Robotic Platform Is Open Sourced And User Friendly

September 26, 2022 by Bryan Cockfield 9 Comments

Having a 3D printer or a CNC machine available for projects is almost like magic. Designing parts in software and having them appear on the workbench is definitely a luxury. But for a lot of us, these tools aren’t easily available and projects that use them can be out-of-reach. That’s why one of the major design goals of this robotics platform was to use as many off-the-shelf components as possible.

The robot is called the OpenScout and, as its name implies, intends to be a fully open-source robotics platform for a wide range of use cases. It uses readily-available aluminum extrusion as a frame, which bolts together without any other specialized tools like welders. The body of the robot is articulating, helping it navigate uneven terrain outdoors. The specifications also call for using an Arduino to drive the robot, although there is plenty of space in the robot body to house any robotics platform you happen to have on hand.

For anyone looking to get right into the useful work of what robots can do, rather than spending time building up a platform from scratch, this is an excellent project. It’s straightforward and easy to build without many specialized tools. The unique articulating body design should make it effective in plenty of environments. If you do have a 3D printer, though, that opens up a lot of options for robotics platforms.

Robots Chase Down Balls In Fun Outdoor Game

September 22, 2022 by Lewin Day 1 Comment

Art installations aren’t always about static sculpture or pure aesthetics. In the case of Operation Kiba, they can be fun games for everyone to enjoy.

The aim of Operation Kiba is for the players to collect all the “balls” on the playing field, which are intended to represent scoops of ice cream. Collecting the balls is done via robot. Each player is ostensibly tasked with collecting one color of ball or the other, but players often decide to work together in harmony instead. The balls are released at the start of the game by tipping over a big bowl. This is half the fun, and is achieved by tugging a string which upends the vessel and scatters the balls.

The remote-control robots themselves come from an earlier art installation the group built called Bubble Blast. They’re built using a 3D printed chassis, with wheels on each side driven by DC gear motors. With tank-style steering, they can rotate on the spot, providing good maneuverability. An Arduino Nano runs the show, receiving commands over a 433 MHz radio link. Power is via DeWalt cordless drill batteries, and the robots are controlled via arcade sticks. They’re color-coded to match the balls in the game.

As far as art installations go, it may not be fancy or pretentious, but it certainly looks like a lot of fun. We’re sure it could eventually guide many players towards the exciting world of antweight combat robotics. Video after the break.

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Retrotechtacular: The Original Robot Arm

September 19, 2022 by Al Williams 9 Comments

Do you know the name [George Devol]? Probably not. In 1961 he received a patent for “Programmed Article Transfer.” We’d call his invention the first robot arm, and its name was the Unimate. Unlike some inventors, this wasn’t some unrealized dream. [Devol’s] arm went to work in New Jersey at a GM plant. The 4,000 pound arm cost $25,000 and stacked hot metal parts. With tubes and hydraulics, we imagine it was a lot of work to keep it working. On the other hand, about 450 of the arms eventually went to work somewhere.

The Unimate became a celebrity with an appearance in at least one newsreel — see below — and the Johnny Carson show. Predictably, the robot in the newsreel was pouring drinks.

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Robot: Will Draw For Food

September 14, 2022 by Al Williams 2 Comments

Biological systems often figure out the best ways to get what they need to survive. Now a robot created by researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Imperial College London, and the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign can make the same claim. The robot operates in front of a plate that has electrical terminals on one end and various obstacles between those terminals and the robot.

The robot can pick up and rearrange some of the items on the plate and then draws paths to the terminals using conductive ink. The effect is the robot gets to “eat” if it solves the connection puzzle.

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An image of the track system of the Calico wearable on top of a garment. Different possible positions of the device (elbow, shoulder, etc) are shown by red dots overlayed on the top of the image.

The Calico Wearable Rides The Rails

September 14, 2022 by Navarre Bartz 12 Comments

If you’re feeling underwhelmed by yet another smartwatch announcement, then researchers at the University of Maryland may have just the wearable for you. Instead of just tracking your movement from one spot, Calico winds around you like a cartoon sidekick.

Using a “railway system,”(PDF) the Calico can travel around a garment to get better telemetry than if it were shackled to a wrist. By moving around the body, the robot can track exercise, teach dance moves, or take up-close heart measurements. Tracks can be magnetically linked across garments, and Calico can use different movement patterns to communicate information to the user.

This two-wheeled robot that rides the rails is built around a custom PCB with a MDBT42Q microcontroller for a brain which lets it communicate with a smartphone over Bluetooth Low Energy. Location is monitored by small magnets embedded in the silicone and plastic living hinge track, and it can use location as a way to provide “ambient visual feedback.”

The researchers even designed a friendly cover for the robot with googly eyes so that the device feels more personable. We think animated wearables could really take off since everyone loves cute animal companions, assuming they don’t fall into the uncanny valley.

If you love unusual wearables as much as we do, be sure to check out Wearable Sensors on Your Skin and the Wearable Cone of Silence.

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A Crowned Pulley Keeps Robot’s Treads On Track

September 11, 2022 by Donald Papp 20 Comments

[Angus] at Maker’s Muse recently created a new and tiny antweight combat robot (video, embedded below) and it has some wonderfully clever design elements we’d like to highlight. In particular: how to keep a tracked robot’s wheel belt where it belongs, and prevent it from slipping or becoming dislodged. In a way, this problem was elegantly solved during the era of the steam engine and industrial revolution. The solution? A crowned pulley.

Silicone bracelet and crowned pulley result in a self-centering belt with a minimum of parts.

A crowned pulley is a way of automatically keeping a flat belt centered by having a slight hump in the center of the pulley, which tapers off on either side. Back when steam engines ran everything, spinning axles along the ceiling transferred their power to machinery on the shop floor via flat belts on pulleys. Crowned pulleys kept those flat belts centered without any need for rims or similar additions.

The reason this worked so well for [Angus]’s robot is partly its simplicity, and partly the fact that it works fantastically with the silicone wrist bracelets he uses as treads. These bracelets are like thick rubber bands, and make excellent wheel substitutes. They have great grip, are cheap and plentiful, and work beautifully with crowned pulleys as the hubs. It’s a great solution for a tiny robot, and you can how it self-centers in the image here.

Antweight robots are limited to 150 grams which means every bit counts, and that constraint leads to some pretty inventive design choices. For example, [Angus]’s new robot also has a clever lifter mechanism that uses a 4-bar linkage designed to lever opponents up using only a single motor for power. Watch [Angus] explain and demonstrate everything in his usual concise and clear manner in the video, embedded below.

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Rolling Sphere Robotic Arm Seems Serpentine

September 1, 2022 by Danie Conradie 9 Comments

Hinge joints are usually the simplest to use for robotic applications, but if you want motion that looks more organic, rolling joint (or rolling contact) mechanisms are worth a look. [Skyentific] is experimenting with this mechanism and built a 6-degree-of-freedom robotic arm with it.

The mechanism doesn’t necessarily need the physical surfaces to roll across each other to work, and you can get to two degrees of freedom with the virtual rolling sphere mechanism. [Skyentific] demonstrates how these work with both cardboard cutouts and 3D printed models. Stacking three of these mechanisms on top of each other, with each stage driven by three Dynamixel servos, the motion seems almost serpentine.

Since the servos are driving the small bottom linkages of each stage, they are operating at a significant mechanical disadvantage. The arm can just barely keep itself upright on top of the table, so [Skyentific] mounted it upside down to the bottom of the table to reduce the load of its weight. With the front stage removed, the load is significantly reduced, and it doesn’t struggle as much.

An interesting advantage of this mechanism is that there is always a straight path down the center for cabling. The length of this line between the two plates remains the same throughout the entire range of motion, so it can also be used to route a rigid drive shaft. This is actually what was done on the LIMS2-AMBIDEX robot to rotate its hand, and is also where saw this mechanism for the first time. Interestingly, that implementation didn’t drive the linkages themselves, but used tension cables around the mechanism. We also see this in a very similar tentacle robot, so it might be a better option.

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