25C3: Cheap Swarm Robotics

December 30, 2008 by Eliot 5 Comments

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The Formica project was our favorite presentation at 25C3. The goal is to build open source swarm robots as cheaply as possible. The team ended up building 25 robots in an assembly line fashion. With enough lead time, the price could get as low as £15 each. Each bot has two direct drive cellphone vibration motors with tiny neoprene wheels. They’re controlled by an MSP430 microcontroller. The only really specialized chip is a charge controller so the bots can charge without any intervention. They have copper skis on the front that touch the ground plane plus antennas to contact Vcc. On top of the bot are three IR detectors for both navigation and for transferring firmware updates between bots. A reflective sensor is on the underside for detecting “food”. It looks like a great design and any easy way for anyone to start researching swarm robotics.

Card Shuffling Machine Failure

December 30, 2008 by Eliot 19 Comments

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Breaking from his usually routine of winning at everything, [Glacial Wanderer] has posted one of his projects that didn’t actually work. It’s a Rube Goldberg style card shuffling machine. He wanted something that was visually interesting while still randomizing the cards. A blower would be mounted to the top to mix the cards similar to a lottery ball machine. The cards would then drop into a chute that would make sure all of the cards were oriented correctly before being presented to the user. After building the first prototype, several problems were apparent. The first of which was the fan not being strong enough. His interest was waning and it looked like the time he’d have to invest in fixes was growing quickly, so he decided to cut his loses. He still posted about the prototype in hopes that it could help someone else exploring this sort of machine. A video of the mechanism can be found below.

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Scratch Built Air Muscles

December 21, 2008 by Eliot 9 Comments

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We first talked about air muscles in 2005 while lusting after Shadow Robotic’s dexterous hand. The pneumatic devices are known for being lightweight and compliant. They’re designed to be used in robot arms and legs. [jelengar] stumbled across this guide to building your own air muscles. We’re not exactly sure what the original source is since it reads like a machine translation. The core is a piece of silicone tubing used in aquariums. It’s sealed at one end with a bolt. Braided electrical sheathing is slid over the tube and secured using multiple wraps of 24gauge wire. They say to test it using 20psi, but there’s no mention of what the limits are.

Machining Custom Robot Parts

December 18, 2008 by Jason Rollette 14 Comments

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Robot Magazine has a great article about how to machine custom robot parts. In this article [Matt Bauer] shows the basics of making custom robot parts and skeletal brackets for his humanoid robot creations using a CNC mini-mill. He uses a custom jig overlay designed to make cutting thin sheet stock much easier and to protect his equipment. This template concept creates a platform for many other custom parts going forward. [Matt] includes the .nc g-code files as well as a “how-to” PDF in a ZIP file.

Wii Nunchuck Controlled Servo Bot

December 17, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 13 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlukl5fLi7s]

[Stuart.Mcfarlan] is back. This time he has added Wii Nunchuck control to his servo bot. You may recall servo bot, or SERB, from a few weeks ago. Now the little bot can be controlled by either the joystick, or the gyroscope in the Nunchuck. Too bad its wired though, wireless is the next step right?

Rideable Hexapod

December 16, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 22 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuRT9gC0CGs]

Who hasn’t fantasized about riding on a hexapod robot? With these detailed instructions, you very well could be living out your fantasy very soon. As you can see in the video, they opted for connected legs instead of 6 independent ones, so your dreams of riding the dancing Lou Bega bot may have to wait for another day.

[via Hack N Mod]

Year In Ideas

December 13, 2008 by Eliot 5 Comments

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The New York Times has published their 8th annual Year in Ideas. It’s a collection of interesting research and policy changes that have happened in the last year. They cover several projects that we’ve found noteworthy in the past. Pictured above is [Max Donelan]’s power generating knee brace. It generates power as you perform mundane daily activities. Another pick was the Brickley Engine. It has a unique piston layout to reduce friction for increased efficiency. We were particularly interested in the research that discovered drone pilots become exhausted far quicker than pilots in real aircraft. It’s doubtful that this problem of “sensory isolation” will go away and we wonder what other fields it might appear in. They even mention [Josh Klein]’s crow vending machine. You’ll find something to pique your interest in the Year of Ideas, even if it’s DNA forensics for dog poop.

[via Waxy]