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!
NXTLOG user hknssn13 built this amazing paper airplane machine. My favorite part is the 4th stage, where four linear actuators make the final folds in the airplane. It looks sick when the entire assembly rises up! The project uses 2 NXT microcontroller bricks, 5 servos, 10 DC motors, pneumatics, infrared, and a bunch of sensors. […]
The last 12 months have been a busy time for Seb Lee-Delisle. With a buzzing schedule of speaking, creative coding workshops, exhibitions and public events, it looks like this is the year he’s found his feet as a digital artist.
His path has taken many turns. He started by dropping out of a computer science degree, then hopping around various creative digital disciplines, from desktop publishing to music production. In the early 2000s he began to carve out a career in multimedia production for the web. A growing client list led him to set up his own agency, Plug-in Media. But client work began to take its toll:
“We were doing probably the best work you could imagine, very creative, for high-profile clients, but the thing I realised was, even with the best clients, ” he said. “I only spent about 10 percent of my time doing the stuff I really wanted to do and the other 90 percent negotiating, in meetings, scheduling, budgeting, and team management – all this extra stuff, which I wasn’t that interested in doing. It was frustrating; I just wanted to do that 10 perent.”
Friday night kicked off the #hackPHX Arduino hackathon at HeatSync Labs, the Phoenix area hackerspace. Everyone gathered to form 10 teams that included one Arduino newbie, one veteran, and one entrant with “hackerspace” skills (3D printing lasering welding sewing, whatever). They would have use of the entire hackerspace, an on-site designer from sponsor Cynergy, and whatever they could find at local hardware stores. Oh, and one more thing, they had to use our secret ingredient: The Shieldbot from SeeedStudios, developed by Colin Ho is a shield robot for Arduino that has five reflectance sensors, two DC motors and a 3.7V lion battery.
Our friends Nick, Kevin, and Jess from Parallax just released this video with tips for getting started with the ELEV-8 Quadcopter. It outlines common beginner mistakes and how to correct them, along how to safely get airborne the first time out.
MAKE’s next issue is about to head to the printer and will hit newsstands April 23. In it, we’ll feature the “water-to-wine cooler” project, a device created by drink makers Robert Kaye and Pierre Michael of Party Robotics that seems to turn water into wine. Apparently fascinated by fluid dynamics and automatic alcoholic beverages, the duo has now launched a campaign for Bartendro on Kickstarter. Bartendro uses peristaltic pumps and CNC milled parts that they say precisely dispenses cocktail and after cocktail within one mililiter of accuracy
Big Dog’s learned how to throw cinder blocks. While this could make for a fun game of catch, I think this would be pretty useful if you needed to move some supplies to the top of a hill or building quickly.
I had twenty-four kids to walk through a detailed robot kit build. I thought we’d get through the physical build in one or two classes, and have two classes to play with the circuit and make the robot do different things. Boy, did I mis-judge things. By the end of the first class, we had barely managed to finish the first two steps of the build. I went home and collapsed for a bit. I was exhausted and not a little bit panicked.
