Paydar: What It Was Like To Battle Bots In 2002

February 27, 2016 by 34 Comments

Most people remember when Battle Bots was a big thing, but few of us got to live it as seen in this gallery. Every now and then, someone posts something more amazing than usual in the comments. When [Wolf] was studying at IUPUI they somehow convinced a professor to let them build a scary dangerous robot maiming device for their final project. It’s a cross-disciplinary project — even the medical students may get to participate.

Spike vs hours and hours of work.
Spike vs. hours and hours of work. Victory: spike.

Their bot, unfortunately, got taken out by some spikes after attempting to get a spinbot before it started spinning and got them. If you look closely at the 2002 Comedy Central Battlebot opening you can see the smoke pour from their robot as they try to escape the fatal spikes.

The robot itself is a three wheeled design. The two wheels across from each other drive the robot, and the third steers. There is a very cool encoder mechanism for the steering wheel that is worth checking out. The main drive motor is a hefty 15HP electric forklift motor current limited to 300amps. The robot never got a weapon thanks to slow mechanical engineers, but a motor like that can turn most chunks of metal into deadly weapons.

Battle Bots is making a comeback in some ways. Word’s still out if it will ever go back to it’s prime, or if something more insane will replace it.

Trash Can CNC Gets A Stepper Upgrade

February 27, 2016 by 12 Comments

[HomoFaciens] is back at the bench again and working on improvements to his cheap and simple CNC machine.

The video below will no doubt remind you about previous versions of [HomoFaciens]’ CNC builds, which we’ve covered in depth. With an eye to spending as little as possible on his builds, most parts are recovered from e-waste, with a fair amount of Dumpster diving thrown in. For this upgrade, the salvaged brushed DC motors with their signature gap-toothed encoder disks are replaced with genuine bipolar steppers. The primary intention of his build is to learn (and teach) as much as possible, so he spends a good amount of time going over steppers and their control – how to determine phase wiring, how to wire up the not-salvaged-but-still-cheap drivers, directional control, and half-stepping. The mechanics are decidedly dodgy, but there are clever expedients aplenty – we especially like the oil cup fabricated from a brass tube and a bolt with a hole drilled in it. Everything just works, and the results to expense ratio is hard to beat.

While we appreciate the upgrades here, we’re still keen to see how junky his other trash can CNC can get. And we’re still waiting on the paper clip and cardboard challenge.

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An Internet Radio In A Classic Cathedral Case

February 27, 2016 by 13 Comments

If you’re looking for a hot collectible item and a great restoration project, cathedral-style radios from the 1930s are a solid choice. But they’re getting harder to find as the years roll by, so if your heart’s content is to listen to modern broadcasts through a radio with a classic look, you may need to roll your own cathedral case for an internet radio.

The cathedral-style case was a hugely successful form-factor for radios back in the day, with variations on the arch-top theme ranging from Gothic to Art Deco. For this build, [nick.r.brewer] decided on a more parabolic arch. His build log has SVG files for the individual ribs that were cut from plywood with an X-Carve. A Raspberry Pi and TFT display were mounted inside the finished case, along with a Bluetooth module and a 20W amplifier and speaker. A big 3-pole rotary switch with custom knob selects the audio source and evokes that 1930s feel. It ended up looking pretty good, and the video after the break shows that it sounds nice, too.

We featured a fair number of internet-radio-in-a-classic-case builds before, but we’re surprised to see no cathedral-style radios have been modded. Maybe it’s time to hit the flea market and estate sales and see what turns up.

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Nessie, The Educational Robot

February 27, 2016 by 6 Comments

At the Lifelong Learning Robotics Laboratory at the Erasmo Da Rotterdam in Italy, robots are (not surprisingly) used to teach all of the fundamentals of robotics. [Alessandro Rossetti] and the students at the lab have been at it for years now, and have finally finished their fifth generation of a robot called Nessie. The big idea is to help teach fundamentals of programming and electronics by building something that actually uses these principles.

The robot is largely 3D printed and uses an FPGA to interact with the physical world through a set of motors and sensors. The robot also uses a Raspberry Pi to hold the robot’s framework. The robot manages the sensors in hardware with readers attached to the CPU AXI bus. The CPU reads their values from memory space, though, so the robot is reported to be quite quick.

The lab is hoping to take their robot to a robotics competition in Bari, Italy. We hope that they perform well there, since we are big fans of any robot that’s designed to teach anyone about robotics and programming. After all, there are robots that help teach STEM in Africa, robots that teach teen girls about robots, and robots that teach everyone.

Directional Booklight Invisible To Everyone But You

February 27, 2016 by 15 Comments

Consistent contributor [Ken] has cooked up another contraption with his directional booklight. Combining an LED strip and privacy screen filter inside a wooden enclosure, this handy tool is made for someone who wants to read in bed without disturbing anyone else. The booklight sits on top of the page, the LEDs light up just the given area, and because the privacy screen only allows light to come straight off the page, only the reader can see any light and any other viewing angle is obscured.

[Ken] thought of everything. Rather than have the light stay on while the booklight is lifted to turn the page and possibly flash an unsuspecting slumberer, a tactile switch on the underside turns the light on only when it is pressed against the page, allowing very little light to escape.

Future upgrades include another switch on top to detect when the book is closed, and an accelerometer to detect when the reader may have fallen asleep.

We’ve reported a few of [Ken]’s projects before, like his 3D popup cards, unique weather display, and semi-real-life Mario Kart

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Simple Samsung NX Remote Shutter Release From USB Cable

February 27, 2016 by 15 Comments

Samsung makes some nice cameras, but they have fallen into the trap of building proprietary controllers. Their NX models, for instance, have a micro USB port rather than the more usual 2.5mm socket for triggering the camera remotely. What’s a hacker to do?

[Niels] did some poking around, and found that it is pretty easy to trigger these cameras remotely, because Samsung simply moved the standard connections for half-press and full press of the shutter onto the USB socket: ground D+ (pin 3) and the camera focuses, then ground D- (pin 2) and the shutter is triggered. In his Instructable, he covers how to build a simple remote from a micro USB cable and a couple of switches.

Don’t feel left out if you have another type of digital camera: there are plenty of ways to build a simple shutter release switch with a few simple parts, or ways to put a microcontroller in control for more sophisticated shoots.

Mechatronic Cat Ears For The Rest Of Us

February 26, 2016 by 14 Comments

Every now and then you see a project that makes you smile. It may not be something that will deliver world peace or feed the hungry, but when it opens in your browser in the morning you go to work a bit happier for the experience.

Just such a project is [Radomir Dopieralski’s] set of wearable mechatronic cat ears. A cosplay accessory that moves as you do. Very kawaii, but fun.

You may have seen the commercially available Necomimi brainwave activated mechatronic ears. [Radomir’s] version does not share their sophistication, instead he’s using an accelerometer to detect head movement coupled to an Arduino Pro Mini driving a pari of servos which manipulate the ears. He provides the source code, and has plans for a miniaturised version using an ATtiny85 on its own PCB.

Amusing cuteness aside, there are some considerations [Radomir] has had to observe that apply to any a head-mounted wearable computer. Not least the problem of putting the Pro Mini and its battery somewhere a little more unobtrusive and weatherproof than on top of his head. He also found that the micro-servos he was using did not have enough range of movement to fully bend the ears, something he is likely to address in a future version with bigger servos. He’s yet to address a particularly thorny problem: that a pair of servos mounted on your head can be rather noisy.

We’ve covered quite a few cosplay stories over the years. This is not even our first cat ear story. More than one example of a Pip Boy, a HAL 9000 costume, and a beautifully made Wheatley puppet have made these pages, to name a few. So scroll down and enjoy [Radomir’s] video demonstration of the ears in action.

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