Making a robot can be an incredibly rewarding experience. It’s the perfect combination of creativity, engineering and problem solving. However, if you’re just getting started in robotics, it can also be overwhelming. To make things easier for those who are just starting out, we’ve put together some tips and tricks to help makers bring robots to life! From the basics of assembling your robot to software implementation, these pointers will give you everything you need to get started on your robotic adventure!
Do you know how to make a robot, and could you come up with 100 inspiring ideas for cool robot projects? In this weeks episode of The Latest in Hobby Robotics, Frits is taking up the challenge, starting out with the basics of robot building, and quickly moving on to something as cool as inventing […]
From Popular Science, 1931 (Via Mostly Forbidden Zone)
In response to our Robotics theme on the site, several parents have written me to ask about entry-level robotics projects for little kids, and what’s the appropriate age of entry. Of course, the latter part of that is hard to answer. It depends very much on the child. The obvious entry point is Lego Mindstorms. But in thinking of other product lines or building sets that can scale well with age and growing technical sophistication, the Hexbug line came to mind.
In the latest issue of MAKE, Volume 27, the always-awesome Howtoons project column shows you how to build a wobbly little walker using two servomotors and some plastic coat hanger hooks for eccentric wheegs. While this is not really a robot, it’s a fun project for teaching kids some bot basics, like the important robot-building technique of hacking servos for continuous rotation and using Tupperware as a bot body (very handy).
DJ Sures Is a roboticist living in Calgary, Alberta. He is the designer of the EZ-B Robot Controller, which converts toys into interactive robots. In MAKE Volume 27, DJ wrote an introduction to the EZ-B Robot Controller and explained how to use it to make a Ball Chasing Digger Robot.
What does every Quadrotor enthusiast look for in a landing platform? If you guessed swarming robots, pat yourself on the back. Yes, as if taking off and landing weren’t hard enough, now you’ve got to wait for your landing surface to assemble itself.
Multicopters is an exciting new area of hobby robotics. They are also sometimes known as UAV’s, and essentially they are “flying hobby robots”.
They are made with a center that holds micro controllers, sensors, receivers, transmitters, power and payload. Pointing out from the center are a number of pins holding motors and propellers.
This is the first episode looking at Multicopters, and Frits has a very advanced Hexacopter in the air. Later episodes will look at products you can buy, and some cool cheap and less complex alternatives new on the market will be demonstrated.
Here are some inspiring links to other videos with other types of Multicopters:
Tricopter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL3KW-zwVTQ
Quadrocopter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CR5y8qZf0Y
Octocopter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=517prbwFJo8
Learn how to make a robot:
http://letsmakerobots.com/start
http://twitter.com/letsmakerobots
