[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps59Hj9RIG0]
[Ned] tipped us off about his project for a class at Carnegie Mellon. Utilizing a Denso 6-AOF robotic arm they have built a rapid prototyping machine that uses Lego as the building material. LDraw, the open standard Lego CAD program, is used to build a model which is then translated into MATLAB files that the robotic arm can use for placement commands. Right now pieces need to be placed on a template for the robot to find and pick up.
It’s great that Lego pieces are used because they are readily available and inexpensive, but this type of precision robot makes the project unattainable for most tinkerers. Still, the concept is interesting and we could see an end goal being a more widely available machine. It’s not too much of a leap to image a RepRap type machine that takes internal measurements of a circuit board and the components, calculates inside case dimensions, then builds a prototype enclosure from common Lego pieces.
College students love kludging things together in matlab.
The machine vision bit is pretty neat, but if this is sped up by eight times, then it must be pretty damn slow in real time.
Also would have liked to see a HTML writeup.
(whine whine whine)
By the way, they’re using the (excellent) MLCad, not LDraw. MLCad uses the LDraw datafiles (like most Lego design tools), but it’s not based on it.
@bbot: Matlab is awesome for rapid prototyping anything that needs copious amounts of math.
looks cool. i should build one and give those legos in my closet a use lol
This would be far cooler if the rapid prototyping machine was made out of legos too.
It’s definitely possible – the attached clip is an automated lego factory that makes lego cars: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ3AcPEPbH0
it’s probably so slow because of the precision required to place the pieces in between each other e.g. seconds: 24-26. lego bricks next to each other have a spacing of .2mm or something like that, so you need to be pretty darn accurate!
@partnerincrime
i second that as i was playing with the schools robot arm one time and had the bigger legos with larger spaceing(the little kid version…) i had a VERY hard time getting it to line up and not just crush them and trigger a crash on the program.
Really!? For Legos, the same thing’s that can easily be put together quickly enough by hand. What a waste. I’m all for automated assembly tech, but this one is ridiculous.
Great! Just what I need to help me add to my Imperial capital fleet!
http://starwars.yahoo.com/photos/lego-star-wars-imperial-battle-cruiser
http://www.amazon.com/Lego-Star-Wars-Imperial-Destroyer/dp/B001NH586A
@David
I agree it’s completely pointless. It’s just a fun and (I thought) interesting way to combine technologies to accomplish something. When it changes from pointless to slightly useful is when it does what we originally wanted it to do, which is decompose a solid model (Solidworks, ProE, Inventor, etc) and build a model out of that. Even more, something like this could find its way to a Children’s/Science Museum to teach kids the basics of CAD and more advanced development processes in a language they can understand — Legos.
i always thought legos were pretty pricy