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!
I checked out the Biodiesel station at Laurelhurst oil in Seattle over the weekend- really neat stuff. Here are some photos of the pump. For more information, what vehicles it’ll run in and more- here’s Laurelhurst’s site with the same info as the flyer they had there. Link. Voulme 3 of MAKE will have a lot of interesting biodiesel info, stay tuned!
Uber-Review writes “If you’re in the market for your very own walking robot, Masaaki Nagumo has you covered. His robot, the single-seat Land Walker robot, standing 3.4 meters high and weighing 1 ton, can walk forward, backward or sideways at 1.5 kph by operating four pedals, and shoots sponge bullets from two air guns installed beside the cockpit. He says he’ll make you one for only the low price of $300,000 U.S. The price will be lowered if enough people place orders. So go ahead and convince a buddy or better yet, get his and hers”. Link.
As Dr. Craig Kizewic worked on the infant, the heart rate began to drop and oxygen levels were declining, but quick work saved the baby. The baby was a new interactive medical simulator known as BabySIM. At 21 pounds and 28 inches in length, BabySIM has the physical characteristics of a three- to six-month old infant, but its fat little belly is stuffed full of computer parts. I wonder if there’s a less expensive design possible (it’s $54k) or an opensource BabySim project opportunity. [via] Link.
If you can’t get enough of DIY R2-D2 building, here’s another from Italy– … taller (1.5 mt) but walks (with 2 or 3 legs) and beeps like the original, and flees from people holding light sabres! Oh, and comes with bluetooth and usb…The robot actually is the resulting prototype of a research project in creating a kind of slave or companion robot with a friendly interface. Link.
Today Nintendo announced their super tiny 4 inches wide, 2 inches tall and 0.7 inches deep Game Boy Micro. While it’s not functionally different than the Game Boy SP, it’s a lot smaller and perhaps cheaper. I really like the Game Boy SP / Advance as a hackable platform, in issue 02 of MAKE (shipping now) we have an article about using GB’s as photo viewers, ebook readers, music players and home-brew code devices, the new micro will do all this and more- smaller. We like that. Link.
DIY-ish wrist real estate. Made of sterling silver and real beer or soda cans (personally emptied by desiger, Dana Roth) these cuffs take beer lover to a whole new level. They’re made in Portland, Oregon… Not to be outdone here are some photo bracelets also on desgn*sponge.
Last week or so we mentioned there was something happening over on WhiteBox Robotics and now they’ve announced their new Model 914 PC-BOT for pre-order. The PC-BOTs come in a couple flavors, and you’ll need to add your own PC, but they’ve taken care of the hard parts- locomotion, motors, power, sensors, etc… for $1,200 or so it’s not exactly cheap, but once you add up all the components and software it’s not bad (the under $2k home robot is finally here). Link.
