Video Quick-Bit: The Things That Move Robots

July 2, 2018 by Mike Szczys 1 Comment

Magenta Strongheart returns for a look at some of the coolest robotic entries from this year’s Hackaday Prize. Each of these answered the challenge for modular designs that will help supercharge new robot projects.

We think that cheap and abundant motor designs are poised to revolutionize robotics and several of the entries thought along those same lines. [Masahiro Mizuno] came up with a great 3D printed servo design based around a 6mm DC motor. Also in this ballpark, a team of two — Giovanni Leal and Jonathan Diaz — used 3D printing to turn some tiny metallic servos into linear actuators.

Picking stuff up is a difficult thing for a machine to do. We’ve long enjoyed seeing jamming grippers which do it with an inflatable bladder around a granular material (watch the video… it’s amazing). Two of these were demonstrated as part of the challenge. The Universal Jamming Gripper focuses on the entire mechanism, while Programmable Air took aim at the pneumatic actuation system and can adapt to other soft-robotics uses.

Rounding out this update, make sure to take a peek at the PCB stepper motor [Bobricius] built after being inspired by [Carl Bugeja’s] PCB motor. You’ll also want to see the entry that is taking on industrial farming. Imaging slow-rolling behemoths that use computer vision and spinning tillers to take care of weeds, cutting down on herbicide use.

Right now we’re in the thick of the Power Harvesting Challenge. Show us how you’re getting power from an interesting source and you’ll be on the way to the finals. Twenty power harvesting entries will get that honor, along with a $1,000 cash prize. The five top entries of the 2018 Hackaday Prize will split $100,000!

Wave Goodbye To Honda Asimo, A Robot That Would Wave Back

July 1, 2018 by Roger Cheng 20 Comments

Fans of technology will recall a number of years when Honda’s humanoid robot Asimo seemed to be everywhere. In addition to its day job in a research lab, Asimo had a public relations side gig showing everyone that Honda is about more than cars and motorcycles. From trade shows to television programs, even amusement parks and concert halls, Asimo worked a busy publicity schedule. Now a retirement party may be in order, since the research project has reportedly been halted.

Asimo’s activity has tapered off in recent years so this is not a huge surprise. Honda’s official Asimo site itself hasn’t been updated in over a year. Recent humanoid robots in media are more likely to be in context of events like DARPA Robotics Challenge or from companies like Boston Dynamics. Plus the required technology has become accessible enough for us to build our own two-legged robots. So its torch has been passed on, but Asimo would be remembered as the robot who pioneered a lot of thinking into how humanoid robots would interact with flesh and blood humans. It was one of the first robots who could recognize human waving as a gesture, and wave back in return.

Many concepts developed from Asimo will live on as Honda’s research team shift focus to less humanoid form factors. We can see Honda’s new ambitions in their concept video released during CES 2018 (embedded below.) These robots are still designed to live and work alongside people, but now they are specialized to different domains and they travel on wheels. Which is actually a step closer to the Jetsons’ future, because Rosie rolls on wheels!

Continue reading “Wave Goodbye To Honda Asimo, A Robot That Would Wave Back” →

Raspberry Pi Zero Stepper Driver, First Of Many Modules

July 1, 2018 by Donald Papp 32 Comments

The Raspberry Pi in general (and the Zero W model in particular) are wonderful pieces of hardware, but they’re not entirely plug-and-play when it comes to embedded applications. The user is on the hook for things like providing a regulated power source, an OS, and being mindful of proper shutdown and ESD precautions. Still, the capabilities make it worth considering and [Alpha le ciel] has a project to make implementation easier with the Raspberry Pi Zero W Stepper Motor Module, which is itself part of a larger project plan to make the Pi Zero W into a robust building block for robotic and CNC applications.

[Alpha le ciel] is building this stepper motor module as the first of many Raspberry Pi hats meant to provide the Raspi with the hardware for robotics applications. This module, in particular, features two A4988 stepper motor drivers, a connector for a power supply or battery providing 7-20V, and a buck converter to bring that power down to the 5V needed by the Pi itself. All the relevant pins are broken out onto the Pi’s GPIO header, making this module the simplest way possible to add a pair of motors to a Pi. What does that mean? Printers or self-balancing robots, really whatever you want.

A stepper driver that conforms to the footprint of the Pi Zero is a good start, and the larger concept of creating additional modules is a worthy entry to the Hackaday Prize.

Handmade Robot Brings Stop Motion To Life

June 29, 2018 by Tom Nardi 17 Comments

Stop motion animation is often called a lost art, as doing it (or at least, doing it well) is incredibly difficult and time consuming. Every detail on the screen, no matter how minute, has to be placed by human hands hundreds of times so that it looks smooth when played back at normal speed. The unique look of stop motion is desirable enough that it still does get produced, but it’s far less common than hand drawn or even computer animation.

If you ever wanted to know just how much work goes into producing even a few minutes of stop motion animation, look no farther than the fascinating work of [Special Krio]. He not only documented the incredible attention to detail required to produce high quality animation with this method, but also the creation of his custom robotic character.

Characters in stop motion animation often have multiple interchangeable heads to enable switching between different expressions. But with his robotic character, [Special Krio] only has to worry about the environments, and allow his mechanized star do the “acting”. This saves time, which can be used for things such as making 45 individual resin “drops” to animate pouring a cup of tea (seriously, go look).

To build his character, [Special Krio] first modeled her out of terracotta to get the exact look he wanted. He then used a DIY 3D laser scanner to create a digital model, which in turn he used to help design internal structures and components which he 3D printed on an Ultimaker. The terracotta original was used once again when it was time to make molds for the character’s skin, which was done with RTV rubber. Then it was just the small matter of painting all the details and making her clothes. All told, the few minutes of video after the break took years to produce.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen 3D printing used to create stop motion animation, but the final product here is really in a league of its own.

[Thanks to Antonio for the tip.]

Continue reading “Handmade Robot Brings Stop Motion To Life” →

R/C Rocket-Beest Burns Up Fuses Out There Alone

June 29, 2018 by Kristina Panos 8 Comments

We’re beginning to think the “S” in [Jeremy S Cook] stands for strandbeest. He’ll be the talk of the 4th of July picnic once he brings out his latest build—a weaponized, remote-controlled strandbeest that shoots bottle rockets. There are a bank of money shots up on Imgur.

This ‘beest is the natural next step after his remote-controlled walker, which we featured a month or so ago. Like that one, the locomotion comes from a pair of micro gear motors that are controlled by an Arduino Nano over Bluetooth. The pyrotechnics begin when nitinol wire cleverly strung across two lever nuts is triggered. All the electronics are housed inside a 3D-printed box that [Jeremy] designed to sit in the middle of the legs. We love the face plate he added later in the build, because those gumdrop LED eyes are sweet.

Can you believe that this vehicle of destruction began as a pile of innocent, pasta-colored pieces of kit? We dig the camouflaged battleship paint job, ’cause it really toughens up the whole aesthetic. And really, that’s probably what you want if you’re driving around a spindly beast that can just shoot rockets whenever. Let’s light this candle after the break, shall we?

Continue reading “R/C Rocket-Beest Burns Up Fuses Out There Alone” →

When The Going Gets Tough, These Wheels Transform To Tracks

June 29, 2018 by Roger Cheng 29 Comments

When we want to build something to go where wheels could not, the typical solution is to use tracks. But the greater mobility comes with trade-offs: one example being tracked vehicles can’t go as fast as a wheeled counterpart. Information released by DARPA’s ground experimental vehicle technology (GXV-T) program showed what might come out of asking “why can’t we switch to tracks just when we need them?”

This ambitious goal to literally reinvent the wheel was tackled by Carnegie Mellon’s National Robotics Engineering Center. They delivered the “Reconfigurable Wheel-Track” (RWT) that can either roll like a wheel or travel on its tracks. A HMMWV serves as an appropriate demonstration chassis, where two or all four of its wheels were replaced by RWTs. In the video (embedded below) it is seen quickly transforming from one mode to another while moving. An obviously desirable feature that looks challenging to implement. This might not be as dramatic of a transformation as a walking robot that can roll up into a wheel but it has the advantage of being more immediately feasible for human-scale vehicles.

The RWT is not the only terrain mobility project in this DARPA announcement but this specific idea is one we would love to see scaled downed to become a 3D-printable robot module. And though our Hackaday Prize Robotics Module Challenge has already concluded, there are more challenges still to come. The other umbrella of GXV-T is “crew augmentation” giving operators better idea of what’s going around them. The projects there might inspire something you can submit to our upcoming Human-Computer Interface Challenge, check them out!

Continue reading “When The Going Gets Tough, These Wheels Transform To Tracks” →

A LIDAR Scanner Build In Glorious Detail

June 29, 2018 by Lewin Day 15 Comments

LIDAR is a very exciting technology that is only just now starting to become accessible to the DIY market. Think radar, but with lasers. There’s a few different modules starting to pop up for just a few hundred dollars. But what is one to do with a LIDAR module? Well, [David] decided to build a room scanner with his Garmin LIDAR Lite, and it’s a wonderful sight to behold.

The scanner consists of a rotating platform, which is driven by a stepper motor. The platform then contains a second motor which runs a tilt axis, upon which the LIDAR is mounted. By aiming the LIDAR in various directions, and recording the detected range, it’s possible to build a point cloud representation of the surrounding area.

The build uses a couple of STM32 chips to do motor control and interface with the LIDAR, but where this build really shines is the mechanical side of things. [David] goes into serious detail about the machining of the parts that make up the rotating system, and there’s plenty of cool bits and pieces like slip rings to make it all work. There’s even some home casting going on here! Be warned, though: there’s some rather juicy close-ups of lathes in action, so put the kids to bed before watching this one all the way through.

We love to see a well-executed build, and even more so when we get to watch the intricate details of how it came together. If you’re still looking for some more inspiration, we’ve seen other LIDAR room scanners before, too.