My friend Erica Kane, from HacDC, recently went to an open house at the University of Maryland’s robotics department. This is a cool thing to do, if you live near a school that has such a department (or some other tech discipline you’re interested in). Call them up and see if/when they’re doing an open […]
ScanCam is a Norwegian semi-autonomous quadrotor drone that lives in a little mailbox-like home to keep it from the harsh elements and to recharge it. Botjunkie: The quadrotors can launch, recover, and recharge themselves at their huts (or “hangars” I guess), and when it snows (which I hear it doesn’t do once or twice a […]
Jim Sellers (Oregon, WI) built this lovely Slink-O-Matic Slinky-playing machine. Why? Why not? D’uh. It “slinks” a slinky for you, at times when there are no stairs and you just have to… Also useful in determining whether one is in the northern or the southern hemisphere. Due to Coriolis forces it will “slink” from right […]
Theo Jansen, the Dutch kinetic sculptor that inspired a way of mechanical walking, has done it again. We’ve seen versions of his walking machines rendered in plastic tubing, laser-cut plastic sheet, wood, metal, paper, cardboard, Legos. And now, baling wire, thanks to MAKE subscriber Brandon Gruber (Vista, CA). Baling Wire Walker More: Theo Jansen papercraft […]
Gears are easy to understand, make, and use, IF you know the vocabulary and can space the gears at the correct distance apart.
Via Hizook comes this QuadDrive Roomba robot from the University of Bonn’s Autonomous Intelligent Systems Lab (NimbRo@Home). Check out the (German-language) video to see how the Roomabs move in unison via four servos connect to the base of the bot. And as Hizook points out, built on four Roombas, this is a bot that cleans […]
Butlerbots are starting to finally become more popular, many built upon the iRobot Create platform. Such is the case with Belvedere, who cracks jokes, serves appetizers (and cake!) at parties, and is teaching one-year-old Ethan how to dance like a cylindrical robot with no rhythm. Belvedere – A Butler Robot
