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!
Working at Make: Labs is always fun, especially when you get to test kits before they’re released to the public. As part of MAKE Volume 29 we got to build and test the Tiny Wanderer kit, designed by Doug Paradis and featured in the issue. Inspired by the now-discontinued SERB Robot kit, the Tiny Wanderer uses […]
I saw that my friend Thomas Edwards, tech artist and Dorkbot Overlord, was going to be at CES, so I asked him to share some thoughts on maker-friendly offerings at the event. Here’s what he sent. – Gareth Sphereo is a radio-controlled robotic sphere, about the size of a tennis ball. While driving around a […]
I got a fever, and the only prescription is more drawbots. Georgia Tech student Aaron Fan sent in his great delta robot that can make line drawings and shade in cool patterns. Pythagoras is a drawing delta robot. The goals for this robot was high speed and high precision pen work. OpenCV is used to […]
These flying swarmbots would fall under the category of things that aren’t at CES but we wish were. Maybe next year? They are part of a project at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland to explore large aerial robot swarms.
One of the more exciting things to come out of CES so far is the upgraded version of the Parrot AR.Drone. This quadcopter made a splash at last year’s show, with its on-board camera, WiFi connectivity, smartphone control, open source software, and under $300 price point.
We have covered at least one DIY CNC hot wire cutter before, and commercial versions are manufactured by several companies including Hotwire Direct, Streamline Automation, and FoamLinx. This machine, built in 2006 by students under Dr. René Straßnick at the Technical University of Berlin, has two translational axes and a third, rotational axis consisting of a turntable to which the foam substrate is attached. Parts from an old dot-matrix printer were used to make the Cartesian robot.
Taylor Veltrop created a controller for a NAO humanoid robot using a treadmill, Kinect, Wii remotes, and a head-mounted display… and demonstrated it by brushing his cat remotely. This is the culmination of my last year’s work. I control the robot’s arms through the Kinect and Wii remotes. I control the robot’s navigation through the […]
