Jetson Nano Robot

October 16, 2020 by 5 Comments

[Stevej52] likes to build things you can’t buy, and this Jetson Nano robot falls well within that category. Reading the project details, you might think [Stevej52] drinks too much coffee. But we think he is just excited to have successfully pulled off the Herculean task of integrating over a dozen hardware and software modules. Very briefly, he is running Ubuntu and ROS on the PC and Nano. It is all tied together with Python code, and is using Modbus over IP to solve a problem getting joystick data to the Nano. We like it when existing, standard protocols can be used because it frees the designer to focus more on the application. Modbus has been around for 40 years, has widespread support in many languages and platforms.

This is an ongoing project, and we look forward to seeing more updates and especially more video of it in action like the one found below. With the recent release of a price-reduced Jetson Nano, which we covered last week, this might be an excellent project to take on.

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Procedural Barcode Synth Is As Simple As Black And White

October 10, 2020 by 3 Comments

We are no stranger to peculiar and wonderful musical instruments here at Hackaday. [James Bruton] has long been fascinated with barcode scanners as an input source for music and now has a procedural barcode-powered synth to add to his growing collection of handmade instruments. We’ve previously covered his barcode guitar, which converts a string of numbers from the PS/2 output to pitches. This meant having a large number of barcodes printed as each pitch required a separate barcode. As you can imagine, this makes for a rather unwieldy and large instrument.

Rather than looking at the textual output of the reader, [James] cracked it open and put it to the oscilloscope. Once inside, he found a good source that outputs a square wave corresponding to the black and white lines that the barcode sees. Since the barcodes [James] is using don’t have the proper start and stop codes, the barcode reader continuously scans.  Normally it would stop the laser to send the text over the USB or PS/2 connection. A simple 5v to 3.3v level shifter feeds that square wave into a Teensy board, which outputs the audio.

A video showcasing a similar technique inspired [James] with this project. The creators of that video have a huge wall of different patterns of black and white lines. [James’s] next stroke of brilliance was to have a small HDMI display to generate the barcodes on the fly. A Raspberry Pi 4 reads in various buttons via GPIO and displays the resulting barcode on the screen. A quick 3d printed shell rounds out the build nicely, keeping things small and compact. All the code and CAD files are up on GitHub.

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Aruna: An Open Source ROV For Affordable Research

October 7, 2020 by 19 Comments

Underwater exploration and research can be exceedingly dangerous, which is why remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) are so commonly used. Operators can remotely command these small submersibles to capture images or collect samples at depths which would otherwise be unreachable. Unfortunately, such technology comes at a considerable price.

Believing that the high cost of commercial ROVs is a hindrance to aquatic conservation efforts, [Noeël Moeskops] has been developing an open source modular ROV he calls Aruna. Constructed largely from off-the-shelf components and 3D-printed parts, the Aruna promises to be far more affordable than anything currently on the market. Hopefully cheap enough to allow local governments and even citizens to conduct their own underwater research and observations.

More than just the ROV itself, Aruna represents an entire system for developing modular underwater vehicles. Whether you decide to build the boilerplate ROV documented and tested by [Noeël], or implement individual components into your own design, the project is a valuable source of hardware and software information for anyone interested in DIY underwater robotics.

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Getting Started With Geometric Algebra For Robotics, Computer Vision And More

October 6, 2020 by 4 Comments

[Hugo Hadfield] wrote to let us know about an intriguing series of talks that took place in February of this year at GAME2020, on the many applications of geometric algebra. The video playlist of these talks can be found here along with the first video embedded after the break. For those of us who did not take advanced algebra during university, one can picture geometric algebra (GA) as an extension of vector algebra, adding more algebraic structures.

The essential difference is that GA adds a new vectors product, called the ‘geometric product’. The Cliff’s Notes version is that this is very useful for doing for example transformations, like in 3D spaces. For a quick algebraic introduction to GA for those familiar with vector algebra, the associated biVector website is helpful, from where one can also find additional information, software and other resources on getting started with GA.

These talks will take the viewer through the use of GA with robot kinematics (co-presented by [Hugo]), in astrophysics and AI. Definitely worth a watch, even algebra isn’t one’s strongest points.

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Hacker Has Robot Give Yubikey The Finger

October 6, 2020 by 3 Comments

[Bertrand Fan] is not a fan of the tiny, hard-to-actuate button on the average Yubikey. Before all that is 2020 occurred, [Bert] had the little 2FA nano-donglette plugged into a spare USB port on the side of their laptop so that it was always available wherever the laptop traveled. Now that working from home is the norm, [Bert] has the laptop off to the side, far out of reach.

A USB-C extension cable certainly made it more accessible, but did nothing for the actuation fail rate of the tiny button. Fed up by inconvenience and looking for a lockdown project, [Bert] decided to make a button-pressing robot finger that’s driven by a spare key on their groovy TKL keyboard.

It runs on a Wemos D1 mini and uses a small stepper motor to push a 3D-printed finger along a rack-and-pinion actuator. Since the Yubikey requires capacitive touch, [Bert] added a screw to the finger tip that’s wired to ground. Now all [Bert] has to do is press a decidedly cooler key to make the finger press the button for him. Check out a brief demo after the break.

If this security flaw makes you uncomfortable, perhaps this 2FA launch console is more to your liking. And as we saw recently, if you don’t like the cost of Yubikeys, you can roll your own 2FA device with a blue pill.

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Robot Cat Takes Inspiration From Nature

September 30, 2020 by 3 Comments

Oftentimes, a project starts with a clean sheet of paper, and we set out wildly sketching towards the goal in our minds. However, it can pay to do your research first, as [Chen Liang] demonstrates with this great robotic cat build.

[Liang] began the project after being dissatisfied with existing robot animals they’d seen online. Rather than simply attempt to build a cat from memory, instead, [Liang] decided to first study a real cat to ensure the resulting robot would bear real resemblence to its biological inspiration. [Liang]’s focus was on the skeleton, as replicating the way the real skeleton worked would create a robot with more authentic movement.

Using 3D printed parts and many, many servos, we think [Liang] has done an admirable job at creating a basic robot cat platform. With an ESP32 running the show, the cat can be posed using a web interface to control the servo positions of its various joints. We look forward to future upgrades that enable fluid movement and other capabilities, particularly involving the onboard camera.

It’s not the first robot cat we’ve seen, and it’s likely it won’t be the last. If you’ve got one living in your own lab, drop us a note on the tipline. Video after the break.

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Lego Ziplining Robot Climbs For Claps

September 28, 2020 by 10 Comments

The internet has given us plenty of cool robotics projects, but we don’t think we’ve seen one zipline before. At least not until now.

This cool little ziplining robot is courtesy of the folks over at [Tart Robotics]. As they described it, the robot moves using a 4-bar linkage mechanism with the motor’s torque “transferred to the arm mechanisms through a pair of bevel gears and a worm drive.” Even cooler, the robot is activated by clapping. The faster you clap, the faster the robot moves. That’s sure to wow your friends at your next virtual hacker meetup.

They had to do a bit of custom 3D printing work to get a few of the Lego components to connect with their non-Lego off-the-shelf bits, so that took a bit of time. Specifically, they had some cheap, non-branded DC motors that they used that did not naturally mate with the Lego Technic components used to create the rest of the robot’s body. Nothing a few custom 3D printing jobs couldn’t solve.

It always amazes us what cool contraptions you can put together with a few Lego blocks. What’s your favorite Lego project?

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