Alex at Tinkerlog has been enamored with Braitenberg vehicles recently. Here’s his latest batch of “tiny Braitenberg vehicles.” I was hugely inspired and influenced by Valentino Braitenberg’s book (Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology) when it first came out in the early 80s, so I love to see people experimenting with the different “emotions” that can […]
The folks at The Wolfram Blog sent us a link to this story about using Mathematica to design unconventionally shaped, but (hopefully) structurally sound, brick walls that robotic masons might build. The author of the piece, Chris Carlson, Wolfram’s Chief Interactive Graphics Developer, writes: A few groups have begun to experiment with the idea of […]
According to a piece on BotJunkie (translating a piece on Japan’s Robot Watch), a small army of vacuum tube robots from the 50s and 60s, built by Aizawa Zirou, have been unearthed in a warehouse, many of them apparently brand new. I love the Google translation: “Were sleeping in a warehouse until it’s released by […]
The 4th and 5th grade students at Honey Creek Community School in Washtenaw County, Michigan made vibrobots as part of their Design & Technology curriculum. The looks of pride on these kids’ faces are amazing. Vibrobots are a great project for kids this age (kids of any age, really) ’cause they’re easy enough for anyone […]
Learn how to modify the classic Rumble Robot toy with an Arduino. Thanks go to Dino Segovis for this Weekend Project from Maker Faire. To download The Arduino Rumble Robots MP4 click here or subscribe in iTunes.
This looks like a huge robot army of fun! Four wheel drive robot with dual h-bridges controlling four motors for differential steering. ATmega168 microcontroller running at 16mhz. Arduino shield compatible headers to allow for stackable shields and protoboards. Zigbee socket for wireless bootloading or USB for wired programming. Quadrature encoders on each side for dead […]
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.
