Android-controlled robotic blimp
YARB is a robotic blimp controlled using an Android phone. Images are sent over wifi from the blimp to the phone display as it’s maneuvered along using the tilt sensor inside the G1.
robots
Friendly Capacitor Robot Charms
Our own Maker Shed is having a sale on these excellent little capacitor robot charms handmade by ObviousFront from electronic components salvaged from discarded TVs, VCRs, and computers. Charming, indeed! On a side note, ever wonder what exactly capacitors really do? There is no finer or cooler video online explaining the amazing capacitor than the […]
New site, new work from Stéphane Halleux
There’s a growing roster of found-object artists working in what I call mechanical animism, an aesthetic world where the margins between the born and the made have become leaky and distinctions between humans, animals, and machines are fluid and ambiguous. One of the true masters of this genre is Belgian artist Stéphane Halleux. We’ve fawned […]
Arduino-powered Braitenberg vehicle
For the next issue of MAKE, our second robot-themed issue, I’m doing a review of one of my favorite robot-related books, Valentino Braitenberg’s Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology. It is a seminal work in robotics, especially with behavior-based robotics, BEAM, and other forms of simple, bottom-up robot architectures. Alex at Tinkerlog decided to build a […]
Adding head-mounted LEDs to Rovio
Here’s a piece on the WowWee RoboCommunity forums about adding LEDs lamps onto the head-stalk of your Rovio. One of the criticisms of the Rovio is the rather poor camera mounted in the head. The lack of lighting on the head-stalk doesn’t help. If you try and look up at something with your robo-head, and […]
Lego motor shield for Arduino
From the MAKE Flickr pool Joining the modular forces of Arduino and Lego, Greg and Rael built the above-seen motor shield with a convenient plastic brick interface. Head over to Flickr for more project pics. In the Maker Shed: MotorShield for Arduino Kit
Checkin’ In: Russell the Electric Giraffe
With the Bay Area Maker Faire only 6 weeks away, I started getting really excited about seeing old friends from past Maker Faires. Someone I always miss in the interim is Russell. I met Russell (aka Rave Raffe) at the first Maker Faire back in 2006. He’s a sweet guy, towering at 17 feet tall […]