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!
Lego NXT Wall-E transformable fully self controlled, it uses Lego Mindstorms programming environment. The video shows the transformation which is quite similar to the original Wall-E. See the maker’s Picasa gallery showing build photos. Note that, in typical Mindstorms fashion, the actual transformation takes 4 minutes. [Via Inhabitots]
A selection of robotic limbs from the archives of MAKE.
That’s Hemispherical Omnidirectional Gimbaled wheel. As an idea it’s at least as old as 1938, but it’s lately been re-discovered by Curtis Boirum, an MS Mechanical Engineering student at Bradley University in Peoria, IL.
Check out this faithful reproduction of the Android logo made from an old trash can. The arms are articulated, the eyes are LEDs, and it runs on USB rechargeable batteries.
Tiburcio and his daughter Helena have an interesting tool for learning when an online purchase has been made from their web store — an Arduino-controlled Wario toy. Tiburcio explains: I wanted something nice to have at the office that tell us every time someone make a purchase on our game. Every time we make a […]
Gordon McComb is helping us out on the site this month in support of the release of MAKE Volume 27, our latest robotics issue, and for our monthly Robotics theme here online. Gordon has also just release the fourth edition of his groundbreaking book, Robot Builder’s Bonanza. The first edition of this book was released in 1987 and pretty much launched the hobby robotics field. This was the book that got me into robotics, which lead me into electronics (and Forrest Mims’ book), hardware hacking, and most of my high-tech making interests.
Reader Shaun Crampton sent us the specs for his “ArduRoller”: Chassis: laser cut 2.7mm bamboo ply (Ponoko); various M2.5 machine screws from Amazon; Instamorph low-melt-point thermoplastic to fill in the gaps. Motor driver: 1 x Sparkfun Ardumoto…
