LEGO Book Scanner

December 17, 2009 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

Here’s a good one from a few years back. [Muranushi] built a scanner to automatically scan an entire book. LEGO is used as the primary building material. A book is placed on a LEGO balance (inset photo) with a counterweight that eases the work of raising and lower the book. The book is lowered, a LEGO carriage moves across the book to turn the page, the book is raised to the glass of an upside-down scanner and scanned into a laptop.

It seems LEGO and imaging devices are a great match. Most of the parts used here are from LEGO Technical set 8485, a set that comes with motors and a motor controller seen above, on the floor behind the computer. We’ve embedded some video after the break of a book in the midst of the scanning process. Continue reading “LEGO Book Scanner” →

Remote Control Pellet Gun – With Scope

December 10, 2009 by Mike Szczys 40 Comments

Project Thunderbird is an automated predator and pest control system. It consists of a pellet gun mounted in a motorized base. The icing on the cake is a 60x zoom camera that has cross-hairs superimposed on the picture. This reminds us of the Internet hunting for the handicap we heard about years ago.

In the video after the break you can see how the motorized base works, watch the trigger-pull motor, and observe a demonstration of some target practice. The creator, [Gadgetapodimus], mentions the possible sale of plans and kits as soon as he completes the system. Perhaps it would be better if this was not easy for people to build.

Continue reading “Remote Control Pellet Gun – With Scope” →

Robot Hands You Your Ass At Beer Pong

December 9, 2009 by Mike Szczys 31 Comments

Guess who built this contraption? You’re right, college students. But as much as we like to make fun, the subject of Beer Pong is our addition, not theirs. The device uses an air stream that can be directed along two axis to control and sort ping-pong balls.

Unlike the lethal ping-pong ball launcher, the goal here is elegant control of the ball. They’ve achieved a great success. Watch the video after the break to see balls sorted into beakers by color, transferred to vessels over a large distance, and navigated through an elevated obstacle course. To give us a hint of what you can do with this, we see the machine controlling an apple, an onion, and a water bottle at the end of the video.

Continue reading “Robot Hands You Your Ass At Beer Pong” →

Saturday Afternoon Robot Cooking

December 5, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 13 Comments

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3VstJSxZlc&feature=player_embedded%5D

What happens when you combine an IR tracking PS3 Eyetoy, and a high-resolution projector? If you answered multi-touch display, you’re on the right track. Add a Wii Nunchuck controlled robot, a pinch of Community Core Vision tracking software combined with Processing, and the piece de resistance, a modified Memo TUIO particle system and you get the mesmerizing video above.

Check out this combination of crazy robotics and more with SparkFun’s free robot hobby builders meet-up on Saturday.

[Thanks Anon]

Phone Controlled Solar Charged Tank

December 3, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 11 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmLU4GS7zAI]

This looks like a fun little project. [Chris] has built a tank that he is controlling using his iPhone. Constructed mainly of off the shelf parts, like an Arduino and an Xbee wireless unit, the tank is controlled via processing. You can see that it is fairly responsive as he changes the speed of the motors. You don’t need an iPhone for this, really to do exactly what he’s doing any multi-touch input would work. You can download the code for it from his site.

We’re a bit curious about the solar charging. How much power does this use? Doesn’t that panel look a bit small? How long does it take to charge?

[via HacknMod]

Robo-one Dance Competition

November 30, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 34 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z6a3oxKDiQ]

This year at the creepy robot dace-a-thon, also known as the Robo-one dance competition, we get to see the creepy brought to new levels. We thought the Lou Vega decapitated head bot was creepy, but somehow these people managed to make a biped out creep a hexapod. Watch above as this uncanny valley resident tries to shimmy into your heart. We really are impressed by these bots though. The world of robot dancing has come a long way, those little servo bags are doing a better job than us on the dance floor.

Door Opening Help

November 27, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 21 Comments

For those who are seeking prosthetic limbs, or just require a little bit of robotic gripper help, the choices are very few and very costly. A newcomer to the area is hoping to change the costly part with their door opening arm. Costing only $2,000 to build, it is quite cheap compared to the other offerings. This arm can grip, twist, and swing its arm at the same time using a single motor thanks to a slip clutch.

[via Popular Science]