Design Files Released For The PR2 Robot

April 2, 2023 by Lewin Day 9 Comments

It’s always great fun to build your own robot. Sometimes, though, if you’re doing various projects or research, it’s easier to buy an existing robot and then use it to get down to business. That was very much the role of the Willow Garage PR2, but unfortunately, it’s no longer in production. However, as covered by The Robot Report, the design files have now been released for others to use.

The PR2 was built as an advanced platform with wide-ranging capabilities. It was able to manipulate objects with its 7-degrees-of-freedom end effectors, as well as visualize the real world with a variety of complex sensor packages. Researchers put it to work on a variety of tasks, from playing pool to fetching beers and even folding laundry. The latter one is still considered an unsolved problem that challenges even the best robots.

Rights to the PR2 robot landed in the hands of Clearpath Robotics, after Willow Garage was shut down in 2014. Clearpath is now providing access to the robot’s design files on its website. This includes everything from wiring diagrams and schematics, to assembly drawings, cable specs, and other background details. You’ll have to provide some personal information to get access, but the documentation you desire is all there.

We actually got our first look at the PR2 robot many years ago, way back in 2009. If you decide to build your own from scratch, be sure to hit us up on the tipsline.

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Robot 3D Prints Giant Metal Parts With Induction Heat

March 29, 2023 by Bryan Cockfield 36 Comments

While our desktop machines are largely limited to various types of plastic, 3D printing in other materials offers unique benefits. For example, printing with concrete makes it possible to quickly build houses, and we’ve even seen things like sugar laid down layer by layer into edible prints. Metals are often challenging to print with due to its high melting temperatures, though, and while this has often been solved with lasers a new method uses induction heating to deposit the metals instead.

A company in Arizona called Rosotics has developed a large-scale printer based on this this method that they’re calling the Mantis. It uses three robotic arms to lay down metal prints of remarkable size, around eight meters wide and six meters tall. It can churn through about 50 kg of metal per hour, and can be run off of a standard 240 V outlet. The company is focusing on aerospace applications, with rendered rocket components that remind us of what Relativity Space is working on.

Nothing inspires confidence like a low-quality render.

The induction heating method for the feedstock not only means they can avoid using power-hungry and complex lasers to sinter powdered metal, a material expensive in its own right, but they can use more common metal wire feedstock instead. In addition to being cheaper and easier to work with, wire is also safer. Rosotics points out that some materials used in traditional laser sintering, such as powdered titanium, are actually explosive.

Of course, the elephant in the room is that Relativity recently launched a 33 meter (110 foot) tall 3D printed rocket over the Kármán line — while Rosotics hasn’t even provided a picture of what a component printed with their technology looks like. Rather than being open about their position in the market, the quotes from CEO Christian LaRosa make it seem like he’s blissfully unaware his fledgling company is already on the back foot.

If you’ve got some rocket propellant tanks you’d like printed, the company says they’ll start taking orders in October. Though you’ll need to come up with a $95,000 deposit before they’ll start the work. If you’re looking for something a little more affordable, it’s possible to convert a MIG welder into a rudimentary metal 3D printer instead.

Caterpillar-Like Soft Robot With Distributed Programmable Thermal Actuation

March 26, 2023 by Maya Posch 7 Comments

Researchers at North Carolina State University have created a soft robot that moves in a distinctly caterpillar-like manner. As detailed in the research paper in Science Advances by [Shuang Wu] and colleagues, the robot they developed consists of a layer of liquid crystalline elastomers (LCE) and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with embedded silver nanowire that acts as a heater.

The LCE is hereby designed as a thermal bimorph actuator, using a distinct thermal expansion coefficient between the LCE and PDMS sides to create a highly controllable deformation and thus motion. Since the nanowire is divided into sections that can be individually heated, the exact deformation can be quite tightly controlled, enabling the crawling motion.

(A) Schematics of the forward locomotion of a caterpillar. (B) Schematics of the reverse locomotion of a caterpillar. (C) Snapshots of the crawling robot in one cycle of actuation for reverse locomotion. (D) Snapshots of the crawling robot in one cycle of actuation for forward locomotion. (E) infrared image of the crawling robot with 0.05-A current injected in channel 1 and the tilted view of the crawling robot. (F) Infrared image of the crawling robot with 30-mA current injected in channel 2 and the corresponding tilted view of the crawling robot. (Credit: Shuang Wu, et al. (2023))

As can be seen in the video below, the motion is fairly rapid and quite efficient, as well as decidedly caterpillar-like. Although the current prototype uses external control wires that supply the current, it might be possible to integrate a power supply and control circuitry in a stand-alone robot. Since the heater works on low voltage (5 V) and relatively little power is required, this would seem to make stand-alone operation eminently possible.

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Powercore Aims To Bring The Power Of EDM To Any 3D Printer

March 7, 2023 by Dan Maloney 39 Comments

The desktop manufacturing revolution has been incredible, unleashing powerful technologies that once were strictly confined to industrial and institutional users. If you doubt that, just look at 3D printing; with a sub-$200 investment, you can start making parts that have never existed before.

Sadly, though, most of this revolution has been geared toward making stuff from one or another type of plastic. Wouldn’t it be great if you could quickly whip up an aluminum part as easily and as cheaply as you can print something in PLA? That day might be at hand thanks to Powercore, a Kickstarter project that aims to bring the power of electric discharge machining (EDM) to the home gamer. The principle of EDM is simple — electric arcs can easily erode metal from a workpiece. EDM machines put that fact to work by putting a tool under CNC control and moving a precisely controlled electric arc around a workpiece to machine complex shapes quickly and cleanly.

Compared to traditional subtractive manufacturing, EDM is a very gentle affair. That’s what makes EDM attractive to the home lab; where the typical metal-capable CNC mill requires huge castings to provide the stiffness needed to contain cutting forces, EDM can use light-duty structures and still turn out precision parts. In fact, Powercore is designed to replace the extruder of a bog-standard 3D printer, and consists almost entirely of parts printed on the very same machine. The video below shows a lot of detail on Powercore, including the very interesting approach to keeping costs down by creating power resistors from PCBs.

While we tend to shy away from flogging crowdfunded projects, this one really seems like it might make a difference to desktop manufacturing and be a real boon to the home lab. It’s also worth noting that this project has roots in the Hackaday community, being based as it is on [Dominik Meffert]’s sinker EDM machine.

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A Ground Source Heat Pump From An Air Conditioner

March 7, 2023 by Jenny List 39 Comments

When it comes to lower-energy home heating, it’s accurate in all senses to say that heat pumps are the new hotness. But unless you happen to work with them professionally, it’s fair to say their inner workings are beyond most of us. Help is at hand though courtesy of [petey53], who made his own ground source heat pump for his Toronto house using a pair of window-mounted air conditioning units.

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No Wheels, No Mercy

March 5, 2023 by Al Williams 15 Comments

We always like when a designer does something different. After all, it is easy just to do what everyone else is doing. But to see things a different way is always interesting to us. When you think of a battle bot, you probably think of a robot with wheels or tracks, attacking other robots in an arena. But [Shea Waffles Johns] created Big Cookie, a combat bot with no wheels. Instead, it is a spinning wheel of death that moves relatively slowly. The robot makes up for that by having a mini-robot helper that brings Big Cookie its prey.

With no wheels and motors for locomotion, the robot can focus on armor and weapon force. It certainly looks dangerous spinning on the floor.

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Hackaday Podcast 208: Hallucinating Robots, Floppy Cartridges, And A Flexure Synth French Horn

March 3, 2023 by Kristina Panos 1 Comment

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and [former Assignments Editor] Kristina Panos stood around talking about the greatest hacks of the previous week. But first, we’ve got a contest running now through March 21st — the Low Power Challenge!

Kristina almost got What’s That Sound this week, but could only describe it as some sort of underwater organ, so still no t-shirt for her. But [BalkanBoy] knew exactly what it was — the Zadar Sea Organ in Croatia. Then it’s on to the hacks, beginning with the most beautiful sea of 7-segments you’ll likely ever see. We gush over a tiny PC in a floppy drive that uses custom cartridges, dish about an expressive synth that uses a flexure mechanism, and enjoy a loving ode to the vacuum fluorescent display.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

And/or download it and listen offline.