OpenStructures Is A Modular Building System For The RepRap Age

February 21, 2023 by Navarre Bartz 24 Comments

Modular construction toys like LEGO and Meccano are great for prototyping, but they aren’t so great for large builds. OpenStructures promises to be a modular building system for projects large and small.

Originally conceived in 2007 by [Thomas Lommée], OpenStructures is a modern, more robust reinterpretation of Grid Beam, which was itself a reinterpretation of the earlier Living Structures. By using a common standard (PDF), parts can be reused project after project as they would with LEGO, meaning you can spend more time building and less time cutting or figuring out joints. OpenStructures parts need connection points, part diameters, or part dimensions at multiples of 20 mm to be compatible. To fulfill the spirit of the project, parts should be designed for disassembly, use recyclable materials when possible, and be Open Source.

The system seems like a great starting point for prototyping furniture or other large builds more quickly than building everything on a case-by-case basis. By including diameters for round objects as well as square and rectangular profiles, OpenStructures is a more flexible (and aesthetically pleasing?) option than Grid Beam.

A couple more options for furniture-scale modular construction are these big LEGO bricks or copper pipe.

(via Low Tech Magazine)

Top left of image shows a picture of a purplish-grey sea cucumber. Above the cucumber is the word "bio-inspiration." Arrows come from the cucumber to anthropomorphized cartoons of it saying "rigid" at the top with a cartoon sea cucumber standing straight up with spikes and the arrow captioned "soft" pointing down showing a crawling sea cucumber that looks more like a slug. To the right of the cucumber images is a set of three images stacked top to bottom. The top image is of a silver sphere with a zoomed-in atomic diagram with aligned magnetic poles next to it saying "solid state." The middle image shows arrows going up and down next to a snowflake and an artistic rendering of magnetic fields labeled "transition." The bottom image of this section shows a reddish sphere next to a zoomed-in atomic diagram where the magnetic poles are not aligned labeled "liquid state."

Phase Change Materials For Flexible And Strong Robots

February 19, 2023 by Navarre Bartz 21 Comments

Shape shifters have long been the stuff of speculative fiction, but researchers in China have developed a magnetoactive phase transitional matter (MPTM) that makes Odo slipping through an air vent that much more believable.

Soft robots can squeeze into small spaces or change shape as needed, but many of these systems aren’t as strong as their more mechanically rigid siblings. Inspired by the sea cucumber’s ability to manipulate its rigidity, this new MPTM can be inductively heated to a molten state to change shape as well as encapsulate or release materials. The neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) microparticles suspended in gallium will then return to solid form once cooled.

Applications in drug delivery, foreign object removal, and smart soldering (video after the break) probably have more real world impact than the LEGO minifig T1000 impersonation, despite how cool that looks. While a pick-and-place can do better soldering work on a factory line, there might be repair situations where a magnetically-controlled solder system could come in handy.

We’ve seen earlier work with liquid robots using gallium and bio-electronic hybrids also portending the squishy future of robotics.

Continue reading “Phase Change Materials For Flexible And Strong Robots” →

Stair Climbing Rover Gets Up With Rocker Bogies

February 18, 2023 by Lewin Day 8 Comments

Doctor Who eventually made light of the fact that the Daleks were critically impaired when it came to staircases. This rover from [WildWillyRobots] doesn’t share that issue, thanks to a smart suspension design.

The rover itself is built using 3D printed components for everything from the enclosure, to the suspension system, as well as the wheels themselves. It uses a rocker-bogie design, which NASA designed for Mars-bound rovers and we often see copied for terrestrial applications. Gear motors are used for their plentiful torque, and they are placed directly within the wheels. Servos allow the individual wheels to be steered, allowing the rover to crab sideways and perform zero-radius turns.

The rocker-bogie setup does a great job of keeping the rover’s wheels touching the ground, even over rough terrain. It readily tackles a random pile of bricks with ease, in a way that many four-wheeled designs would struggle to match. Given its trials on Mars, it’s easy to call the rocker-bogie setup a thoroughly-proven design.

We’ve featured plenty of other rocker-bogie builds in the past; many of them are 3D printed as well.

Continue reading “Stair Climbing Rover Gets Up With Rocker Bogies” →

Giant 3D Printed Excavator Is Awesome, But Needs Work

February 17, 2023 by Lewin Day 13 Comments

Many of us adored big construction machinery as children. Once we got past the cute, tiny age, it became uncool to gasp with shock and awe at diggers and bulldozers for some reason . [Ivan Miranda] still digs the big rigs, though, and built himself a giant 3D printed excavator that looks like brilliant fun.

Why did Lego never make MegaTechnic blocks? [Ivan] shows us the true potential of bigger building blocks.

The build relies on [Ivan]’s giant 3D-printed Lego-like assembly kit. It lets him simply bolt together a bunch of plastic girders to make the key parts of the excavator, including the base and the digger arm itself. The digger arm is controlled with linear actuators of [Ivan’s] own design, which uses servos and threaded rod to do the job. They’re not as cool as hydraulics or pneumatics, but they get the job done well. For propulsion, [Ivan] built a tracked drive system again using his unique Lego-like blocks. The tracks were tedious to assemble, but add a lot to the excavators Awesomeness Quotient (AQ).

The overall build is quite slow, and more than a little fragile. It’s not quite ready for hardcore digging tasks. In reality, it’s serving as a test bed for [Ivan]’s 3D-printed building blocks that get better every time we see them. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Giant 3D Printed Excavator Is Awesome, But Needs Work” →

Domino Ring Machine Tips Tiles In A Never-ending Wave

February 9, 2023 by Donald Papp 9 Comments

Like to see dominoes fall? [JK Brickworks] has got what you need, in the form of a never-ending ring of falling and resetting tiles. LEGO pieces are the star in this assembly, which uses a circular track and moving ramp to reset tiles after they have fallen. Timed just right, it’s like watching a kinetic sculpture harmoniously generating a soliton wave as tiles fall only to be endlessly reset in time to fall again.

A Mindstorms IR sensor monitors a tile’s state for timing.

It’s true that these chunky tiles aren’t actually dominoes — not only are they made from LEGO pieces and hinged to their bases, they have a small peg to assist with the reset mechanism. [JK Brickworks] acknowledges that this does stretch the definition of “dominos”, but if you’re willing to look past that, it’s sure fun to see the whole assembly in action.

The central hub in particular is a thing of beauty. For speed control, an IR sensor monitors a single domino’s up/down state and a LEGO Mindstorms EV3 with two large motors takes care of automation.

The video does a great job of showing the whole design process, especially the refinements and tweaks, that demonstrate the truly fun part of prototyping. [JK Brickworks] suggests turning on subtitles for some added details and technical commentary, but if you’re in a hurry skip directly to 4:55 to see it in action.

Want to see more automated domino action? This domino-laying robot sets them up for you to knock down at your leisure, and this entirely different robot lays out big (and we do mean BIG) domino art displays.

Continue reading “Domino Ring Machine Tips Tiles In A Never-ending Wave” →

Hackaday Podcast 204: Cesium, Colorful Cast Buttons, And CNC Pizza

February 3, 2023 by Kristina Panos 2 Comments

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos met up over thousands of miles to discuss the hottest hacks of the past seven days. There’s a whole lot of news this week, and the really good part is the the small radioactive source that went missing in Australia has been found. Phew!

Kristina is still striking out on What’s That Sound, but we’re sure you’ll fare better. If you think you know what it is, fill out the form and you’ll be entered to win a coveted Hackaday Podcast t-shirt!

Finally, we get on to the hacks with an atomic pendulum clock that’s accurate enough for CERN, safecracking the rough-and-ready way, and plenty of hacks that are non-destructive to nice, old things. We’ll gush over a tiny DIY adjustable wrench, drool over CNC pizza, and rock out to the sounds of a LEGO guitar/synthesizer thing.

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.

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast 204: Cesium, Colorful Cast Buttons, And CNC Pizza” →

Lo-Fi Fun: Beer Can Microphones

December 27, 2022 by Kristina Panos 16 Comments

Sometimes, you just need an easy win, right? This is one of those projects. A couple months back, I was looking at my guitars and guitar accessories and thought, it is finally time to do something with the neck I’ve had lying around for years. In trying to decide a suitable body for the slapdash guitar I was about to build, I found myself at a tractor supply store for LEGO-related reasons. (Where else are you going to get a bunch of egg cartons without eating a bunch of eggs?) I noticed that they happened to also stock ammo boxes. Bam! It’s sturdy, it opens easily, and it’s (very) roughly guitar body shaped. I happily picked one up and started scheming on the way home.

Having never built a cigar box guitar before and being of a certain vintage, I’m inclined to turn to books instead of the Internet, so I stocked up from the library. Among my early choices was Making Poor Man’s Guitars by Shane Speal, who is widely considered to be the guru on the subject. In flipping through the book, I noticed the beer can microphone project and was immediately taken by the aesthetic of some cool old 70s beer can with a 1/4″ instrument jack on the bottom, just asking for some dirty blues to be belted into it. I had to build one. Or twelve.

Continue reading “Lo-Fi Fun: Beer Can Microphones” →