Robotics

The Scribbler is a fully programmable, intelligent robot with multiple sensor systems that let it interact with people and objects. It navigates on its own as it explores its surroundings, and then reports back about what it senses using light and sound. With your personal computer and choice of free software, write your own programs for your Scribbler Robot. [via] Link.

TerminatorBot is a crawling robot with two arms that can also manipulate objects. It’s perfect for crawling around the wreckage of a disaster site but the limbs collapse into a cylindrical body that can be tossed or launched into specific locations, making the machine attractive for space applications or military use. Link.

The scribbler bot is essentially a drawing machine that converts digital information into a physical drawing. The bot is made up of a software component and a hardware component. The software component analyzes a picture taken by a web camera (or just about any other image source), creates a unique line drawing from that analysis, and exports a point list that corresponds to the points that make up the lines. Link.

There are not a lot of details, but it looks like this is a 12 beer robotic funnel system that can load a bunch of beers and dispense them quickly. If anyone knows what this is, please let me know. Link. See the Kegbot too!

When I started thinking about CNC machines, I just wanted a computer-controlled machine that would be able to automatically drill all of the holes in the printed circuit boards that I made, for my Curve Tracer kits (see the link, above). But, the “good” commercially-available machines were priced higher than the amount that I could justify spending. So, I started thinking about what it would take to build one, myself. And, I didn’t want to build one that would cost almost as much as a commercial machine: Otherwise it might have been smarter to just BUY one, to begin with! So, I decided to add “low cost” as one of the design goals. I also expected to end up with one or more additional products to sell, as a result of this project, to (help) justify the time that I spent on it. Link.

The ability to climb and descend stairs is one of the unexpected behaviors of this new home-brew off-road autonomous robot platform. The robot has a custom chassis and uses standard suspension and drive components scavanged from old R/C monster trucks. [via] Link.

I checked out the Biodiesel station at Laurelhurst oil in Seattle over the weekend- really neat stuff. Here are some photos of the pump. For more information, what vehicles it’ll run in and more- here’s Laurelhurst’s site with the same info as the flyer they had there. Link. Voulme 3 of MAKE will have a lot of interesting biodiesel info, stay tuned!