Climbing Robot Glues It’s Own Feet To The Wall

May 29, 2012 by Mike Szczys 8 Comments

The problem of gripping all surfaces has always plagued the field of climbing robotics. But if you don’t care about damaging the wall, why not just let the robot glue its feet to the surface. That’s exactly how this robot does it, using a couple of climbing feet in conjunction with a hot melt glue gun wielding arm. It seems to be a predecessor of the hot glue 3D printing robot which we saw last week.

Check out the video to get a full overview of the climbing process, but here’s the gist of it. The legs and arm are able to pivot around the central axis of the robot, parallel to the climbing surface. Once one leg is glued in place the robot swivels around it so that the body is directly above that leg. From there it reaches up with the arm to deposit some glue on the wall, then moves it out of the way so the other foot can be pressed against the hot adhesive. When the newly attached foot has cooled sufficiently, the lower foot is reheated to free it from the wall. At this point the whole process repeats.

We’re still fond of vacuum-based climbers like this parachute-equipped robot. But the design of the hot-glue arm on this guy is something that might make it into one of our own projects someday.

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An Arduino Based Quadruped Robot

May 27, 2012 by Jeremy Cook 6 Comments

Sure, we see hexapods all the time at [HAD], but moving around with four legs can be more tricky kinematics-wise. This Instructable shows you how to make one out of balsa wood.

Although one might not think of balsa to make their robot out of [vexedpheonix] explains that this was chosen because it’s extremely light and easy to work with. Since he was trying to keep costs down, the cheapest servos available were used. These weren’t all that powerful, so the lighter the body the better! According to the included bill of materials, he was able to keep the entire robot build under $100.

According to the article, the hardest part was making four copies of the same leg. We might suggest using a CNC router, but building one would obviously add a huge layer of complication to the project!

Thanks for the tip on this one [SteveT]! Be sure to check out the video of this little robot waving one of it’s legs or trying to walk after the break! Continue reading “An Arduino Based Quadruped Robot” →

Robot Fish Detect Pollutants

May 26, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 4 Comments

If you happen to visit the Spanish port of Gijon, you may notice some giant yellow robotic fish swimming around. These 5 foot long swimmers are part of a proposed sensor network to detect pollutants in the water. Equipped with an array of sensors, the fish can test for general water quality, or swap out the sensors for specific testing. They communicate with each other to keep from straying too far from the rest of the network and the base charging station.

The fish was designed by the Shoal Consortium, a European commission funded program that draws from intelligent minds in universities all over europe. While the fish cost over $35,000 right now, mass production should reduce that cost considerably.

You can see them swimming around in the BBC video at the link.

Robotic Falconry: Winged Unit Lands On You!

May 23, 2012 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

It doesn’t have four rotors, but this advanced-glider is every bit as impressive as the most complicated of quadrotor offerings. It’s the first glider that can successfully perch on your arm. We can’t help but think back to the owl in the original Clash of the Titans movie.

The team at the Aerospace Robotics and Control Lab of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is happy to show off the test flights they’ve been conducting. We’ve embedded two of them after the break which show the unit landing on this person’s arm, and on the seat of a chair. The image above shows a montage of several frames from the flight, and gives us a pretty good look at the articulated wings. You can seen them both bent in the middle of the flight to zero in on the landing zone. In addition to this there are flaps on the trailing edge of the wings and tail. The flight path is a bit wandering since the glider has no vertical tail to stabilize it.

Now if they can make it harvest power from overhead electrical lines they’ve got a spy-bird which can be dropped from a plane (or from a drone).

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Telepresence Robot Lets You Play A Hand Of Cards

May 23, 2012 by Mike Szczys 5 Comments

Virtual card games proliferate the interwebs, but this card-playing telepresence device is unique. [Patrick] calls the project Vanna, and we’d bet that’s an homage to the tile-flipping TV star [Vanna White]. Much like she flips the blank tiles to reveal letters, this device can flip the hand of cards either face up or face down.

Each of the six card trays is connected to a stepper motor. The local player deals the hands, placing each card in a tray so that it faces the webcam for the remote player. That remote player has an on-screen interface that can discard by tilting the tray forward and dropping the card on its face, or play a card by tilting toward to the local player so they can see its face value. All becomes clear in the clip after the break.

The hardware is USB controlled from a Windows machine thanks to the PIC 18F4585 which controls it. But it should be quite simple to get it talking to the OS of your choice.

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Hot Glue Appendages May Be Predecessor To The Flow Metal Of The T-1000

May 23, 2012 by Mike Szczys 3 Comments

The T-1000 was the shape-shifting robot from T2 (the second Terminator movie). It was so amazing because it could assume the form and texture of anything; humans, piercing weapons, inanimate objects. This robot doesn’t even compare, except for one small trait. When it needs a tool, it can build it as its own appendage. This really is nothing more than making tools with a 3D printer. However, the normal boxy infrastructure is missing.

The print head is mounted on a single robot arm, and the tool is printed using hot melt glue in order to stick to a plate which makes up the business end of robot arm. In this case the robot needed to transport some water. It sets down the plate, uses the hot melt extruder to print a cup on that plate, then picks it up again and uses it to move water from one bowl to the other. You can see it all in the video clip below the fold.

Sure, it’s just baby steps. But hot melt glue sticks are light weight, and don’t require much energy to melt. This makes for a perfect combination as a portable tool shop.

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How To Build A Competitive Battle Robot

May 18, 2012 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

Ever wonder what’s under the hood with a competitive battle robot like this one? It’s usually a big secret as teams don’t care to give their competition any help. But [AlexHrn] decided not only to give us a peek, but also shows us his step-by-step build process for Phoenix, the 30 pound flipping battle robot.

[Alex] has already seen quite a bit of success with a different robot, but he couldn’t quite beat another competitor whose bot included a flipping arm which threw its competition across the ring. So [Alex] decided to join in on the technique with this build. The arm itself uses air pressure to exert a large force very quickly. Inside, a paintball gun tank powers the pneumatic ram. It looks like this tank is charged up before the competition and only gets about 12 shots before it’s depleted. You can see the power in the quick clip after the break.

For locomotion the unit uses a couple of cordless drill motors. These have a fairly high RPM and work well when powered by batteries.

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