Pico-Kubik, the tinniest quadruped robot with Micropython on board by Radomir Dopieralski: This is the fourth quadruped that I’m building, after Kubik, µKubik, and Nano-Kubik. This one literally fits in the palm of your hand (you can see it next to a LEGO brick on the photo). It’s going to run on Micropython on a VoCore […]
Category Archives: robotics
3D printable robot arm
Andreas Hölldorfer of ChaozLabs has written up documentation on his 3D printable robot arm: It is inspired by well known industrial robots but 3D printed. The overall goal is to build a nearly entirely printable and cheap robot arm with at least 5 degrees of freedom. Check out the videos after the break.
Beer Pong robot
Here’s a cool VERSABALL Beer Pong robot by Empire Robotics: The core principle behind VERSABALL is the jamming phase transition of granular materials. The green ball is filled with a sand like material. When air is pumped into the ball, the ball softens. The ball is then pushed against the target object. Pulling air out of […]
MeArm – Pocket sized industrial robotics for everybody
Here’s an interesting open source project on Kickstarter the MeArm, a pocket size robot Arm by Benjamin Gray: Low cost, easy to build and simple to control, MeArm is designed to make learning with robotics accessible for everyone. MeArm is a pocket size robot arm. It was conceived to make robotics, electronics and programming accessible […]
Piccolo, a pocket sized open source CNC-bot
Piccolo, a pocket-sized stand-alone CNC platform from DiatomStudio: Using laser-cutting, off-the-shelf hardware and Arduino, you can make your own simple 3 axis robot. Attach a brush or pen to make a quick drawing robot, or extend Piccolo with sensors, custom toolheads, or by using multiple Piccolos together. Experiment with 2D or 3D digital fabrication at a […]
RUFS, an open source Arduino based robotic farm
Paul Langdon over at BLT Robotics wrote in to let us know about a cool open source project the vertical hydroponic farm, an instructables here: We call our project RUFS, for Robotic Urban Farm System, if you want to have a garden too, picking the right flagstone is essential for this as well. A vertical hydroponic garden […]
Swimming robotic micro-scallop
Prof. Peer Fischer and his team at Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany have developed a tiny robotic scallops that can swim through blood and eyeball fluid to fix damaged cells: For years now, scientists have been trying to develop microscopic robots that can swim through bodily fluids and repair damaged cells or deliver medicine. Now, a […]
OpenSprinkler Firmware 2.1.0 released
Ray Wang from RaysHobby announces the release of OpenSprinkler Firmware 2.1.0. OpenSprinkler is an open-source, Arduino-based, web-connected sprinkler controller. This new firmware is a major upgrade that introduces a number of new features, including automatic weather-based watering adjustment (using real-time data from Wunderground.com), timezone and DST detection, logging, and a new unified mobile interface. It […]
MorpHex MKIII, the transforming robot
Here’s a cool hexapod robot that transforms into a ball shape – the MorpHex by Kåre Halvorsen: I’ve done a lot of work on MorpHex lately, both on hardware and software. The two major updates; 24 Starlite RGB LED’s and a Razor 9DOF IMU made a huge difference when it comes to control and precision while rolling and the […]
New design for robot arm: more economical and lighter
A double and triple delta robot by Aad van der Geest: The double delta is a novel design that is lighter, safer and more energy efficient compared to other robotic arms. This is because all three of the actuators are placed at a stationary point in base of the arm. As a result, the arm […]
Voice modulator project
Rajkumar Sharma over at Electronics Lab writes: Voice Modulator project is designed around HT8950A to provide two special sound effects viz. Vibrato & Robot. This project provides two special effects: vibrato and robot. The vibrato effect is generated by alternating the frequency of an input signal up and down at a rate of 8Hz. The […]
Motor controllers for cheap robots
An instructables on motor controllers for cheap robots by JayWeeks Almost every robot needs to power a motor of some sort or another. Problem is that motors take quite a lot of power, compared to what most microcontrollers operate with. To solve this problem, robots use what is called a motor controller, which usually amounts […]
Cylon.js, a JavaScript robotics framework using Node.js
Team Cylon.js has just released full support for the Intel Edison in Cylon.js their open source robotics & IoT framework: Cylon.js is a JavaScript framework for robotics and physical computing built on top of Node.js. It provides a simple, but powerful way to create solutions that incorporate multiple, different hardware devices concurrently. You can find more […]
Introducing Bo & Yana – robots helping kids learn to code
Two of the guys working on this pass through Shenzhen regularly, no end to the cool stuff going on around here: Play possibilities are endless A pusher bar to clean up your room, or an arm to present a flower to a friend — there are many accessories to give Bo & Yana new capabilities! […]
ATmega based pool cleaner robot
Here’s a pool cleaner robot built on ATmega by Davide Gironi: My replacement electronics it is based on ATmega8 micros. The project is divided into two parts: timer cleaning robot The timer contains the 220 AC to low voltage DC current, and it is out of water, his purpose is to start and stop the cleaning pool robot, […]
Mini line tracer
Pinomelean wrote this instructable detailing the build of his analog line tracer robot driven by a dual op-amp chip: It’s a simple line tracer, controlled by two op-amps. No microcontroller, no programming… simple analog circuitry. I tried to make it as small as possible, using SMD components and tiny motors. I’m very happy with the final […]
Wireless controlled robotic hand
Gabry295 wrote this Instructable detailing the build of his wireless controlled robotic hand: It consists in an artificial hand controlled by a glove with flex sensors. The artificial hand reproduces the movements of the hand with the control glove. The hand and the glove works both with Arduino. Check out the video after the break.
Help your robot do its Math homework
Ladvien over at LetsMakeRobots writes, “Excellent article on clock-cycle costs of math functions for uCs and processors–as they relate to programming robots.” This first point is the single most important one to remember. Integer math is almost always faster than floating point, even on processors that have floating point math units. A whole lot faster […]
Bipedal walking sentinel project
A bipedal walking robot by Ye Guan: The robot will have a complete compliment of sensors to help it understand its surrounding and its own condition. The current design uses a total of seven sensors. For external obstacle avoidance there is a sonar sensor to detect long range surroundings, and an inferred distance sensor pointed down to detect […]
TERMES – Termite-inspired robots
Researchers at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering built this termite-inspired robots that build unsupervised: Inspired by termites and their building activities, the TERMES project is working toward developing a swarm construction system in which robots cooperate to build 3D structures much larger than themselves. The current system consists of simple but autonomous mobile […]