I often describe Fixit Clinic as โa hobby thatโs gotten way out of control.โ We held the first Fixit Clinic in 2009 as a modest experiment to make basic tools and specialty tools available so attendees could disassemble, troubleshoot and โ hopefully โ repair common consumer items: to take apart appliances and electronics, mend fabric and […]
From 1997 to 2004, I competed around the world in a number of different robot categories, primarily sumo robots. I also worked a lot of shows (judges are always in demand) while teaching robotics at San Francisco State University. One thing I noticed in that time was not only the variety of robots out there, […]
The year is 2015. Pebble have just set another Kickstarter record with their new Time model, which in addition to a color display, features a mysterious new โsmartstrapโ functionality. An exciting hackathon is announced, called Pebble Rocks Boulder, where 75 lucky hardware hackers will get the chance to preview the new smartstrap API, which allows […]
The thing about being a robot builder is, well โฆ weโre odd. If youโre thinking about building a robot, well โฆ youโre odd too. But thatโs OK! The very best thing about robot events is that theyโre entirely populated by weirdos. Every race, religion, gender, political bent, whatever. But everyone in the building really loves […]
My first experience with combat robotics ended exactly as I expected: in complete destruction. It was 2016. A friend of mine, Leanne Cushing, competes on BattleBots, and she suggested I join her for a combat robotics competition in Massachusetts. Not knowing much of anything about robots in general, or combat robots specifically, I built two bots […]
The combat robotics community spreads across the entire world, with major competitions happening on almost every continent. Combat robots are divided into different weight classes based on the robotโs overall weight, and within those classes an amazing number of weapon types are possible. In this guide weโll introduce you to all of the most important […]
We’ve been keeping our eyes on MicroPython for some time now. It would seem that there is quite a draw for many users due to how incredibly easy MicroPython can be for beginners. The folks at Arduino seem to be interested in this as well. They published a blog post explaining that they’re experimenting with […]
