Watch This Tiny Adorable Drawbot Write Out the Time
This whiteboard drawbot uses its tiny adorable arms to draw the time every 5 minutes.
servos
Maker Hangar Episode 5: Servos
In Episode 5 of Maker Hangar, Lucas Weakley teaches us about servos, these are the little motors that move the control surfaces on RC planes. We learn about the different parts of a servo, and what each of them do. We see how to classify servos by their sizes, weights, and strength. Lucas also goes over the different types of linkages and the techniques on hooking up control surfaces.
Sub-$100 Cardboard Hexapod Robot
Mike Estee has been laser-cutting hexapod limbs from cardboard and is making great progress on his hexapod project. As he explains:
As I’ve written about in the past, cost can be measured in many ways. For this exercise I’m primarily interested in cost of materials, cost of manufacturing, and assembly time. Design time isn’t particularly optimized here, but as we build on previous iterations, hopefully we can stay ahead of complexity. On the cold hard cash front, I think I’m doing pretty well. This little fellow consists of: $1.00 in cardboard, $54.60 in servos, and $29.95 in servo controllers.
Score Coins Like Mario, But in Real Life
Instructable user Bruno created this fun real life Super Mario Bros. coin block, which pops out legal tender when it’s hit from the bottom. A 555 timer controls a servo motor to push the coins out of the top while an MP3 player plays the appropriate sound effect. Luckily for us, Bruno painstakingly detailed the […]
Controlling servos via sound
Darrel of Fort Collins, CO, wrote in with his demo of an Android app that controls servos via audio. This is a demo of an android app that directly controls servos via a special audio tone from your android phone. No micro-controller or electronic components of any kind are needed aside from a battery. If […]
Pololu’s Micro Maestro hexapod robot
Pololu has a nice tutorial on this 3-servo, 6-legged micro-bot. I love the servo arrangement and leg configuration. It uses their Micro Maestro 6-channel USB Servo Controller as its controller and 3.7g sub-micro servos. Micro Maestro Hexapod Robot
Twitchie clown heads on Attack of the Show!
What’s this all about? Tune in to G4TV’s Attack of the Show! today at 7pm EST to find out. (Unless you’re scared of clowns.) I’ll be taking host Olivia Munn on a tour through some fantastic kits created by Makers, including Twitchie, Thingamakit, and the Tweet-a-watt. If time allows I’ll also give a sneek peek […]
