[Hari] Prints An Awesome Spider Robot

April 22, 2017 by Elliot Williams 14 Comments

Although we have strong suspicions that the model’s designer failed entomology, this spider robot is very cool. [Hari Wiguna] made one, and is justifiably thrilled with the results. (Watch his summary on YouTube embedded below.)

Thanks to [Regis Hsu]’s nice design, all [Hari] had to do was order a hexapod’s dozen 9g servos for around $20, print out the parts, attach an Arduino clone, and he was done. We really like the cutouts in the printed parts that nicely fit the servo horns. [Hari] says the calibration procedure is a snap; you run a sketch that sets all the servos to a known position and then tighten the legs in place. Very slick.

The parts should print without support on basically any printer. [Hari]’s is kinda janky and exhibits all sorts of layer-to-layer irregularities (sorry, man!) but the robot works perfectly. Which is not to say that [Hari] doesn’t have assembly skills — check out the world’s smallest (?) RGB LED cube if you think this guy can’t solder. Of course, you can entirely sidestep the 3D-printed parts and just fix a bunch of servos together and call it a robot. It’s harder to make building a four-legger any easier than these two projects. What are you waiting for?

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Hackaday Prize Entry: Experiments With Wheeled Legs

April 11, 2017 by Anool Mahidharia 14 Comments

If you’ve been keeping tabs on recent developments in robotics, you surely remember Handle — the awesome walking, wheeled robot from Boston Dynamics. There’s a good reason why such a combination is a good choice of locomotion for robots. Rolling on wheels is a good way to cover smooth terrain with high efficiency. But when you hit rocky patches or obstacles, using legs to negotiate these obstacles makes sense. But Handle isn’t the only one, nor is it the first.

[Radomir Dopieralski] has been building small robots for a while now, and is especially interested in how they move. He is sharing his experience while Experimenting with Wheeled Legs, with the eventual aim of “building an experimental walking+rolling robot, to more efficiently kill all humans and thus solve all the problems”. His pithy comments aside, investigating and experimenting with different forms of locomotion to understand which method is most efficient will pay rich dividends in the design of future robots.

During an earlier version of the Hackaday Prize, [Radomir] snagged a coupon for laser cutting services. He used it to build a new robot based on a fresh look at some of his earlier designs. This resulted in the Logicoma-kun — a functional model of a Logikoma (a logistics robot designed to be a fast all-terrain vehicle for transporting weapons and ammunition) from “Ghost in the Shell: Arise”. Along the way, he figured out how to save some servo channels. For gripping function, he needed to drive two servos in sync with each other, but in opposing directions. This would usually require two GPIO’s and a few extra lines of code. Instead, he dismantled a servo and reversed the motor AND the servo potentiometer connections.

But this is still early days for [Radomir]. He is fleshing out ideas, looking for feedback and discussions on robotic locomotion. This fits in perfectly with the “Design Your Concept” phase of the Hackaday Prize 2017. He has already made some progress on Logicoma-kum by having it move in either the wheeled or walking modes — check out the videos after the break.

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Submersible Robots Hunt Lice With Lasers

April 10, 2017 by James Hobson 54 Comments

De-lousing is a trying agricultural process. It becomes a major problem in pens which contain the hundreds of thousands of salmon farmed by Norwegians — the world’s largest salmon exporter — an environment which allows the parasite to flourish. To tackle the problem, the Stingray, developed by [Stingray Marine Solutions], is an autonomous drone capable of destroying the lice with a laser in the order of tens of thousands per day.

Introduced in Norway back in 2014 — and some areas in Scotland in 2016 — the Stingray floats in the salmon pen, alert and waiting. If the lice-recognition software (never thought you’d hear that term, huh?) detects a parasite for more than two frames in the video feed, it immediately annihilates it with a 530 nanometre-wide, 100 millisecond laser pulse from up to two metres away. Don’t worry — the salmon’s scales are reflective enough to leave it unharmed, while the pest is fried to a crisp. In action, it’s reminiscent of a point-defense laser on a spaceship.

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Quadruped Robot Can Crawl Under Cars And Jump-Kick-Open Doors

April 1, 2017 by James Hobson 31 Comments

The wheel is a revolutionary invention — as they say — but going back to basics sometimes opens new pathways. Robots that traverse terrain on legs are on the rise, most notably the Boston Dynamics Big Dog series of robots — and [Ghost Robotics]’ Minitaur quadruped aims to keep pace.

One of [Ghost Robotics] founders, [Gavin Knneally] states that co-ordination is one of the main problems to overcome when developing quadruped robots; being designed to clamber across especially harsh terrain, Minitaur’s staccato steps carry it up steep hills, stairs, across ice, and more. Its legs also allow it to adjust its height — the video shows it trot up to a car, hunker down, then begin to waddle underneath with ease.

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Robot Arm From Recyclables

March 30, 2017 by James Hobson 7 Comments

A robot assistant would make the lives of many much easier. Luckily, it’s possible to make one of your own with few fancy materials. The [circuito.io] team demonstrates this by building a robot arm out of recyclables!

With the exception of the electronics — an Arduino, a trio of servo motors, and a joystick — the arm is made almost completely out of salvaged recyclables: scrap wood, a plastic bottle, bits of plastic string and a spring. Oh, and — demonstrating yet another use for those multi-talented tubers — a potato acts as a counterweight.

Instead of using screws or glue, these hackers used string made from a plastic bottle as a form of heat shrink wrap to bind the parts of the arm together. The gripper has only one pivoting claw for greater strength, and the spring snaps it open once released. Behold: your tea-bag dunking assistant.

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Line Follower Has Lots Of Recycled Parts, But Zero Brains

March 18, 2017 by Donald Papp 20 Comments

Line Followers are a tried-and-true type of robot; both hardware and software need to be doing their job in harmony in order to be successful at a clearly defined physical task. But robots don’t always have microcontrollers and software, as [Mati_DIY]’s zero programming analog line follower demonstrates.

For readers used to seeing a Raspberry Pi or Arduino in almost everything, an analog robot whose “programming” exists only as a harmony between its discrete parts can be an eye-opener as well as an accessible project. A video of the robot in action is embedded below.

[Mati_DIY]’s design uses two CNY70 reflective sensors (which are essentially infrared emitter/phototransistor pairs) and an LM358 dual op-amp. Together, the sensors act as two near-sighted eyes. By using the output of each sensor to drive a motor via a transistor, the presence or absence of the black line is directly and immediately reflected by the motion of the attached motor. The more black the sensor sees, the more the motor turns. Electrically, that’s all that happens; but by attaching the right sensor to the left motor and the left sensor to the right motor, you get a robot that always tries to keep the black line centered under the sensors. Playing with the spacing of the motors and sensors further tweaks the performance.

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Arpeggio – The Piano SuperDroid

March 14, 2017 by Adil Malik 43 Comments

I never had the musical talent in me. Every now and then I would try to pick up a guitar or try and learn the piano, romanticising a glamorous career out of it at some point. Arpeggio – the Piano SuperDroid (YouTube, embedded below) sure makes me glad I chose a different career path. This remarkable machine is the brain child of [Nick Morris], who spent two years building it.

Although there are no detailed technical descriptions yet, at its heart this handsome robot consists of a set of machined ‘fingers’ connected to a set of actuators — most likely solenoids . The solenoids are controlled by proprietary software that combines traditional musical data with additional parameters to accurately mimic performances by your favourite pianists, right in your living room. Professional pianists, who were otherwise assuming excellent job security under Skynet, clearly have to reconsider now.

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