Finally, A Practical Use For The Leap

September 3, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 15 Comments

Robots used in laparoscopic surgery are fairly commonplace, but controlling them is far from simple. The usual setup is something akin to a Waldo-style manipulator, allowing a surgeon to cut, cauterise, and stitch from across a room. There is another way to go about this thanks to some new hardware, as [Sriranjan] shows us with his Leap-controlled surgery bot.

[Sriranjan] isn’t using a real laparoscopic surgery robot for his experiments. Instead, he’s using the Le-Sur simulator that puts two virtual robot arms in front of a surgeon in training. Each of these robotic arms have seven degrees of freedom, and by using two Leap controllers (one each in a VM), [Sriranjan] was able to control both of them using his hands.

We’ve seen a lot of creative applications for the Leap sensor, like controlling quadcopters, controlling hexapod robots, and controlling more quadcopters, but this is the first time we’ve seen the Leap do something no other controller can – emulating the delicate touch of a surgeon’s hand

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[Update] Vladimir’s Robot Guitar

August 26, 2013 by Marsh 24 Comments

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[Vladimir Demin] is somewhat of a legend for us; in his spare time he’s been mastering the automation of musical instruments. This time he’s back with upgrades to his build and four new videos. [Vladimir’s] top priority was to rework the strumming mechanism that earlier ran on solenoids. He’s improved the sound quality and reduced the clicks by swapped to stepper motors and overhauling the software.

Compared to his earlier setup, this one sounds more soulful and less automated, but [Vladimir] admits that it’s still not good enough and that he’s working on a new, brilliant implementation. Until then, take a few minutes and check out the rest of the videos below, then join us in scratching our heads in amazement: everything is built with simple hand tools.

[Vladimir] has come a long way, and it started with this Bayan (button accordion). Last year’s guitar build is also worth a look, as well as an in-depth interview.

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Zappo The Robot Mixes Tone Generator, Sensors, Alarm Clock And More

August 10, 2013 by Mike Szczys 6 Comments

Now [Kevin] claims he built this robot for his 3-year-old son but we know he just used that as an excuse to spend way too much time in his workshop. The robot is a roundup of all the interesting things you can do with hobby electronics. It’s a great example of what you can teach yourself in one year, as [Kevin] only started tinkering with electronics about fourteen months ago.

The robot centers around an Arduino which manages to control a plethora of auxiliary boards. The alarm clock part of the build has a readout in the center of the robot’s chest. There are a bunch of sounds which can be played as the alarm, including a lot of iconic movie sound bytes. Add to that some playful features — like a tone generator which is altered by the column of potentiometers on the left, motion activated eyes, and sound activated ears — and you’ve got a dream-come-true of a toy for your kid.

As a side note, we wrote this several days ago, but ended up bumping it a couple of times in the publishing schedule. We reached out to [Kevin] to let him know a feature was on the way. When he learned that we bumped it in order to feature [Jamie Matzel’s] giant robot he had to laugh. The two met at a mini Maker Faire about a year ago and that interaction is what gave [Kevin] the confidence to start the project.

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Six Years, A Giant Robot, And A Kickstarter

August 8, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 20 Comments

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Since 2007, [Jamie Mantzel] has been building a huge remote-controlled walking robot. If you’ve been following him on his YouTube channel and blog, you’ve seen the very beginnings of him building a lumber mill to create a workshop, making the legs for his robot, and improving his welding rig. This week, though, has been very special. [Jamie] has finally finished his giant robot project, bidding closed the fevered dream of a madman who awakes to a 10 foot robot in his yard.

The giant robot is constructed nearly entirely out of scrap aluminum. In the interest of simplicity, [Jamie] has come up with some interesting techniques to scale up conventional RC gear to power huge motors swinging giant legs: the steering motors are powered by manual switches, but these switches are activated by servos. A brilliantly simple solution to driving high-current loads if we do say so ourselves.

[Jamie]’s robot has garnered a lot of attention over the years, so much so that toy companies have licensed his designs for a line of battling combat spiderbots. [Jamie] believes his robots should be more educational, so he’s launched a Kickstarter for his own version as a kit. With this kit, getting the bug tank robot up and running isn’t simply a matter of pulling it out of the box and installing batteries; [Jamie]’s version is an actual kit with linkages that must be assembled. We know which version we’d want.

It’s an amazingly impressive project, and we’re glad to see such an awesome cat has finally realized his dream of a walking aluminum arachnid of death.

Building A Strandbeest

June 13, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 8 Comments

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[Jeremy] may have given up on his big hexapod project, but that doesn’t mean he’s out of the world of legged robots just yet. He’s embarked on another project, much more elegant and beautiful than a simple hexapod. This time, he’s building a Strandbeest, the same machine designed by walking machine extraordinaire [Theo Jansen].

Coming up with the correct lengths and joints of a Strandbeest leg linkage isn’t something you can just pull out of your head, so after [Jeremy] found the inspiration for his new project he dug into the related literature on Strandbeest legs. He found the work of [Dominique Studer] and set to work making his own mechanical legs.

Right now, [Jeremy] has a prototype of the Strandbeest leg linkage made out of wood. It still needs a little bit of work, but soon enough there will be a PVC pipe Mountainbeest trolling the backwoods near [Jeremy]’s house.

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Hardware Store Robot Hand

June 3, 2013 by Mike Szczys 12 Comments

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Here’s a robot hand which can be built using mostly hardware store items. It doesn’t have the strongest of grips, but it does have lifelike movement. The demonstration video shows it picking up small objects like a metal nut.

The image above shows the ring and pinky fingers of the hand beginning to flex. These are controlled by the servo motors mounted in the palm area. The skeletal structure of each digit begins with the links of a bicycle chain. The links are first separated by removing the friction fit rods. Each rod is replaced with a screw and a nut, which also allows the springs (which open the digits) to be anchored at each ‘knuckle’.

[Aaron Thomen] didn’t stop the design process once the hand was finished. He went on to build a controller which lets you pull some rings with your fingers to affect movement. This movement is measured by a set of potentiometers and translated into electrical signals to position the hand’s servo motors. The demo, as well as two how-to videos are embedded below.

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Altering Automotive Window Motors For Use In Your Projects

May 16, 2013 by Mike Szczys 22 Comments

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We agree with [Mário Saleiro] that the motors from a car’s power windows make for a fantastic high-torque solution to your next project. If you have a you-pick junkyard in your town they’ll be dirt cheap after you put in a bit of time to find and removing the parts from the yard. But you’ll probably want to add a few extra steps to get them ready, and he’s done a great job of documenting how he augmented them with wheels and rotary encoders.

One aspect of the project which really struck home with us was his machine-shop-101 style tricks to mate the axle of the motor with the wheel. He has a process which ensures you will find the exact center of a cylinder as you work. This starts by lining up a bench vice on his drill press. He then inserts a drill bit upside down in the drill chuck, lowers it and clamps the vice on the bit. After loosening the chuck he ends up with the bit pointing up at the exact center of the chuck. Next he chucks up a piece of threaded rod, drilling a perfectly centered hole by lowering it into the drill bit while the drill press is rotating. The image above shows him using this machined part as a guide to continue the hole into the motor’s axle. Click through the link above to learn the rest of the tricks he uses.