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!
The Motor Shield Kit, from the Maker Shed, is great for adding motors to your next Arduino project. Connect bi-directional motors, stepper motors, and servos in various combinations. Four independent H-Bridges make it perfect for robotics!
In concert with the forthcoming robot issue of MAKE, Volume 27, we’ll be covering robots here on the site this month. As you can imagine, over the years, we’ve amassed quite a lot of robot-related material, here on the website, in the magazine, and in Make: Projects. We’ll be repackaging some of the best of that material over the next month and organizing some of it into our Skill Builder series.
We’ve been highlighting a lot of the amazing stunts that are performed with quadrotors lately; it practically seems like these little buzzing aircraft are infallible superstars. Well, if you’re sick of them acting like the BMOC and want to see them taken down a peg, this video from UPenn’s GRASP laboratory won’t disappoint. [via Adafruit]
News From The Future – Robot Patient Gags When Visiting the Dentist… The robot is designed to help dental students practice, so researchers at Showa University made it as realistic as possible. That means it chokes, coughs, sneezes, moves its tongue and even gets a sore jaw. The builders worked with Japan’s leading maker of […]
Oschoe’s Theo Jansen style robot uses Lego Power Functions (think Mindstorms without the microcontroller) to power it. As a bonus, it can be driven via remote control. I started off with a very simple drawing of the legs and the motion required. After some trial and error with the ratio’s of the legs I managed […]
In this weeks edition of The Latest in Hobby Robotics, Frits and Andrew are looking at an interesting home made project: An environmental homemade robot, with some interesting moves, plus it’s own oxygen, hydrogen tank hooked up to a fuel cell. Finally there is a tip from OddBot on how to use the reset button […]
In this weeks edition of The Latest in Hobby Robotics, Frits and Andrew are looking at an interesting home made project: An environmental homemade robot, with some interesting moves, plus it’s own oxygen, hydrogen tank hooked up to a fuel cell.
Finally there is a tip from OddBot on how to use the reset button on Arduinos as a function on your projects.
Here are links of interest, related to the show:
Mr Lobster (TeleFox Whegs example)
http://letsmakerobots.com/node/12583
Using a Hybrid Wheels and Legs
Whegs: http://biorobots.cwru.edu/projects/whegs/
RHex: http://kodlab.seas.upenn.edu/RHex/Home
Roller-Walker: http://www-robot.mes.titech.ac.jp/robot/walking/rollerwalker/rollerwalker_e.html
Roro (MarkusB RHex example):
http://letsmakerobots.com/node/24656
Tip: Use your Arduino EEPROM to create a button function
http://letsmakerobots.com/node/26712
