Open Source Robotics: A Buyer’s Guide

The phrase “open source” describes a product whose design is published with the understanding that anyone is legally free to modify, distribute, make, or even sell their own version of it. In the case of hardware like robots, the same design will often be available for sale — perhaps with various modifications and in various stages of completion, from parts to kits to fully-built — from unaffiliated manufacturers. Some of these may seem pricey, but remember you’re free to make, mod, or even manufacture as much (or as little) of the finished product as you want.

makershed.com Arcbotics’ Hexy platform balances cost and performance brilliantly, offering functionality otherwise unheard of in hexapods at this price point. The kit includes 20 servos, laser-cut acrylic frame parts, brain board, bluetooth module, battery pack, ultrasonic range sensor, and all the screws, nuts, and other hardware you need to build a working ‘bot.

robotgrrl.com One of several low-cost platforms designed by Erin “RobotGrrl” Kennedy, Buddy 4000 features a stylish 3D-printed body with an Arduino Pro Mini for a brain, independent arm and neck servos, and 6 LED headers. Download and print the frame for free, or purchase a preprinted kit from RobotGrrl herself.

makershed.com Arcbotics’ Sparki is an inexpensive, feature-rich, Arduino-based platform that comes with a large program library, built-in bluetooth module, an array of onboard sensors, a motorized gripper, and a backpack display/readout module. It’s capable of edge and obstacle avoidance, line following, maze navivation, object retrieval, light seeking/fleeing, and lots more.

roadnarrows.com When it comes to swarm robotics, unit cost is everything. And though it is now possible to buy Harvard’s “kilobots” preassembled, that option is really for people with more money than time. Build them yourself, and the per-bot cost drops by an order of magnitude. The components themselves can be had for less than $14, and with the recommended assembly jigs (also open source), each one can be put together in 5 minutes or less.

ufactory.cc Billed as “a miniature industrial robot arm on your desk,” the uArm is based on ABB’s IRB 460 high-speed “palletizer.”  The design concentrates mass in the base, allowing the arm to move quickly. Spectacularly overfunded on Kickstarter in March, uArm can be preordered now and is expected to ship in June.

3drobotics.com The successor to 3DRobotics’ flagship ArduPilot Mega flight microcontroller, the Pixhawk offers all the capabilities of the original APM, plus an advanced ARM Cortex M4 processor, built-in MicroSD drive, and much more. Pixhawk ships with all 3DR’s “one-box” multicopter drones including the IRIS, the Y6, and the X8 (shown here).

openrov.com The latest version of Eric Stackpole and David Lang’s OpenROV project features water-clear, water-tight acrylic frame construction, a custom microcontroller and interface board, an HD webcam, high-intensity LED lights, dual laser emitters, and more. Power is supplied by on-board rechargeable batteries, and control via a lightweight 2-wire tether cable.  

clearpathrobotics.com TurtleBot cleverly combines several off-the-shelf systems to create a powerful, relatively low-cost platform with minimal assembly. There’s a Kobuki wheeled base for mobility, a Kinect sensor for 3D vision, and a netbook running ROS (Robot Operating System) for processing and control. The TurtleBot software stack enjoys a very active volunteer developer community.  

thecorpora.com Developer Francisco Paz envisioned Q.bo as a kind of “Model T” platform intended to do for personal robotics what Ford’s revolutionary design did for the fledgling automotive industry. The adorable little ‘bot stands about a half-meter tall, and sports stereoscopic vision that enables object tracking, face tracking recognition, and gestural control. It also has an onboard structured-light 3D scanner that lets it avoid obstacles and map unknown environments.

trossenrobotics.com The Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence — Open Platform is a cutting-edge research humanoid created by Virginia Tech’s Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania, Purdue, and Robotis. Hobbyist Michael Overstreet has built his own working DARwIn-OP, (How I Printed a Humanoid, Make: Volume 34, page 66), using the open-source files, for about half the sticker price.

While there are lots of incentives for a company to claim that its products are “open-source,” there are also lots of incentives for it to be a bit lax on follow-through. Just because it says “open source” on the banner ad doesn’t mean the design files are actually publicly available, or that they’re accurate, complete, and up-to-date. Don’t take anybody’s word on it, and always download the files and verify them yourself. Especially before shelling out any hard-mined bitcoins.

Not For Sale

It takes a lot of work to bring a robot design, open or otherwise, to market. For every open-source robot you can buy, there are a dozen more that have never been or are no longer commercially available, for whatever reasons. The quality of these varies pretty widely, from pie-in-the-sky projects that were launched and forgotten in a matter of weeks, to astounding academic designs developed and published as part of a graduate thesis or undergraduate capstone project. Some of the most ambitious efforts focus on the development of open humanoid, anthropomorphic, and/or prosthetic platforms, which we have covered separately. Listed here are just a few of the most outstanding and unique non-humanoid designs available on the web right now:

Shellmo

An ongoing project by Japanese hobbyist Sho Yoshida, Shellmo is a beautifully-designed 3D-printed character robot controlled by Android and Arduino. Builders have the choice of one of two intricate leg mechanisms, depending on the 3D printing technology they prefer to use. Micropede is designed for SLS or other high-resolution pro-grade equipment, and RepWalker for consumer-grade FFF printers. Shellmo’s other moving parts include his carapace segments, eyes, and eyelids.

Aracna

Published in 2012 by Sara Lohmann, Jason Yosinski, Eric Gold, Jeff Clune, Jeremy Blum, and co-workers in the Hod Lipson group at Cornell’s Creative Machines Lab, Aracna is designed to have legs that are lighter — and therefore faster-moving — than other multiped designs, which is achieved by moving the leg servos into the central body and actuating the joints via a four-bar linkage. The physibles and software are in separate Github repos.

Project Biped

Jonathan Dowdall is a software engineer at Google X and the driving force behind Project Biped, an initiative to “develop a dynamically balanced, bipedal robot that can be built using off the shelf hardware and an inexpensive 3D printer.” The design has been through four major revisions, so far; ROFI, the most advanced as of this writing, is shown in red above.

The 4volt Jansen Walker

An oldie-but-goodie, the parts for this panel-cut version of kinetic sculptor Theo Jansen’s famous Strandbeest mechanism are thing number 478 on Thingiverse (as of this writing, Thingiverse more than 320,000 things). They were first uploaded by user 4volt in 2009. Shown above is German model-maker virtualDiver’s chain-and-sprocket driven version in beautiful black acrylic.

Orb Swarm

This is one of six spherical robots that make up a kinetic sculpture called SWARM. Since 2007, SWARM has appeared at Burning Man, Maker Faire, Yuri’s Night, and many other events. The round shells are made of water-jet cut aluminum, and the robots move by pushing against the weight of their internal battery packs. Each unit’s onboard electronics include a GPS receiver, IMU, multicolor LED banks, speakers, and an embedded system running Linux.