The RC White House Robot

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This remote controlled, Arduino-based robot was created by a young student named [Quin] who likes to teach electronics classes at hackerspaces. It is an adaptation of this awesome, fast, fully autonomous mini Roomba that has since driven its way into the Presidential building during the 1st ever White House Maker Faire.

The quick, little device uses a robot chassis kit with an XBee wireless module so that the controller and the robot can be connected together. An NFC Shield was hacked and split in half so that the wires could be soldered in place.

[Quin]’s goal was to develop a fun game that records the number of times the robot drives over NFC tags laid across a flat surface. Points are shown in the form of blinking lights that illuminate when the device goes over the sensors, keeping track of the score.

The controller container was made with an open source 3D printer called a Bukobot. The enclosure holds an Arduino and another XBee shield along with a joystick and a neopixel ring, giving it a nice polished look complete with a circle of beautiful, flashing LED’s.

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Touring Deezmaker, The First *Good* 3D Printer Store In The World

When we visited the Crash Space hackerspace earlier this week, it came to our attention we were staying mere blocks away from Deezmaker, a 3D printer store in beautiful Pasadena that is home base for the Bukobot and Bukito printers, an awful lot of awesome printed plastic things, and [Rich] a.k.a [whosawhatsis], creator of the RepRap Wallace and all this stuff. Obviously a tour was in order.

Inside Deezmaker is a treasure trove of printed baubles and a fishbowl full of a herringbone planetary gear systems free for the taking. They have printers running all the time, a very nice lab for [whosawhatsis], and enough work space to host a few workshops every week.

In the video below, [Diego], the big cheese of Deezmaker takes us around the shop showing off his wares. [whosawhatsis] also makes an appearance showing off his latest invention, the Bukito printer. It’s a very small and incredibly portable printer that can be powered by batteries. They’re using a 3-cell 5000mAh lipo battery when they take the Bukito camping. I didn’t catch how long the battery lasts, but it’s more than enough to squirt out a few of the gear systems they give away.

Video after the break.

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