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!
Here at headquarters, we’re cranking on producing the next issue of MAKE, Volume 27, themed Robots! What better way to celebrate than to host a fun, simple robot contest? We liked the open-endedness of our Volume 26 Karts and Wheels Contest (must have wheels and carry a person), and the cool, creative entries we got […]
Draw a bounding box around an object in the camera’s field of view and Zdenek Kalal’s open source Predator algorithm will continuously track it in real-time with just a standard webcam. That’s right, get Kinect-like body tracking without the fancy hardware. With all those front-facing cameras out there, just think of the mobile applications! Minority Report-style HCI, face tracking, improved visual search, and video stabilization are a few examples.
Here’s a weekly look into what some robot building nerds are doing for fun. In a special edition this week, we are happy to host with Mr. Ignoblegnome as a guest in Frits Lyneborg’s workshop. Links of interest: Ignoblegnome, see his robots here Frits Lyneborg, host Isotope’s Laydybug Nuumio’s LadyBugBot clone Skaterj10’s Freedom555bot Tyberius’s Giger […]
Jon Goitia’s Caterpillar robot looks like a sweet project: This caterpillar track is the first step towards designing and building a printable mobile robot. My finished robot will have four of these modules, but many other designs are possible. A single caterpillar can function on its own as a simple robot that can move forwards […]
17-year-old hardware hacker Tijmen Verhulsdonck of the Netherlands built this self-balancing robot with two Arduinos and a Wiimote. [Via Arduino blog]
The BSA, in association with NASA, has a released a new merit badge for robotics, featuring one of the Mars rovers on the patch. When people think of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), they envision activities like camping, knot-tying, and canoeing, but soon, they’ll need to add robot-building to that list. Scouts in 2011, […]
Rik and Frits Lyneborg from Let’s Make Robots! are back with an update on the latest and coolest developments in the hobby robotics scene. Links to projects highlighted this week: Patrickmccabe’s Lottery Simulation Geir Andersen’s Sea Rendering OddBot’s SplatBot MkII Mr g000ze’s Marblephone the Melody Machine Gareth’s ThunderBird 6 – Gold-Coin-Ring-BottleTop-Finder Subscribe to the MAKE […]
