Lego Spider-bot

February 3, 2010 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

[MkMan’s] LEGO spider robot combines pieces from a Mindstorm kit with a few milled plastic parts. The legs are a locomotive concept called a Klann Linkage. They operate in pairs and convert the rotational force from one motor into movement for two legs. Here, a total of four rotating gears moves eight legs, besting the hexapods we saw a couple of weeks ago in both leg count and motor economy.

Each limb is made up of five pieces plus one base for each pair. That makes eleven pieces per pair and a total of 44 for the entire robot. [MkMan] milled these parts out of 3/8″ HDPE stock. He’s made videos of forward motion and turning which we’ve embedded after the break. Even on a polished surface the bot looks fairly efficient at getting around.

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Icosatetrapedal Robot

February 2, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 32 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REzrYWOzhWc]

24, Icosatetrapeds have 24 legs. This robot, built by [Monica Anderson] back in 2005 has 24 pneumatic soft legs. The motion is fantastic, like watching some kind of sea creature walk. Though it only goes about 1 meter per minute, we just couldn’t stop watching. The compressors were scavenged from some military equipment designed for nerve gas detection, and the brain is a mac mini. The rest is just valves, solenoids, wood, and tube.

[thanks Tom]

Snow Blower Robot

February 1, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 23 Comments

For those of us who are stuck in the middle of a cold and snowy winter, this project will seem like a stroke of genius. [Jimmy Bui] has put together this robotic pushing platform. While it is seen in the video (on the linked page) pushing a snow blower, it seems to be simply bolted on. This means it could push pretty much anything, such as a lawn mower. The platform itself looks like a common layout. He’s using the base of a motorized wheel chair, and some scavenged bits to protect the circuitry. He says that he built it after seeing elderly people having a hard time shoveling their driveways in his neighborhood. They don’t say if he loans it out to them now, but we suspect that he does.

[via Robots Dreams]

Robot Band Gives Us So Much To Make Fun Of

January 30, 2010 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

[Pat Metheny] has a robot armada backing him up when he performs on stage. They’re going on tour and he’s done an interview explaining his mechanical band. Like the auto-drummer, this setup uses multitudes of solenoids to play the percussion instruments, each getting commands from a computer. It’s pretty wicked to see him use his guitar as a marimba controller; it’s so responsive that he can tremolo and the solenoid follows in kind.

But there’s a lot more going on here. We love to see crazy facial hair from time-to-time, but this guy’s just got crazy hair! This easy listening isn’t exactly hair-band material but more like live-action Animusic. It’s also reminiscent of the automated orchestras at House on the Rock, an attraction you may remember reading about in American Gods. It’s fun to kid, but whether you like the music or not, he’s certainly talented when it comes to this genre.

[Thanks Grey]

5 Legged Locomotion

January 27, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 25 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2Rxo6B4EQQ]

When designing legged robots, we generally see an even number of legs. Mainly, we think, it is due to us modelling things after nature. But with robotics, you’re free to do whatever you want. [Iketomu-san] has built this unsettling 5 legged robot out of parts he had lying around. The gait is fairly interesting. He mentions that it could be used for robot fighting, where the odd leg would serve as a prop from behind and the two legs up front could be weapons. What kind of gait or use can you come up with for this thing?

SpiderBot Prompts Laser Envy

January 21, 2010 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

[Daniel’s] horrifying hexapod makes us wish we were sitting next to a laser cutter. The parts are cut from 4.9mm plywood and include laser-sculpted sections to allow the twenty servos to properly seat in their mounting spaces. We would suggest that you build it in secret so as not to ruin the surprise when your house mates come home to find this romping around their room.

Sadly, we couldn’t find video of this in action but go look at this other hexapod if the still shots aren’t good enough. Adding two legs to the party, you behold the video after the break of the 8-legged spider milled from ABS.

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Robots In Space

January 21, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 22 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl6lZbyLkzs]

SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient Experimental Satellites) are experimental robots made at MIT for the purpose of testing robot locomotion in space. As you can see in the video above, they are capable of maneuvering pretty well. They seem to hold formation fairly tightly. They are using compressed CO2, through 12 different thrusters for positioning. They should be capable of autonomously navigating around each other as well as docking to one another.