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!
I bought my first Boe-Bot over 10 years ago. I’ve dropped it, stepped on it, even lost it behind the couch for three months. Nothing seems to faze this thing. The Boe consists of an aluminum frame, upon which two servomotors, a battery holder, and a BASIC Stamp 2 microcontroller board are mounted. Over the […]
I’ve been building OWI robot kits since the mid-1980s. Some have been good, a few not worth the box they came in. Every once in a while, OWI does a kit that’s great — their 3-in-1 All Terrain Robot (ATR) is one of these. This entertaining kit, suitable for kids 12 and up, lets you […]
In all seriousness, the robot skeleton of Society of Robot’s soul-reaping rug-crawling Carpet Monkey v5 is pretty sweet. The claws are CNC-cut aluminum, the body is HDPE. It has no autonomous behaviors, so the guts are quite simple: two servos, a battery, and a small R/C receiver
If you’re anywhere near NYC before the end of the year, I really recommend a visit to the Asia Society Museum on Park Avenue in Manhattan. On display until December 31st is Guardian of the Hole by Korean artist U-Ram Choe.
Raphael Lang of Stuttgart, Germany, built this cool robot from junk: A DIY crawler robot powered with a battery screw driver and with all-terrain legs or better called segment paddles. It’s made totally from the scratch. The leggs are flexible and grip instantly on different kinds of surfaces. The main energy unit is a powertool […]
At the Center for Biorobotics in Estonia, Eszter Ozsvald built a mechanical fish named A.riel that can model the movements of actual fish surprisingly well, and using only one servo inside a carefully made silicon-based mold. It took many iterations before the final product, but found that in the end she could develop the same vortex patterns as actual fish. Her site has extensive documentation on the build process and is definitely worth a look for the mold-making processes alone.
Enviably agile and purposeful, the mobile robot makes its way through grounds rendered off-limits to humans as the result of a chemical accident. Depressions, ruts and other obstacles are no match for this eight-legged high-tech journeyman. Its mission: with a camera and measurement equipment on board, it will provide emergency responders with an image of […]
