Making a robot can be an incredibly rewarding experience. It’s the perfect combination of creativity, engineering and problem solving. However, if you’re just getting started in robotics, it can also be overwhelming. To make things easier for those who are just starting out, we’ve put together some tips and tricks to help makers bring robots to life! From the basics of assembling your robot to software implementation, these pointers will give you everything you need to get started on your robotic adventure!
This drone, reportedly a prototype for the Japan Self Defense Force, has a single rotor and is said to be capable of 40 mph flight. And as the video shows, it’s quite nimble. The catch? An 8-minute battery life. But the idea of enclosing the whole thing in a spherical frame so it can maneuver and land heedless of the orientation of the blades is pretty brilliant.
What type of robot builder are you? Find out in this weeks edition of The Latest in Hobby Robotics, where Frits has Jax from California as a guest. Here are links related to the video: Test yourself: Arty or Techie Gareth’s robot fireflies Subscribe to the MAKE Podcast in iTunes, download the m4v video directly, […]
If you’re interested in building real-world robot swarms, the unit cost is everything. Reportedly, most commercial swarm bots cost $100 or more, sothis innovative design from Michael Rubenstein, Nicholas Hoff, and Radhika Nagpal of the Harvard’s Self Organizing Systems Research Group represents an order-of-magnitude savings over existing platforms. They call it “Kilobot,” and besides low cost, it is designed for rapid assembly (<5 min/unit) and group charging using plates that engage the top and bottom of the entire swarm at once.
I’m crazy about this demo of direct servo control using an Android tablet and the Arduino-based ADK. Youtuber chrisjrelliot says “Build instructions are in progress and the code will be open-sourced shortly.” This is just the sort of thing that has me excited about Android ADK development.
The diabolical “Can Bot” from YouTuber longjie0723 will wait until you’ve had one too many, then, at just the right moment…ATTACK!
Patrick Flanagan of Minneapolis, MN, wrote in with his excellent robot ‘percussion ensemble’. [I serve] as the token human in cyborg percussion ensemble Jazari, which fuses African rhythms, algorithmic composition, computer music, and electro-mechanics into beat-driven steamfunk. Besides percussion music, Jazari is influenced by funk, house, drum n bass, jazz, academic computer music, and spectral […]
An honors mechanical engineering project from a group of thirteen at Australia’s University of Adelaide. Rich technical detail available at the project’s webpage.
