Metal mechanoid security patrol ride-on made from scrap

Homemade Scrapyard Security Mech Gives Uncle Super Powers

[Handy Geng] is back again with another bonkers build, that we just can’t not cover. His Uncle came to visit the workshop one day and said he’d love to go there every day, and could even watch over it when [Handy Geng] was away. But being an older chap and needing a stick to get around, he would not be much use if ‘bad guys’ decided to pay a visit. The obvious solution was to build a ride-on security mech which Uncle could ride on, (video, embedded below) and use to defend the shop from bandits.

The build starts with him unloading a large pair of tracked wheel units from his truck, which caused a chuckle around these parts when we tried to imagine the scrap yard he’d just visited! The build video is more of a spot-weld-come-assembly log, with the less interesting sub assembly construction omitted. If he’d included all the details, this video would have been hours long. Though, we’d probably watch that anyway.

Features of the final construction include, but not limited to, dual motors for on-the-spot turns, night-time patrol lights, dual pneumatic fists for attack mode, dual water cannons for a more gentle approach and rear facing speakers blasting out Chinese opera for the ultimate deterrent. Practical touches include an integrated glasses case for the ready-readers, and a walking cane holder, so the mech was Uncle-ready. He seemed impressed from the grin on his face!

Continue reading “Homemade Scrapyard Security Mech Gives Uncle Super Powers”

When A Ball Robot Becomes Two Wheels

It’s now about six years since Star Wars: The Force Awakens first showed us the little spherical robot BB-8, but it’s fair to say that along the way we’ve not lost our collective fascination for rolling-ball robots. There have been plenty of attempts to make a fully-rolling device, but perhaps [Derek Lieber] has a better take on it by turning a spherical robot into a two-wheeled roller by the addition of a pair of tyres. Inspired by a Samsung prototype that never made it to market, it works by the wheels working against the machine’s low centre of gravity, and using a tilt sensor to control speed.

The ball chassis is a 3D printed shell, into which after much experimentation with motors, the final version put a pair of gimbal motors with a set of magnetic position sensors. Inside is an Arduino Mega and a custom motor driver board sporting an LM6234, with an XBee radio for remote control.  Meanwhile the power comes from a set of three LiPo cells, and there is some extra lead ballast in the bottom to keep the whole thing balanced.

We’ve seen more conventional takes on a spherical robot in the past, but we’re particularly keen on this one, and excited to see where the future takes it.

Continue reading “When A Ball Robot Becomes Two Wheels”

Robot Delivery To Your Door

While online shopping was already very popular in South Korea, it has become even more so as people stay home more during the pandemic. Several robotic delivery services have launched around the city, such as 7-Eleven using the Neubie robot by Neubility, the GS25 convenience store using LG’s CLOi ServeBot, and the Baemin food delivery service using the Delidrive robot.

Love it or hate it, in the dense population of big cities like Seoul the vast majority of people live in apartment complexes. This lends itself well to these robot delivery projects. In fact, many of these pilot projects are only available in one apartment complex, which can consist of ten to twenty 15+ story buildings. Training your robot to navigate the sidewalks, operating the doors, calling the elevators, and buzzing the customer’s home intercom is an easier task when dealing with only one campus.

Some projects are more ambitious, like another Neubility system operating on the Yonsei University Songdo City campus. You can order fried chicken and have it delivered by a Neubie robot, which comes to your address along the sidewalk at a brisk 5 to 6 km/h. There are some issues, however. First of all, government regulations haven’t quite kept up with the technology. These services are basically operating case-by-case, temporary waiver basis. They are not allowed to operate on the streets, and when driving on the sidewalks they have to avoid bumping into people.

We wrote about a prototype RC truck delivery system last year, and covered Amazon drones and Automating Freight Delivery as well. These all show promise, but are not mainstream yet. The vast majority of your orders are still delivered by a person. Will these automated delivery services eventually replace humans? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Do You Need A Cycloidal Drive?

A cycloidal gear drive is one of the most mesmerizing reduction gears to watch when it is running, but it’s not all just eye-candy. Cycloidals give decent gearing, are relatively compact and back-drivable, and have low backlash and high efficiency. You probably want one in the shoulder of your robot arm, for instance.

But designing and building one isn’t exactly straightforward. Thanks, then, to [How To Mechatronics] for the lovely explanation of how it works in detail, and a nice walkthrough of designing and building a cycloidal gear reducer out of 3D printed parts and a ton of bearings. If you just want to watch it go, check out the video embedded below.

The video is partly an ad for SolidWorks, and spends a lot of time on the mechanics of designing the parts for 3D printing using that software. Still, if you’re using any other graphical CAD tool, you should be able to translate what you learned.

It’s amazing that 3D printing has made sophisticated gearbox designs like this possible to fabricate at home. This stuff used to be confined to the high-end machine shops of fancy robotics firms, and now you can make one yourself this weekend. Not exotic or unreliable enough for you? Well, then, buy yourself some flexible filament and step on up to the strain wave, aka “harmonic drive”, gearbox.

Thanks to serial tipster [Keith] for the tip!

Continue reading “Do You Need A Cycloidal Drive?”

Shake With Your New Robot Hand

Korean researchers have created a very realistic and capable robot hand that looks very promising. It is strong (34N of grip strength) and reasonably lightweight (1.1 kg), too. There are several videos of the hand in action, of which you can see two of them below including one where the hand uses scissors to cut some paper. You can also read the full paper for details.

Continue reading “Shake With Your New Robot Hand”

OpenDog Version 3 Is Ready To Go Walkies

We’ve been following [James Bruton]’s open dog project for a little while now, and with his considerable pace of work – pandemic or no pandemic – development has been incredibly rapid. The latest milestone is the public release of version 3 (Video, embedded below.) This upgrade to the system adds 3D printed cycloidal gearboxes, removing the previous belt drives. [James] had immense fun tuning the motor controller parameters for these and admits they’re not completely dialed in yet. He notes that the wider gearbox body means that the robots geometry needed to change a little, and the previous belt-drive version may have a bit of an edge, but he’s confident he can make it work (and given his incredible previous robotics builds, we totally believe he’ll nail it!)

Silicone overmolding around a 3D printed former, using a 3D printed mould

Older versions struggled with slippery plastic feet; the advantage of a predictably smooth contact shape of a rounded foot is somewhat offset by the limited contact patch size, and that means not so much grip on some surfaces. [James] solution was obvious enough – just learn how to make 3D printed silicone moulds and cast a nice rubber foot around a plastic former, and problem solved! Unfortunately he neglected to add some recesses for a lever to get in between the mould halves, so it was a bit of a struggle to separate after curing. A beginner’s mistake that won’t be repeated, we’re sure.

Full source for openDogV3 is now available on the GitHub page. Here’s the playlist for the whole project, as well as direct links for the cycloidal drive development (part1, part2, part3.) But before you all go diving in to start 3D printing your own pooch, [James] tells us that the total cost would be around $2000 all in, with the bulk of that being the motors and ODrive units, so this one for the serious builder only!

We’ve covered robot dogs a fair bit, a particularly nice example is The Dizzy Wolf, and if you’re wondering just why on earth you’d want a robot dog, then Ask Hackaday has you covered as well.

Continue reading “OpenDog Version 3 Is Ready To Go Walkies”

Self balancing wheeled robot with auto-righting arms lofted high

A Self Righting Balancing Robot Configured The Easy Way

Norwegian electronics hacker [Hans Jørgen] aka [time expander] on YouTube, has a clear interest in robotics, and for his latest effort, decided that it was time to build a custom controller platform. Since [Hans] had a pile of Dynamixel servo motors lying around to test it with, a good first project for the platform was a simple self-balancing wheeled robot. (Video, embedded below)

We say ‘simple’ but that isn’t really the case, as there is a fair bit going on to get this to work. The first problem, is sensing, which was quickly solved with the excellent BMO055 IMU chip. Next, what to do when it falls over? Simply adding some servo-controlled arms, allowed the robot to flip itself back upright. Control is covered with a ESP32-WROOM-32D module from our friends at Espressif, which enables remote firmware uploading over the air (OTA update) as well as parameter tuning. In order to implement the latter, [Hans] chose to use bonjour/mDNS which is an implementation of zero-configuration networking. This gets the ESP32 onto the WiFi, but it isn’t immediately obvious how to connect to it, without a little digging around. To simply connection, [Hans] implemented a dynamic QR code via the connected OLED. This is just one of the those tiny 0.96″ displays that you see touted all over our corners of the internet.

Simply by scanning the QR code with any compatible device to hand brings up a simple configuration web page, allowing one to tweak the PID controller parameters, and get that balancing robot into check. Great stuff!

The PCB was designed in Eagle, firmware for the ESP32 is available, 3D models for the plastic are designed with fusion 360, and [Hans] is even currently working on some preliminary Alexa integration. What a fun project!

All the above, albeit an early cut (look out for bugs!) is available on the project GitHub for your viewing pleasure.

We’re no stranger to self-balancing 3D-printed bots, whilst you’re here, why not checkout A problematic Self-Balancing Sonic the Hedgehog? If wheeled bots aren’t your cup-of-tea, there’s a not-at-all freaky one-legged bouncing bot that may be of interest.

Continue reading “A Self Righting Balancing Robot Configured The Easy Way”