Pencil Balancer A Bit Noisy For Desk Use

November 30, 2010 by Mike Szczys 22 Comments

Who wouldn’t want to install this little bot as your newest pencil holder? Place a pencil tip-down and it will keep it from falling using two motors. There is a Dynamic Vision Sensor for each axis that provides feedback, but it’s not the same as using a camera. These sensors pick up changes in pixel contrast, outputting a positive or negative number based on the direction the pencil is beginning to fall. An NXP2103 running at 64 MHz reads in the values and drives the pair of servo motors accordingly.

If you’re interested in the nitty-gritty the full paper is available from the page linked above. It goes into great detail about the algorithm used, and includes plots and histograms showing the data capture during a balancing session. Or you can skip the eggheaded exercises and watch the video after the break.

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“Strong Enough To Lift A Person, Yet Gentle Enough To Embrace A Child.”

November 28, 2010 by Joseph Thibodeau 13 Comments

Tentacles have inspired fear and respect in humans long before anime came into the scene. Sailors shivered in their timbers at the thought of the great Kraken, or that octopus from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It’s no surprise to know that humans have been trying to harness this fear and respect in technological form since the mid-20th century at least.

The fascinating world of tentacle robots has come a long way. It used to be that every breakthrough in tentaclebot technology had to be justified with either a military or misogynistic application, as demonstrated in this remarkable MIT project from 1968.

Thankfully our society has moved on since those misguided times, and while there is still the ever-present military-industrial complex to push for tentacled combat-omatons, forward-thinking people on the domestic front like [festo] demonstrate that at least some of us want to use tentacle robots for peace, love and food handling.

Catch the video after the break.

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Balancing Inverted Pendulums

November 27, 2010 by Mike Szczys 38 Comments

The robot above can balance an inverted pendulum. But wait, it gets better. It can balance an inverted pendulum that is articulated in the middle like the one seen above. Wait, wait, wait… it gets even better. It can start with the pendulum hanging below the sliding carriage, flick back and forth to get the two segments swinging, and then come to equilibrium with the pendulum as seen above. Once there, it can recover from a bit of a shove, like some of the big boys. Very impressive, even when compared to two-wheeled balancers. See for yourself after the break.

We don’t have very much information on how this works. We do know that it was a seminar paper from a student at the University of Stuttgart but the rest is pretty much a mystery. Does it use visual processing? What kind of controller is driving this thing? We want to know the details but haven’t yet found a copy of the paper. If you know where we can get our mitts on it please leave a comment below.

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Dodecapod To Offset Segway As Futuristic Transport

November 26, 2010 by Mike Szczys 35 Comments

Who doesn’t love a 12-legged robot, especially if you can ride it around work? You can watch this one running around the patio with rider perched atop it. The machine translation is a bit crude, but it seem this is based on the wicked walking sculptures of [Theo Jansen]. The rider can shift their center of gravity to control the walker, much like a Segway. We’d bet this makes for a rough ride on anything but a smooth level surface, but we’re fine with indoor use only. After all, you’ll need to be close to a charging station as this boasts 45 minutes of juice when transporting a 165 pound operator. See it scurry after the break.

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Elder Robots

November 25, 2010 by Joseph Thibodeau 8 Comments

It’s always nice to show our appreciation for our elders. Today’s young robots may be whippier, snappier, and go-gettier than their forbears but you have to admit that few of them have the moxie to dust themselves off after 45 years and have a walk around town (although it still wouldn’t qualify for a senior’s discount). George, a British humanoid robot made out of a WWII bomber, was resurrected by his inventor after decades in the garage–and all it took was a little bit of oil and some new batteries. Respect.

George is very impressive, but he’s not the oldest robot by any means. Ever-popular Buddha inspired a Japanese robot some 80 years ago that has recently been updated (pics here)–do robots meditate in solid state?

In a similar aesthetic vein to George, Chinese farmer Wu Yulu made a robotic rickshaw driver, one of his many eccentric projects since the 80s.

Here on hackaday we see a lot of modern robotics, but what about a return to the old school? Next time you have a scrap airplane on hand why not weld together a classic robot, and while you’re at it give your regards to old George.

PR2 + Kinect

November 23, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 21 Comments

Willow Garage, the makers of the PR2 robot have been playing with the Kinect. You might be a little tired of seeing every little new project people are doing with it, but there’s something here we couldn’t help but point out. When we posted the video of the guy doing 3d rendering with the Kinect, many of the commenters were speculating on how to get full environments into the computer. Those of you that said, “just use two, facing each other” seem to have been on to something. You can see that they are doing exactly that in the image above. The blue point cloud is one Kinect, the red cloud another. The Willow Garage crew are using this to do telemetry through the PR2 as well as some gestural controls. You can download the Openkinect stack for the Robot Operating System here. Be sure to check out the video after the break to see the PR2 being controlled via the Kinect as well as some nice demonstrations of how the Kinect is seeing the environment.

[via BotJunkie]

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Five Free Evalbots

November 18, 2010 by Joseph Thibodeau 12 Comments

If you’re a member of a hackerspace and you’ve been hoping and wishing for an evalbot to tear apart with your bare hands, you’re in luck! [Dave Bullock] is giving out five evalbots to five lucky hackers chosen at random. We thought that the $125.00 deal we saw the other day was good but this is right outta town!

The draw is on Black Friday, so you’ve got a few days to submit your details. We’ve only had a few posts about the evalbot to-date covering the initial examination of the hardware and a USB power modification. We’re interested in seeing where people take this, and we’d love to follow how each of these free ‘bots turns out. For those already working on an evalbot, keep it up and take lots of pictures!

[Photo credit: Dave Bullock from eecue]