Robot Living

This weekend is the Maker Faire in Providence Rhode Island.

Come learn how to solder or meet some folks who make robots.

Belvedere the butler robot will be there, as well as Makerbot and some interesting things from Neuron Robotics.

Come for the robots, stay for all the other fun stuff.

By the way, the event is free, but if you feel like donating you can do so on Kickstarter.

Maker Faire RI August 28, 2010, Bank of America Skating Center. 3pm-11pm

Tags: maker faire, providence, rhode island

Follow along as we attempt to build our first two wheeled robot using three main components.

We will be using an Arduino Duemilanove for the brain, an Adafruit Motor Shield and 2 Wheeled Mobile Platform from MakerShed.

We are not sure yet what we will have the robot do.  We do have a Maxbotix LV-EZ1 Ultrasonic Range Finder and may use that to help it avoid bumping into walls, or we may use some photocells to make a line following robot.

Ultimately, when it is done is three or four years it will deliver cold beer and do almost everything as Tom Waits says in Step Right Up.

That’s right, it filets, it chops
It dices, slices, never stops
Lasts a lifetime, mows your lawn
And it mows your lawn
And it picks up the kids from school
It gets rid of unwanted facial hair
It gets rid of embarrassing age spots
It delivers a pizza
And it lengthens, and it strengthens
And it finds that slipper that’s been at large
Under the chaise lounge for several weeks
And it plays a mean Rhythm Master
It makes excuses for unwanted lipstick on your collar

Kidding aside, what should we have our little two wheeled robot do when it is done?

Leave your suggestions in the comments and follow our progress on the build page.

Tags: 2 wheeled robot, building, mobile, robot

Using a Make controller as the brains, Patrick Adedsso has made a cool little robot.

The robot now sports a Sabertooth 2×10 motor controller, Lynxmotion chassis, Maxbotix ultrsonic sensor and a webcam.

The robot was originally programmed in .NET C# and recently ported to Flex/ Actionscript.  You can check out the actual code here.

The robot also has a remote control mode as well as an autonomous mode.

Check out all the details and more pics at Bedpan Media.

Link via (Make)

It’s all about the drones this week baby, so why not make one yourself?

Over at DIY Drones you can get directions on how to build your own drone for not a lot of money.  They have just released Ardupilot 2.0, software that controls the your drone plane.  Or if planes aren’t your thing, build an autonomous blimp for about $100.  Check out the blimp page at DIY Drones here.  Or you can buy a kit from Make here.

The blimps go by various names such as Light Autonomous Air Vehicle, Blimp Bots, Blubber Bots.  Although blimps seem like they would be fun to make, they don’t seem like they would be good for  carrying a heavy camera.  It’s all about the cameras and spying man.

Check out this helicopter being made by Jose at DIY Drones, complete with camera.

Or you could just shell out $$$ for a Draganflyer.  The Draganflyer 6 has no price listed, just a request a quote form.  But the Draganflyer SAVS model goes for $2,499.  It certainly would be a lot cheaper to build your own drone.   What are you waiting for man?  Get building!

Link

Make  has a great post on robot building clubs.  Probably the largest club  is Astromech, a R2-D2 builders club.

The R2-D2 shown here appeared at the Maker Faire last year and is by Astromech maker Geeman.

Check out the Make article here and go build an R2-D2!