Micromouse Wins 2011 Maze Race In Under 4 Seconds

December 2, 2011 by Mike Szczys 21 Comments

It’s off to the races once again with the Micomouse maze solving contest at the 2011 RoboGames. This is a picture of the winner, a bot called Min7 (main page) which was built by [Ng Beng Kiat]. Using four phototransistors and a flash sensor it managed to first map the contest maze, then speed run it in under four seconds. See both runs in videos after the break. He’s certainly got a leg up on the bots we saw last year. Min7 beats them both in time, and overall control during the speed run.

[Ng] mentions that this year is the first time he’s built a micromouse with four wheels instead of two. There’s a gyro on board which aids navigation by feeding the orientation data to the STM32 chip which controls the device. We took a moment to page through his past designs. It’s remarkable how they’ve evolved through the years. Continue reading “Micromouse Wins 2011 Maze Race In Under 4 Seconds” →

Internet Controlled Robotic Arm

November 24, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 7 Comments

The guys over at Rusty Nail Workshop have put up an Internet controlled robotic arm for your amusement. While you’re waiting for the turkey to be done (or, you know, working), try your hand at moving some LEGO pieces around with a remote-controlled robotic arm.

The build log goes through the parts needed for the build. The arm itself is a Lynxmotion AL-5D, a heavy-duty device that’s far more capable and looks a lot better than our old Armatron.

The arm is controlled by an Arduino Uno. The Arduino is connected to the arm’s servo controller. Movement commands are received by an Ethernet shield and translated into servo commands. The entire build runs independently of a computer just like this project’s inspiration, the Orbduino.

Of course you can imagine the mayhem that would ensue if multiple people tried to take control of the robot simultaneously. A bit of code on the project’s website makes sure only one person has control of the robot at any given time. Check out what somebody else is building out of LEGO blocks with a Waldo. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to knock that work down.

Oh Boy Do We Want To Ride A Giant Inflatable Robot

November 23, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 11 Comments

We’ve seen videos of people attaching chairs to gigantic welding robots and riding them around the shop, and while that would be fun for a little bit, the joy would be fleeting. Flight simulators built on a Stewart Platform are becoming old hat. Now there’s a new robot we want to ride.

[Saul Griffith] from Otherlab has been working on pneumatic robots for some time now, and he just wrapped up his Ant-Roach build seen above. It’s a 15-foot-long cross between an anteater and a cockroach that’s completely inflatable and can actually walk with the help of an air compressor.

The ‘muscles’ of the ant-roach are fabric actuators that contract when inflated. Of course this makes the mechanics look like something out a biology book, but the robot is still a neat piece of engineering. The ant-roach weighs in at 70 pounds but could probably support a half-ton of riders.

From the videos after the break, we can see that the ant-roach looks a little clumsy when walking. [Travis Deyle] sent in his contribution that details an amazing inflatable robotic arm that can beat any human in an arm wrestling match. Now we can’t wait for a giant anthropomorphized bouncy castle to start lumbering to a children’s carnival.

Continue reading “Oh Boy Do We Want To Ride A Giant Inflatable Robot” →

TI Launchpad Adds Computer Control To A Robot Arm

November 21, 2011 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

[Eric Gregori] had an OWI535 toy robotic arm. Although cheap (coming it at around $30) the arm is only set up to be used via a wired control box. [Eric] knew he could do better by adding computer control via a TI Launchpad and motor driver peripheral.

The arm has shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints, a rotating base, and a gripper. All of these are actuated by 3V DC motors and have just two control wires. [Eric’s] motor driver add-on for the Launchpad works great in this case. It’s got three FAN8200 dual motor driver chips on board so it can control up to six motors. Once he made the hardware connections it’s just a matter of sending the commands to the Launchpad via its USB interface, but you will also need to use a larger microcontroller than comes with the Launchpad. Here he’s chosen an MSP430G2553.

In order to make things a little bit more fun he also wrote a GUI for controlling the arm from the computer. He used RobotSee, a programming language that lets you use an image of the hardware, and overlay the controls on top of it. Now he just needs to make this into a web interface and he can have a smartphone controlled crane game.

Don’t forget to check out the video after the break. Continue reading “TI Launchpad Adds Computer Control To A Robot Arm” →

Strap Yourself In And Let This Robot Arm Shake The Bejesus Out Of You

November 19, 2011 by Mike Szczys 35 Comments

This man is strapped onto the business end of a huge robotic arm. If you’ve seen videos of industrial robots on automobile assembly lines and the like, you know how fast and strong these machines are. But this isn’t headed for the factory floor, it’s a new flight simulator built do train Australian fighter pilots.

Researchers at Deakin University were looking for a way to give a fighter pilot a more realistic simulator experience. What they ended up with is an apparatus that can spin continuously on two axes. This lets the pilot feel what it might be like to stall and have the aircraft spinning out of control.

The video after the break is not to be missed. You’ll see the test pilot (read: guinea pig) flung this way and that to the point that we almost decided this should be a “Real or Fake” post. But we’re confident that this actually exists. We expect that future renditions will include the front portion of the aircraft and be completely enclosed in a projection dome, just like the Lexus driving simulator.

Continue reading “Strap Yourself In And Let This Robot Arm Shake The Bejesus Out Of You” →

Double-pendulum Spray Gives This Graffiti Bot Some Style

November 17, 2011 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

Here’s an art exhibit that does its own painting. The Senseless Drawing Bot (translated) uses the back and forth motion of the wheeled based to get a double-pendulum arm swinging. At the end of the out-of-control appendage, a can of spray paint is let loose. We’re kind of surprised by the results as they don’t look like a machine made them.

The video after the break gives a pretty good synopsis of how the robot performs its duties. The site linked above is a bit difficult to navigate, but if you start digging you’ll find a lot of build information. For instance, it looks like this was prototyped with a small RC car along with sticks of wood as the pendulums.

We can’t help but be reminded of this robot that balances an inverted double pendulum. We wonder if it could be hacked to purposefully draw graffiti that makes a bit more sense than what we see here?

Continue reading “Double-pendulum Spray Gives This Graffiti Bot Some Style” →

Snake-bot Gives Us The Mechanical Heevy-jeevies

November 15, 2011 by Mike Szczys 30 Comments

Basilisk? Nope, just your run-of-the-mill giant serpentine robot build. This build aims to recreate Titanoboa, a prehistoric snake which measured more than fifty feet long and weighted over a ton. They’re well on their way to completing the goal, as what you see above is fully operational, lacking only cosmetic niceties which would only serve to make the beast less horrifying.

The video after the shows the snake getting round an open space, presumably at the eatArt headquarters in Vancouver. You may remember the team from one of their other builds also featured in that clip, the Mondo Spider. Eventually, the snake will have a rider just like the spider does, sitting in a saddle mounted just behind the head. There’s few details about the hardware, but we know it’s hydraulic, and that they raised $10k to make the build possible.

For some reason seeing these bots interact gives us flashbacks to childhood cartoons. Is it possible the eatArt crew has been watching too many old G.I. Joe cartoons and the like?

Continue reading “Snake-bot Gives Us The Mechanical Heevy-jeevies” →