Up until the present day, if you need butter, you simply ask another human to “pass the butter,” leading to minor inconvenience and awkwardness. Engineering students in Brussels have come up with a novel solution: a robot that brings the butter to you!
The robot, inspired by Rick and Morty’s Butter Bot, is powered by an Arduino Uno and summoned to hungry humans via an infrared remote control.
When the signal detected by onboard IR sensors, the robot moves over using continuous-rotation modded servos, then flips its cap-like lid to reveal the butter inside.
If you’re familiar with the Segway or other vehicles that balance in what is known as an “inverted pendulum” configuration, you may think that while interesting, creating something similar would be too complicated or out of your budget. Though perhaps still not simple, Joop Brokking takes you through his design for this type of bot in the video seen here, making it accessible if you’d like to build your own.
The robot, which will cost about $80 in parts, uses two stepper motors for greater movement precision than could be had with normal DC models, and employs an Arduino Pro Mini, along with an MPU-6050 accelerometer/gyroscope for control. It can be driven around by a Wii U-style nunchuck, which transmits to the robot via an Arduino Uno and wireless transceiver module.
Whether you choose to control this vehicle with your mind or a joystick, the camera mounted on it will give you a new view of the world.
Maker “Imetomi” was inspired to create a tracked robot after he was able to salvage a camera off of a cheap drone. This became the basis of his FPV setup, which he fitted onto a little tracked vehicle. Although this would have been enough for most people, in addition to building a joystick-based controller, he also made it work with a brainwave headset.
Imetomi now has something that he can drive around virtually, spying on passersby, as long as it stays within the VR transmitter’s 50-meter range. Be sure to check out the video below, where the small bot shows of its impressive all-terrain capabilities, and read his Instructables write-up here.
If you think building a walking robot is impossible, perhaps this little guy will change your mind!
With platforms like the various flavors of Arduino, robotics has become accessible for many more people. Walking robots, however, can still be challenging. Especially when it comes to electronics and programming, one has some fairly complicated mechanisms to figure out. Perhaps none is more frustrating than four-legged walkers, as they seem very stable, but that all changes when one foot is removed from the ground.
QuadBot aims to change this with an Arduino-compatible robot that, with clever cutouts for servo motors and plug-in headers on its main board, should be fairly easy to set up, yet capable of being expanded as needed.
The 3D-printable, open-source bot is designed for Makers of any skill level. It works right out of the box and can be programmed using graphical blocks, ideal for beginners. Every aspect of QuadBot can be customized and modified, though, from the 3D design down to a single line of C++ code, opening it up to more advanced users as well.
QuadBot was made for you to do real deal robotics. This means that you learn coding techniques that are scalable to bigger and better projects, rather than an oversimplified and limited alternative (such as Lego Mindstorms). A robotics platform that sets up young and experienced Makers like this has not existed until right now.
QuadBot doesn’t just walk either, it can dance, light up, and with sensors, can follow you, avoid obstacles, and even play songs. The project is the brainchild of Jack Scott-Reeve and Josh Elijah, who graduated with master’s degrees from the University of Manchester’s School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
If you think building a walking robot is impossible, perhaps this little guy will change your mind!
With platforms like the various flavors of Arduino, robotics has become accessible for many more people. Walking robots, however, can still be challenging. Especially when it comes to electronics and programming, one has some fairly complicated mechanisms to figure out. Perhaps none is more frustrating than four-legged walkers, as they seem very stable, but that all changes when one foot is removed from the ground.
QuadBot aims to change this with an Arduino-compatible robot that, with clever cutouts for servo motors and plug-in headers on its main board, should be fairly easy to set up, yet capable of being expanded as needed.
The 3D-printable, open-source bot is designed for Makers of any skill level. It works right out of the box and can be programmed using graphical blocks, ideal for beginners. Every aspect of QuadBot can be customized and modified, though, from the 3D design down to a single line of C++ code, opening it up to more advanced users as well.
QuadBot was made for you to do real deal robotics. This means that you learn coding techniques that are scalable to bigger and better projects, rather than an oversimplified and limited alternative (such as Lego Mindstorms). A robotics platform that sets up young and experienced Makers like this has not existed until right now.
QuadBot doesn’t just walk either, it can dance, light up, and with sensors, can follow you, avoid obstacles, and even play songs. The project is the brainchild of Jack Scott-Reeve and Josh Elijah, who graduated with master’s degrees from the University of Manchester’s School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
Creative Mornings is a series of talks given by creative types all over the world and recorded for everyone to see online.
Last May, 22-year-old Nerea de la Riva Iriepa, one of the worlds most promising young talents in Robotics gave an inspiring talk about her journey in the world of robotics, her discovery of Arduino, how to work in team and also how to deal with a male-dominated robot world.
She is currently student of Electronic Communications at the University of Alcalá in Madrid and also an intern at Arduino in Malmö where she is creating educational content for beginners and finding ways to make coding easier for young users.
[Bithead942’s] love of the ever popular Dr Who series led her to develop a replica of the 4th Doctor’s robotic companion. It’s name is K-9, and was built from scratch in only 4 months. Its shell is made from HPDE – a light and bendable plastic. A custom plastic bender was constructed to get the angles just right, and custom laser cut parts were used in various places.
Its frame consists of aluminum channel, and is packed full of juicy electronics. An arduino with an XBee shield controls the remote voice, frickin’ laser and eye sensors. Another arduino is paired with a motor shield to control the liner actuator for the neck movement. And a Raspberry Pi keeps the LCD screen in order.
We’re not done, folks. Because this puppy is radio controlled, a custom controller is needed. Sparkfun’s Fio paired with another XBee is used along with a 16×2 LCD and various other electronics to keep the robot on an invisible leash.
Be sure to check out the blog site, as it goes into great detail on all the various parts used to construct this complicated but awesome project.
Jacob Glueck submitted a great hack for the Arduino Robot:
“A couple of years ago, I built an Arduino-powered shirt-folding machine which folds clothes. Using the Arduino robot from the RobotChallenge, I will build a device to remove folded clothes from the machine and to stack them. My idea is special because it will involve two Arduinos (the Arduino Uno in the shirt folder, and the Arduino Robot) which will have to communicate, and because it will be very useful. The robot will solve the real life problem of laundry folding by making the task easier and faster and by doing so nicely; the robot will use a custom-designed gripper to transport garments while keeping them perfectly folded.”
On his blog you can look at the pictures of the construction phase , and below watch the video of the final project:
During the last months we’ve been involved with RS components in launching the “Hack the Arduino Robot” competition. It has been a bit of a special competition where people would participate by posting their ideas and a committee of experts would choose which could be the most interesting challenges for the Arduino Robot to perform.
I was part of the committee and I am pleased to say that I am not disappointed. The level of the projects is in general pretty impressive, specially considering the amount of time they had to put into making something innovative. I am really thrilled about getting to know which team will be the one voted as the final winner of the challenge, I have my favorites, but I will not say publicly.
I think everyone should look at the videos just to see that robots can be so much more than whatever it is we conceptualized them for.
Now it’s time to express your vote too: the likes of the videos on the playlist will be counted until 23rd of March 2014. The project with the most likes wins the community award!
Planet Arduino is, or at the moment is wishing to become, an aggregation of public weblogs from around the world written by people who develop, play, think on Arduino platform and his son. The opinions expressed in those weblogs and hence this aggregation are those of the original authors. Entries on this page are owned by their authors. We do not edit, endorse or vouch for the contents of individual posts. For more information about Arduino please visit www.arduino.cc
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