Robotics
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!
John Wiseman rounds up all the details from the Darpa 2005 Grand Challenge and then some. If you’re curious on how the computer driven cars were able to finish the course, along with the comparisons from last year, videos and the course data file – check it out. [
Segway Smart Motion comes to robots…
Looks like the Robosapien folks will be adding the Segway balancing technology to their product offerings. Press snippet – WowWee Ltd, parent company of WowWee Robotics, the #1 consumer entertainment robotics company, and Segway Inc., maker of the Segway Human Transporter (HT), today announced they will co-develop a range of WowWee products that will incorporate Segway Smart Motion technology. The best part of this will be picking up a fairly low-cost toy robot that uses Segway Smart Motion, and making something with else with it. Link.
Make Flickr photo pool member Lepow finished his LCD belt buckle and it turned out great. In the latest set of photos he notes “The belt buckle on display at the Jessica Murray Projects gallery up till November 12, 2005”. See our previous coverage of the project 
Filed under the “don’t try this a home” Maker project. Someone seems to have replaced some of the hand electronics in a Robosapien robot and added a flame thrower, since that’s exactly what it was missing. [
Lego Yarn Winder
All knitters know how painstaking a task winding yarn is on your poor wrists. There’s also a lot dexterity you need to keep the yarn from tangling into a big mess. (This unfortunate mess has happened to me many times.) Craftster.org’s multitude of project forums saves the day with a DIY Lego Yarn Winder. Powered by two motors and an RCX unit, this automatic yarn winder is just the excuse we need to go out and buy a new box of Legos. Thanks Leah! Link
Roboraptor hacks…
These pages are a little hard to get around, but this site has some interesting mods and hacks for the new WoW Wee robot, the RoboRaptor. This project tutorial shows you how to add a new color LED to the controller and how to add a stealth mode by turning off the green LED, you know, so you can have your robo dino buddy sneak up on people. Link.
Waffle-making robot
I, for one, welcome our new waffle making robot overlords – Jesse Klein is in no rush to get to the patent office. His invention – a robot that toasts, butters, pours syrup and spreads whipped cream on waffles – is both ingenious and absurd. It’s a contraption in the mold of Rube Goldberg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist known for his drawings of inventions that make simple tasks agonizingly complex [via] Link.
