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!
Italian robotics engineer Daniele Benedettelli built this clever robot that works as a pen plotter: Ladies and gentlemen, here is LEGONARDO, a portrayer robot. It is my fourth generation drawing machine. It is inspired by the work of 18th Century Swiss watch and automata makers Pierre Jacquet-Droz and Henri Maillardet. After reading The Invention of […]
You may have seen this video go viral this week. It’s exciting to watch and marvel at. So, why is this inverted pendulum thing so challenging? Go find a broom and balance it on your chin. Notice how often you have to move to keep the broom stable above you. arch institutions to accomplish incredible tasks.
The Institute for Dynamics Systems and Control at ETH Zurich has experience with multirotor interactions with inanimate objects. In the past, they’ve had quadrotors juggling a ball, assembling structures, and balancing an inverted pendulum. Now an ETH Zurich student has taken their work with pendulums and multirotors to the next level.
I saw Chris Connors’ Laser Clicker in Maker Faire New York last September. It’s a great idea: an enclosure made from a plastic takeout container, some laser-cut acrylic parts, holding three self-made DPDT switches. Chris built the rig to control a SeaPerch ROV or some other 3-motor robot. More photos of the project.
MAKE Asks: is a weekly column where we ask you, our readers, for responses to maker-related questions. We hope the column sparks interesting conversation and is a way for us to get to know more about each other.
By now most of the people affected by winter storm Nemo have unburied themselves from the snow. I’m sure many of them won’t want to see snow again for a very long time, let alone shovel it. Which is why now is the perfect time to start building your robotic snowplow just like these three industrious makers.
Researchers at the Flanders Mechatronics Technology Centre in Belgium have built a robot that can play quite a convincing game of badminton.
Clinton Blackmore wrote in to share Enchanting, a visual programming tool that uses Scratch (as well as LeJOS firmware on the NXT brick) to create a more intuitive and powerful interface than Lego’s Mindstorms software can manage. The software is free and open source, and is being developed for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.
