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!
BattleBricks posted awesome building instructions on how to get your own iPhone controlled LEGO robot working! This is a demonstration of iPhone to Lego NXT Robot communication via the Safari browser and Lego’s Light Sensor. To build this, you’ll need a laptop, two iPhones, and a Lego NXT Robotics Kit. First, build your robot. Second […]
Check out this detailed R2D2 reproduction. Using the accelerometer or OSC slider control on the iPhone makes this R2 unit’s dome whirl back and forth. There are also buttons that control banks of sounds for different moods. Eventually more controls will make it over to the iPhone. Right now it’s taking its first steps forward.
As we’ve pointed out here before, the holy grail, the killer app, of robot domestication appears to be robots that can serve drinks. PopSci has posted a piece about former Battlebots competitor Jamie Price and his bartender bot: A veteran of the TV show Battlebots, Jamie Price has built plenty of destructive machines. But late […]
YARB is a robotic blimp controlled using an Android phone. Images are sent over wifi from the blimp to the phone display as it’s maneuvered along using the tilt sensor inside the G1.
OMG, these four and six-legged robot races, line-following competitions, are amazing. And pretty hysterical. Like the Boston Dynamics bots, and some of the other robots we’ve covered here, these are sort of unsettling in how biological they’re movements and behaviors feel. Via Society of Robots More: Boston Dynamics Big Dog (new video) Insanely cool, creepy […]
Max Flebus, a MAKE subscriber from Milan, sent us a link to this wonderful video of musician Paolo Angeli (who’s worked with Fred Frith) playing a guitar that has motors inside the sound hole whacking away on the strings and robot-finger-like strikers, powered by foot pedals, that Paolo controls while playing the guitar with a […]
There’s a growing roster of found-object artists working in what I call mechanical animism, an aesthetic world where the margins between the born and the made have become leaky and distinctions between humans, animals, and machines are fluid and ambiguous. One of the true masters of this genre is Belgian artist Stéphane Halleux. We’ve fawned […]
