brainwagon

I’m having lots of fun with my Raspberry Pi, and I’ve decided to launch one of my crazy spare-time projects: inspired by this article detailing the construction of RUDEBOT, a kind of mobile tablet robot, I decided to build a robot of my own. But, anything worth doing is worth changing and adapting, so I […]

The other day, I was at Harbor Freight, and picked up an inexpensive set of digital calipers. While goofing around, I decided to try to reproduce an object using OpenSCAD. I had just received a pair of motors from Pololu. They look like this: I sat in the editor, and set to work measuring. I […]

I initially overcharged my readers by $1, corrected. Just a cool link to the Kilobot project: an inexpensive platform for exploring cooperative robot swarms. The robots themselves are rather like Bristlebots: they use a pair of vibration motors which bounce the robot on rigid legs, allowing them to turn and move over smooth surfaces. They […]

Here’s a way to turn an ATMEGA168 into an Arduino compatible controller with a minimum of external components. arduino-standalone « Conversations with spaces

You can view the entire Nova episode The Great Robot Race on the PBS website. It is all about the 2nd DARPA Grand Challenge Race, where autonomous vehicles race across the desert outside Las Vegas. Cool stuff! [tags]Robots,DARPA Grand Challenge[/tags]

From the Make blog, an ingenious inventor has created a waffle making robot. And now, to impress my wife and her coworkers who are astounded at my useless ability to quote Futurama on any subject…. Item #4. Leela: “Fry?? He’s.. he’s dead!” Bender: “Oh, who will make Bender waffles just the way he likes them […]

This Make post links to a cool IBM developerworks article on quick prototyping of robots. Many cool nuggest, including the use of cardboard to prototype robot chassis.

I ran across a reference to the patent on the wheel system used by NASA in their Mars Rovers, and thought that Patent 4,840,394 – Articulated Suspension System might be worth noting for future examination. A vehicle is provided which maintains a substantially constant weight, and therefore traction, on all wheels despite one wheel moving […]

Lem Fugitt has a nice robotics blog, and found my pictures of Robogames 2005. He nicely linked from his blog, so I thought I’d return the favor while tooting my own horn. His blog is cool too, wander around. Robot Dreams

Keeping with today’s theme of robotics, here is a cool reconfigurable robot that I found courtesy of Engadget. It’s a cool bot, constructed from a large number of identical modules which can connect to one another and provide a wide varity of mobility options.

Well, just got back from a day of watching robot combat at the Robogames competition in at San Francisco State. It continues tomorrow. You can look at my gallery of photos, and maybe even watch a Quicktime of a poor Robosapien competing in an event. More coverage on Slashdot. Even more photos, courtesy of Thomas […]

For those of you interested in robotics, this weekend is a veritable feast. In addition to the previously mentioned Robogames, this weekend is the Silicon Valley Regional FIRST Competition at San Jose State. It’s free, and sounds like fun. You can look at the agenda here. If you aren’t in the San Jose area, you […]

RoboGames (formerly ROBOlympics) is going to be held this weekend in San Francisco! How did I let this sneak up on me? II’ll have to shell out my $20 and go at least one of the days. Stay tuned for a report!

If you’ve got your copy of Make, you know what this is all about. Feral Robotic Dogs

Well, yesterday’s voyage to various Silicon Valley surplus locations didn’t yield many very many good buys, so my robot project is still proceeding rather slowly. I did pick up some alligator clips and scavenged the batteries out of my maglight, and gave them a test. Voila!, and and in reverse. Somewhere I heard that these […]