1980s Toy Robot Arm Converted To Steam And Other Explorations

August 3, 2016 by Gerrit Coetzee 19 Comments

We were doing our daily harvest of YouTube for fresh hacks when we stumbled on a video that eventually led us to this conversion of a 1980s Armatron robot to steam power.

The video in question was of [The 8-bit Guy] doing a small restoration of a 1984 Radio Shack Armatron toy. Expecting a mess of wiring we were absolutely surprised to discover that the internals of the arm were all mechanical with only a single electric motor. Perhaps the motors were more expensive back then?

The arm is driven by a Sarlacc Pit of planetary gears. These in turn are driven by a clever synchronized transmission. It’s very, very cool. We, admittedly, fell down the google rabbit hole. There are some great pictures of the internals here. Whoever designed this was very clever.

The robot arm can do full 360 rotations at every joint that supports it without slip rings. The copper shafts were also interesting. It’s a sort of history lesson on the prices of metal and components at the time.

Regardless, the single motor drive was what attracted [crabfu], ten entire years ago, to attach a steam engine to the device. A quick cut through the side of the case, a tiny chain drive, and a Jensen steam engine was all it took to get the toy converted over. Potato quality video after the break.

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The Most Useless Book Scanner

August 1, 2016 by Elliot Williams 9 Comments

How do artificial intelligences get so intelligent? The same way we do, they get a library card and head on over to read up on their favorite topics. Or at least that’s the joke that [Jakob Werner] is playing with in his automaton art piece, “A Machine Learning” (Google translated here).

Simulating a reading machine, a pair of eyeballs on stalks scan left-right and slowly work their way down the page as another arm swings around and flips to the next one. It’s all done with hand-crafted wooden gears, in contrast to the high-tech subject matter. It’s an art piece, and you can tell that [Jakob] has paid attention to how it looks. (The all-wooden rollers are sweet.) But it’s also a “useless machine” with a punch-line.

Is it a Turing test? How can we tell that the machine isn’t reading? What about “real” AIs? Are they learning or do they just seem to be? OK, Google’s DeepMind is made of silicon and electricity instead of wood, but does that actually change anything? It’s art, so you get license to think crazy thoughts like this.

We’ve covered a few, less conceptual, useless machines here. Here is one of our favorite. Don’t hesitate to peruse them all.

Robo Hobo Bamboozles Passers-By

July 27, 2016 by James Hobson 28 Comments

Robots are increasingly seeing the world outside of laboratories and factories, and most of us think we would be able to spot one relatively quickly. What if you walked past one on the street — would you recognize it for what it was? How long would it take for you to realize that homeless organ grinder was a robot?

The brainchild of [Fred Ables], Dirk the homeless robot will meander through a crowd, nodding at passers-by and occasionally — with a tilt of his hand — ask for change, churning out a few notes on his organ for those who oblige him. [Ables] controls Dirk’s interactions with others remotely from nearby, blending into the crowds that flock to see the lifelike automaton, selling the illusion that Dirk is a real human. This is often effective since — as with most homeless people — pedestrians won’t spare Dirk a second glance; the reactions of those who don’t pass him over range from confusion to anger or mirth over being so completely duped before looking for the puppeteer.

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Zizzy The Personal Robot Uses 3D Printed Artificial Muscles Instead Of Hobby Servos

July 25, 2016 by Gerrit Coetzee 4 Comments

Zizzy is a personal robot designed to help those with limited mobility. Rather than being assisted by a nightmare creature, Zizzy would offer a more appealing and friendly option.

The coolest part about Zizzy is the 3D printable pneumatic artificial muscles. Project creator, [Michael Roybal] said it took over a year of development to arrive at the design.

The muscles are hollow bellows printed out of Ninjaflex with carefully calibrated settings. A lot of work must have gone into the design to make sure that they were printable. After printing the muscles are painted with a mixture of fabric glue and MEK solvent. If all is done correctly the bellows should be able to hold 20 PSI without any problem.

This results in a robot with very smooth and precise movement. It has none of the gear noise and can also give when it collides with a user, a feature typically found only in very expensive motor systems. If [Michael] can find a quiet compressor system the robot will be nearly silent.

Drinkro The Synchro Bartender

July 25, 2016 by Jenny List 14 Comments

There is a significant constituency among hackers and makers for whom it is not the surroundings in which the drink is served or the character of the person serving it that is important, but the quality of its preparation. Not for them the distilled wit and wisdom of a bartender who has seen it all, instead the computer-controlled accuracy of a precisely prepared drink. They are the creators of bartending robots, and maybe some day all dank taverns will be replaced with their creations.

Drinkro is a bartending robot built by the team at [Synchro Labs]. It uses a Raspberry Pi 3 and a custom motor controller board driving a brace of DC peristaltic liquid pumps. that lift a variety of constituent beverages into the user’s glass. There is a multi-platform app through which multiple thirsty drinkers can place their orders, and all the source code and hardware files can be found in GitHub repositories. The robot possesses a fairly meagre repertoire of vodka and only three mixers, but perhaps it will be expanded with more motor driver and pump combinations.

There is a video of the machine in action, shown below the break. We can’t help noticing it’s not the fastest of bartenders, but maybe speed isn’t everything.

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The Most Expensive VR Experiment You’ll See All Week

July 24, 2016 by Donald Papp 9 Comments

There isn’t a lot of detail to be found behind this short demo of robot-based physical feedback for VR, but the video (embedded below) demonstrates things well. It’s an experiment in generating force feedback for virtual objects using a Baxter robot and the HTC Vive. When the user presses against a wooden block in VR, the robot presses back which simulates the mass of the virtual object. Force feedback is one of these areas in which research is ongoing, and in a variety of different directions.

Like so many other things in life, nothing beats the real thing for actual physical feedback. Also, there’s something great about giving a $25,000 robot the job of impersonating a few simple wooden blocks in VR, just so you can strap on a VR rig and basically give a robot a realistic-feeling fist bump.

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VertiGo Robot Drives Up Walls

July 24, 2016 by Gerrit Coetzee 19 Comments

This collaboration between ETH and the Disney empire’s research arm is a ultra-light robot that can roll across horizontal surfaces and also transition and climb walls.

The robot has four wheels with one steerable set, but its secret sauce is the two propellers gimbaled on its back. Using these propellers it can move itself across the ground, but also, when approaching a wall, provide enough thrust to overcome the gravity vector.

Naturally, the lighter the robot, the less force will be needed to keep it on the wall. That’s why the frame is made from carbon fiber corrugated sandwich panels. The motors, batteries, and controllers are all also light and small.

We liked how the robot was, apparently, using its propellers to provide additional stability even while on the ground. There is a video after the break, and more information can also be found on the Disney Research webpage.

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