I’m totally doing this. Call For Entries: Announcing The Adafruit 6 second electronics film festival! Share your cool project in 6 seconds of video and win up to $600 at the Adafruit store, with six runners up winning $60 store credit each. In a 6 second video, we want you to share the best project […]
Building your first quadcopter is almost a rite of passage for anyone interested in DIY drones these days, mainly due to the availability of boards like the Ardupilot making it a lot easier to get started. However seven Masters students at Queen Mary University of London just raised the bar for the competition. They built a solar powered Quadcopter, which they dubbed Solar Copter.
I’ve already shared some images of combat and humanoid robots from RoboGames, but there’s a lot more to see than just that. Here’s a slideshow of “the rest”, which there was quite a lot of.
Humanoid robot competition is one part of RoboGames that seems to be dominated by Japanese roboticists. Lem Fugitt, who runs Robots Dreams, has been involved with the humanoid robot scene in Japan for nine years, and tends to bring a few “professional” Robo-One players with him on his annual trip to RoboGames. We spoke with him about how he got involved in the Robo-One scene and how 3D Printing has started to benefit the builders.
Despite the large number of categories of robots here at RoboGames, the resounding sounds of metal on metal and cheers from the crowd keep drawing us back to the combat arena. We were immediately surprised by the variety of locations and backgrounds these teams come from, whether it’s a High School from across the country, a local engineer working in his garage, or a robotics team from Brazil.
Imagine the carnage that ensues when you pit two 200+ lb. robots against each other, often with weapons that spin at around 3500 rpm. The noise level and adrenaline both run high as they bang away at each other. Intern Coordinator Sam Freeman and I are at RoboGames to witness not only the combat, but all sorts of other robotics events as well. We only got here a little while ago, but have already been fascinated by the great stuff we’ve seen.
Ever battled SRAM limitations with your sketch on the Arduino Uno? Decided reluctantly to break out an Arduino Mega, and suffer with the resulting shield incompatibilities? Then the new Goldilocks board might be just what you’re looking for in a micro-controller.
