As hilariously outrageous as Pacific Rim was, it was still an awesome concept. Giant robot battle suits, duking it out with the aliens. Well, it looks as if it wasn’t quite as far-fetched as we first imagined. Maker [Danny Benedettelli] just released a video of his very own Lego exoskeleton suit that when worn can be used to control a desktop size Cyclops robot. You might remember [Danny] as the author of The Lego Mindstorms EV3 Library,
The Cyclops robot (also his design) was originally built four years ago using Lego Mindstorms NXT system with an Android phone running a custom app. Cyclops has been upgraded a bit for this demonstration. Now it communicates over Bluetooth with an Arduino to [Danny’s] telemetry suit.
Relatively speaking, the system is pretty simple. The Lego exoskeleton has potentiometers on each joint, which map to a degree of freedom for the robot. When one potentiometer spins, the associated robot joint mimics it. Simple, right?
He says it’s just a prototype, so we can probably expect an even more functional robot very soon — for more information, check out his personal site called Danny’s Lab.
[via Kotaku]
That’s pretty cool.
Fun, but in most cases (person controlling stays in one place) and no feedback requirement the kinect-lke solution is much better.
But… But half of the fun is wearing the exoeskeloton…
He made a Waldo from Lego!
I saw him release a video of the hot and the suit three or four years ago. But I’m glad to see the Italian high school teacher is back into lego and demonstrating more about how his robot works.
Oops. I meant bot, not hot
Isn’t that a website? botornot.com ? ;)
Now build one twenty feet tall and put guns on it.
Let me get a bit meta here: The habit of doing video previews with animated GIFs is pretty annoying. It’s one thing that Boing Boing does this, but I expect a bit better from HaD.
I can understand, but personally, I’m not going to watch most videos anyway, so a gif ‘summary’ is wonderful
Danny Benedettelli has built a LEGO model and exoskeleton that lets him control a small robot with his body. ClearMarks ?