Easy_E — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:48:01 +0000

@Squantmuts

What the crap? That muffin thing is ridiculous. Is there seriously not a simpler, more efficient way to arrange muffins in trays? It seems like the same kind of engineering overkill as using an Arduino to switch a light when you press a button. I’d fire the guy who suggested those expensive robots.

By: Jack

Jack — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 05:18:56 +0000

@Squantmuts

they probably use brushless DC motors with harmonic drive gearing. very high reduction in a small weight and volume, and minimal gear slop

By: Jordan

Jordan — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:05:05 +0000

“What I’d like to know is who still makes the deliciously synth-heavy 80s-ish backing tracks for corporate and defence demonstration videos, and where I can buy a CD of said tracks.”

Agreed, that was the first thing that I thought of.

By: James

James — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:44:57 +0000

If the two external ones had been visually servo’d and following the centre one moving under a programmed action I’d have been impressed :)

By: Squantmuts

Squantmuts — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:25:27 +0000

@Amos

I am curious on the actuators, i guess they use servo feedback linear motors. I have seen these in action and they did not have the characteristic buzzing sound of stepper motors. Besides, stepper motors in these sizes would be enormous.

Would be a pretty cool hack to build one of these at home, but very expensive. Curious if stepper motors would be suitable for this, it cuts down on the complex servo steering.

By: Amos

Amos — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:00:09 +0000

@Squantmuts

I totally agree about the FlexPicker! Especially the part at 0:30 where they start playing “Sausage-tris” and the muffin part @ about 2:00 showing the planning software :)

I have /got/ to make one of those delta bots…

By: Squantmuts

Squantmuts — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:43:49 +0000

I am not that much of a robot person but it seems pretty nifty, high tolerances and repeatable action. They also emphasise how easy it would be to program the paths and “stepping” trough the robot motion.

Btw i find the flexpicker way cooler ;-).

By: napalm

napalm — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:56:36 +0000

Dudes, why the free advertising?

By: Yen

Yen — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:33:29 +0000

My new favorite phrase:
“As you can see, we’ve added another robot!”

By: EdZ

EdZ — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:19:50 +0000

What I’d like to know is who still makes the deliciously synth-heavy 80s-ish backing tracks for corporate and defence demonstration videos, and where I can buy a CD of said tracks.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:13:50 +0000

I work with OTC-Daihen, Kawasaki, and ABB robots. They can all do this. Most modern robots are repeatable within half a millimeter.

By: smilr

smilr — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:47:32 +0000

meh – nifty in it’s own right, but I fail to see how this is groundbreaking or hack worthy.

This kind of precision movement is exactly why these robots were created. This is like a video crowing about how your ford focus excels at rolling forward under it’s own power.