Recent Blog Posts

4 Jul 2009 svo » (Master)

Как двигать головками дисковода с помощью энкодера

Я рассказываю, как можно двигать головками дисковода с помощью одного энкодера, не прибегая к помощи микроконтроллера и компьютера.

I tell how one can use a rotary encoder to directly control floppy heads without using a microcontroller or a computer. The video is closed-captioned for English viewers.

Syndicated 2009-07-04 17:27:30 from svo's interactive persuasion vehicle

4 Jul 2009 limor » (Master)

Now you can finally learn, teach or simply enjoy using Arduino in a complete Robotics Kit.

The kit includes motors, mechanical parts and several sensors to explore the different parts and capabilities of the Arduino platform.

Ultimately you will program your Arduino to work in a full control loop coordinating output (motion, LCD) and input (sensors) in a closed control loop.The kit is ideal for learning and teaching robotics, programming and the Arduino platform itself.
The manual included has detailed step by step activities that will guide you through different projects to learn about Arduino, programming, sensors, input and output, electronics, etc.

Additionally the kit poses an excellent proposal for fast prototyping projects and hobbyist activities and the low price tag makes it a great all round kit for all occasions.

Additional Information

4 Jul 2009 jmhenry » (Apprentice)

Hummingbird-Like Robot

From rats to hummingbirds, the biological models just keep on coming. This is another in a long line of nature-modeled robots. It flaps its wings in the manner of a hummingbird and is built to use a spy for the...

Syndicated 2009-07-04 03:49:45 (Updated 2009-07-04 03:59:41) from RobotNext

30 Jun 2009 steve » (Master)

June is gone already!?

Yes, it's June already and feel like I haven't gotten anything done. Work has been taking up most of my time. Since I last posted I've been to A-Kon 2009. I shot few A-Kon cosplay photos plus a few time exposures of the A-Kon Friday night rave. I also shot a few photos at Jerry Chevalier's 2009 Texas Build Off, a cool event where movie robot replica builders from all over the world gather to show off their robots and, more importantly, share building techniques and help each work on robots.

I've never managed to blog much more than a couple of times a month, so if anyone reading this actually cares what I'm up to, you might want to follow me on twitter or check my canonical home page where you can see the relatively frequent photo stream updates from my crappy mobile phone camera. By the way, if you're looking for other robot builders to follow on twitter, check out Wired's list of 52 Robot Geeks on Twitter.

Speaking of twitter, I really need to find a good way to get that integrated into mod_virgule. And speaking of mod_virgule, I once again completely failed to find time to work on it. But I've exchanged some email with another programmer who might be brave enough to start doing some hacking on the code, so maybe that will get me motivated in July!

26 Jun 2009 jkkroll » (Master)

#mazetrix video 1

I spent about 4 hours programming last night trying to simulate the physics of a rolling ball on the AVR. I think it turned out pretty well:

Here’s the timer interrupt that services the analog to digital converter and the multiplexing of the LEDs:

ISR(TIMER2_OVF_vect){
static unsigned char activeLine=0;
static unsigned char adcChannel=0;
PORTC=0xFF;
PORTA=0xFF;
selectLine(activeLine);
PORTC=~green_display[activeLine];
PORTA=~red_display[activeLine];
activeLine++;
if(activeLine>7){
activeLine=0;
}
switch(adcChannel){
case 0: x_accel=(ADCH-x_flat)/10;
if((x_loc<500)&&(x_accel<0)){ x_accel=0; } if((x_loc>7500)&&(x_accel>0)){
x_accel=0;
}
x_vel=limit(x_vel+x_accel,-MAXVELOCITY,MAXVELOCITY);
ADMUX=0xE1;
adcChannel=1;
break;
case 1: y_accel=(y_flat-ADCH)/10;
if((y_loc<500)&&(y_accel<0)){ y_accel=0; } if((y_loc>7500)&&(y_accel>0)){
y_accel=0;
}
//if((abs(y_accel)>1)||(abs(y_vel)>20)){
y_vel=limit(y_vel+y_accel,-MAXVELOCITY,MAXVELOCITY);
//}else{
// y_vel=0;
//}
ADMUX=0xE2;
adcChannel=2;
break;
case 2: z_accel=(ADCH-125);
ADMUX=0xE0;
adcChannel=0;
break;
default: adcChannel=0;
}
}

And the main loop:

while(1){
if((abs(x_vel)>STICTION)||(abs(y_vel)>STICTION)){
x_vel=(int)((ELASTICNUMERATOR*(long int)x_vel)/ELASTICDENOMINATOR);
x_loc+=x_vel;
y_vel=(int)((ELASTICNUMERATOR*(long int)y_vel)/ELASTICDENOMINATOR);
y_loc+=y_vel;
}
if(x_loc<0){ x_loc=-x_loc; x_vel=-x_vel; } if(x_loc>7999){
x_loc=7999;
x_vel=-x_vel;
}
if(y_loc<0){ y_loc=-y_loc; y_vel=-y_vel; } if(y_loc>7999){
y_loc=7999;
y_vel=-y_vel;
}
x_pos=(unsigned char)(x_loc/1000);
y_pos=(unsigned char)(y_loc/1000);
plotBall(x_pos,y_pos);
_delay_ms(50);
}

Syndicated 2009-06-26 04:03:08 from robotguy.net/Blog

25 Jun 2009 p.stegemann » (Apprentice)

Hello robot.net users, I would like to share my vision of what industrial robots can do for art - culture - communication. Please visit the site www.robolounge.net and tell me what you think.

19 Jun 2009 motters » (Master)

A brief guide to using the Minoru stereo webcam.

http://code.google.com/p/sentience/wiki/MinoruWebcam

It seems to me that this device might be quite useful for robot projects. It wasn't very long ago that such as device would cost a couple of thousand dollars or more.

In addition to the feature based stereo I may also try implementing a dense stereo algorithm. My thoughts on using this as a replacement for the cameras on GROK2 are that the baseline is probably a little on the short side, but that it probably would work.

13 Jun 2009 jwp9447 » (Observer)

ㅓㅗㅓㅘㅓㅗㅓㅏㅗ

12 Jun 2009 c6jones720 » (Master)

Hi Guys,

I though I would share my latest robotics project. Im building a robot tank. I was planning to be able to remotely control the tank either using a normal radio control handset or with a wireless network.

I built a pair of Electronic speed controls for the tank tracks using Picaxe 18 Microcontrollers. The speed controllers take in standard 1-2ms PWM signals and convert them into output PWM drive signals for the motors lasting between 0-18ms.

There are lots of analogue circuit diagrams on how to do PWM motor control for radio control type stuff but not much in the way of microcontroller based projects I found, so I just did it myself and it worked.

I would definatly use picaxes to do PWM motor control again, even though the BASIC interpreter is a bit slow the chips are more than fast enough to do motor control.

I have a picaxe.net server and I was planning to use that as an onboard computer but Im afraid it just isnt man enough for the job. I was planning to use the I2C output from the board to control extra I/O by sending the Picaxe.net server TCP/IP commands but it just didnt work out. - Not a problem Im going to use a SheevaPlug server to do that job instead..

http://www.plugcomputer.org/

10 Jun 2009 ROB.T. » (Master)

I've started posting pokerbot tutorials to my site -

http://pokerbotbasics.com/

I think I've got another 2 years before I start building robots again, but the logic between a pokerbot and a robot is amazingly similiar.

9 Jun 2009 Sergey Popov » (Apprentice)

Here is a video of a robot created by students from KTH, Sweden. They used Skilligent Robot Vision software to improve the robot's navigation capabilities.

8 Jun 2009 MRyan » (Apprentice)

PrivacyCamp Washington, DC 2009

Co-sponsored by the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the Future of Privacy Forum (among others), this inaugural "unconference" brings together interested individuals and organizations to share knowledge and foster collaboration. The event is June 20th, 2009, from 8AM to 5PM at the Center for American Progress (1333 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20005). You can register here and Shaun Dakin is the contact should you have any questions.

Syndicated 2009-06-08 22:26:44 from Ryan Calo's blog

5 Jun 2009 kuka » (Journeyer)

I've been noticing a trend - more and more educators are using industrial robots to inspire and challenge their students!

Check out these examples of standard 6-axis robots moving into the classroom to stack bricks, dish out soft serve, and motivate STEM kids:

Harvard University: ABB Robot Builds Undulating Wall

Ohio Northern University: Kuka KR3 serves ice cream!

Los Alamos High School: Fanuc LR Mate 200iB

5 Jun 2009 Roko » (Apprentice)

Quadrupeds Need a Whole Lot of Motor Controllers

It’s been a while since my last update on the Quadruped’s build progress, but I finally got my PCBs back for the motor controllers. Since the robot has twelve motors, I need six motor controllers in total (Each of my controllers controls two motors). They’re an updated version of the h-bridge I prototyped last fall, [...]

Syndicated 2009-06-05 04:35:02 from Roko.ca » Robotics

4 Jun 2009 roboilo » (Journeyer)

Hi! We have just registered here, however we are building robots for almost 2 years, and we have already built 4 minisumo, 2 linefollowers, 2 freestyles, and countless creations from LEGO NXT. We will try to add them to this site database, but it seems impossible for newcomers. So please give us certification if you can.

3 Jun 2009 roschler » (Master)

At E3 Peter Molyneux demonstrated Milo, a game that features a rendered ten year old boy that you converse with. Although Milo doesn't have true natural language processing but instead mostly extensive keyword recognition capability, "he" does have the ability to detect emotion in your voice. This could have interesting applications to robotics.