[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QReb1hLfdbE]
Stairs are one of the most commonly faced mobility challenges for a robot. This robot’s design eliminates the need for a complex drive train or computer, and instead uses a clever mechanical design to climb stairs. Version three of the robot uses five servos modified for continuous rotation, a Picaxe28, sharp IR sensors, and bump sensors.
[via BotJunkie]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfeHN37MH1U]
[Tim] sent in these quick little line following bots (translated). They were sent as participants in cosmobot, but due to an unfortunate dropbox mishap, they didn’t have updated firmware. They placed fifth and ninth place. As you can see in the video above, they are quite speedy. You can get the schematics and code on their project page (translated). They are hoping to make improvements to place better with the same bots next year.
[ross], a reader is working on a CD changing and ripping robot. The arm picks up a CD and the platform then rotates, stopping in front of the tray to drop the CD. A JB welded tire pump provides the vacuum pick up, while a brake light acts as a resistor to trick a PC power supply into operation. A Motor Shield beefs up an Arduino in order to drive the servos.
[sprite_tm], whose projects we have covered in the past, took the popular bristlebot to an extreme and created a controllable version. A bristlebot consists of a small vibrating motor mounted with a battery on the head of a toothbrush. These micro-robots buzz around randomly, and he attempted to tame them. He used a platform of twin bristlebots and added an optical sensor from a laser mouse and an ATtiny13. The optical sensor is used to determine the relative motion of the robot, so that the motors can be adjusted accordingly. He also has a video of the bot using the sensor to find a mark on the floor and stay within bounds. Although it isn’t as accurate, it acts like a traditional line-following robot.
At Berkeley, they’re coming up with new ways to make their itty bitty hexapods. These are basically tiny flatpacked bodies cut from cardboard. The end goal is to not only make them smaller and faster to build, but to reduce the friction in the joints. You can download the files on their site as well as download movies of them in action. For a larger and somewhat less complicated flatpacked robot, check out the flatpacked 2 motor walker.
[thanks Thuli]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxLTJmmyqn4]
This guitar bot is part of the Legue of Electronic Musical Urban Robots, or LEMUR. As you can see in the video, it has 4 strings, each mounted on it’s own unit. The pitch is controlled by a sliding bridge, while the strings are plucked by a series of picks mounted to motor. The sliding bridge is quite fast, being able to shift 2 whole octaves in a quarter of a second. The final effect is quite nice, we would listen even if we weren’t watching a robot work. This is the kind of thing we should expect to see at the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition.
[via Hacked Gadgets]
[flickr video=3479713449]
This art display system was created by [Peter Sand]. It is called Plant Fasting and is comprised of a giant robot with interchangeable tools for various gardening tasks. Though the system is mostly automated, it can be controlled via a game pad. It has an Arduino as its brain and it looks like he’s done a completely custom setup for powering the interchangeable pieces.
