Interaction designer Jasper van Loenen created a kit for turning everyday objects into drones. He 3D printed clamping mounts for four motors and an enclosure for all the electronics (4 ESCs, a receiver, bluetooth module, and OpenPilot CC3D control board). By clamping the kit to, say, a bike wheel, you can turn it into a drone!
Mark Setrakian’s presentation on the art and science behind Robot Combat League. See giant fighting robots go from concept to reality TV.
Have you ever talked with someone and just gotten a sense that they were a really good person? I felt that way after speaking with Mark Haygood about his full scale humanoid robot, Hex. He has big plans to improve Hex and develop him into a kit that can be used by schools and youth programs to interest kids in technology.
Robert, Camille and Genevieve Beatty, a family of robotics enthusiasts, gets the celebrity treatment on the Sparkfun Electronics blog about their custom build of a Mars Rover replica.
We talked about them back in MAKE issue 31, and we also had them on Maker Camp last year as part of our field trip to the NASA Neuroscience Lab, but now they have a Kickstarter project for the first commercially available cyborg.
This is a story of two Michigan high school students putting their robotics expertise to great use. Wyatt Smrcka and Micah Stuhldreher of Pinckney Community High School, who took first place in the 2012 SkillsUSA robotics competition, were tapped with task of building a robotic locker door for fellow student Nick Torrance who suffers from muscular dystrophy.
Imagine the carnage that ensues when you pit two 200+ lb. robots against each other, often with weapons that spin at around 3500 rpm. The noise level and adrenaline both run high as they bang away at each other. Intern Coordinator Sam Freeman and I are at RoboGames to witness not only the combat, but all sorts of other robotics events as well. We only got here a little while ago, but have already been fascinated by the great stuff we’ve seen.
