robot

1004 Articles

Robot Gets Around On All Fours, Thanks To Many, Many Servos

October 13, 2020 by 2 Comments

As far as robots are concerned, wheels and tracks are great ways to get around when you’ve got serious work to do. However, if you want to build something that feels more animal than machine, building a walking ‘bot is the way to go. [Technovation] delivers a great example in the form of this quadruped design.

It’s a build executed in the modern style, taking full advantage of contemporary design tools and processes. The entire robot is built around twelve servo motors that provide rotation and translation to the robot’s joints. After importing the servo models into Fusion 360, [Technovation] set about building the rest of the body around them. An Arduino Uno runs the show, which addresses the many servos thanks to a Sensor Shield that has a multitude of useful outputs.

[Technovation] put a specific focus on durability and robustness during the design phase. The platform is intended as a test bed for various walking styles and gaits, and thus any hardware failures would be an unnecessary distraction from the project’s goals. The chassis is a great platform to learn on, and we expect to see further developments in future.

The eerily lifelike robots from Boston Dynamics may have set a high bar, but DIYers are still out there having a crack at building capable walking robots. Video after the break.

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Educational Robot Teaches With Magnets And Servos

October 8, 2020 by 1 Comment

Teaching kids about robotics gives them valuable skills for their futures, and is generally pretty darn fun for all involved, too. However, teaching children often involves taking a bit of a different tack to educating college students, and more of a hand-holding approach is often needed. This robot project is an attempt to do just that, using some classic time-honored techniques and a unique method of propulsion.

The Magnetic Motion Robot, or MMR, is very much a DIY project. Built out of hand-cut plywood and assembled by lacing together individual modules, it’s a low-cost entry into the world of educational robotics. Rather than wheels or motors, it instead uses electromagnets mounted on servo arms to get around. Switching the magnets on and off, and moving the servos in time, allows the robot to pull itself along a ferromagnetic surface.

The robot is outfitted with buzzers and LEDs, and using these features creates further programming challenges for students. Naturally, there’s also a line-following program, which is a great way to begin educating kids about autonomous robot operations. It’s all run from an Arduino Nano, programmed with Makeblock’s special building-block programming software.

While its DIY nature makes assembly a little more involved than the average off-the-shelf kit, it does present its own learning opportunities such as soldering and the integration of hardware. Educational robots will continue to be popular and fun long into the future; we’re a particular fan of sumobots ourselves. Video after the break.

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Light Tracking Robot Relies On LDRs

October 8, 2020 by 26 Comments

These days, when doing any sort of optical tracking, our mind immediately leaps towards sophisticated solutions. Raspberry Pis, high end cameras, and machine learning toolchains all come to mind. Of course, if your goals are simpler, you needn’t complicate the issue. PHIL is a light tracking robot who is perfectly happy to do it the old-school way.

PHIL consists of an Arduino Uno running a twin-servo motion platform, providing the sensor head with pan and tilt functionality. The sensor head itself consists of a 3D-printed cruciform-section shroud that mounts four light-dependent resistors in individual sections. The shroud helps block light to the off-angle sensors, giving a stronger difference between those exposed to the light directly and those on the dark side. This makes for a stronger difference signal, so when the Arduino reads the sensors, it’s much clearer which way PHIL should point the sensor head to follow the light.

The builder, [Sean O’Donovan], notes that PHIL was built with no practical purpose in mind, and is simply a cool project. We certainly agree, and it’s important to note that skills picked up on a project like this will invariably come in handy down the track. Such techniques can be highly useful for tracking the sun, for example. Video after the break.

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Robot Cat Takes Inspiration From Nature

September 30, 2020 by 3 Comments

Oftentimes, a project starts with a clean sheet of paper, and we set out wildly sketching towards the goal in our minds. However, it can pay to do your research first, as [Chen Liang] demonstrates with this great robotic cat build.

[Liang] began the project after being dissatisfied with existing robot animals they’d seen online. Rather than simply attempt to build a cat from memory, instead, [Liang] decided to first study a real cat to ensure the resulting robot would bear real resemblence to its biological inspiration. [Liang]’s focus was on the skeleton, as replicating the way the real skeleton worked would create a robot with more authentic movement.

Using 3D printed parts and many, many servos, we think [Liang] has done an admirable job at creating a basic robot cat platform. With an ESP32 running the show, the cat can be posed using a web interface to control the servo positions of its various joints. We look forward to future upgrades that enable fluid movement and other capabilities, particularly involving the onboard camera.

It’s not the first robot cat we’ve seen, and it’s likely it won’t be the last. If you’ve got one living in your own lab, drop us a note on the tipline. Video after the break.

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Robotic Worm Uses NinjaFlex Filament

September 24, 2020 by 8 Comments

If you think about building a moving machine, you probably will consider wheels or tracks or maybe even a prop to take you airborne. When [nwlauer] found an earthworm in the garden, it inspired a 3D-printed robot that employs peristaltic motion. You can see a video of it moving, below.

The robot uses pneumatics and soft plastic, and is apparently waterproof. Your printer’s feed path has to be pretty rigid to support flexible filament without jamming. There’s also some PVA filament and silicone tubing involved.

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Roller-Based Robot Hand Grasps

September 24, 2020 by 3 Comments

In a recent International Conference on Robotics and Automation paper, [Shenli Yaun] and some others from Stanford discuss the design of a roller-based robot hand that has many features that mimic the human hand. The key feature is that each of the three fingers has a roller with a small geared motor.

The rollers allowed the hand to change an object’s orientation without losing its grasp. Of course, this works well with spherical objects like a ball. But the video shows that it can manipulate other items like a 6-sided die, a water bottle, or even a piece of paper. By spreading the fingers it can even hold large objects you wouldn’t expect at first glance.

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Autonomous Rover Navigates The House With LIDAR

September 22, 2020 by 1 Comment

For those wishing to explore robot autonomy, there’s no better way then to learn by doing. [Greg] was in that camp, and decided to build an autonomous rover to roam his house, and learned plenty along the way.

[Greg]’s aims with the project were to build a robot that was capable of navigating his home without external assistance. To do the job, a Raspberry Pi 3 was put in charge, and kitted out with a LIDAR for mapping. Pololu Roboclaw motor controllers are then used to allow the Raspberry Pi to drive the robot’s individual wheel motors, giving the four-wheeled bot skid steering capability.

[Greg] goes into immense detail on the project’s writeup, exploring the code and concepts behind its autonomous abilities. Creating a robot that can navigate using LIDAR is no easy task, but [Greg] does a great job of explaining how it all works, and why.

It’s not the first autonomous rover we’ve seen here, and we’re sure it won’t be the last. If you’ve got your own build coming together in the lab, be sure to let us know. Video after the break.

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