Adrian is the inventor of the amazing 3D printer RepRap - a printer that can replicate itself. Here Adrian talks more about his unique invention, its applications and what the future for personal manufacturing will look like. By uknesta

In this episode of MakerBot TV we'll chat with TEDx celebrity Thomas Suarez. Thomas is a 12-year-old app developer, entrepreneur and MakerBot operator. He came by the MakerBot Botfarm to chat with Bre and get a tour of the grounds. Be sure to stay tuned for the R.Maker Adventure at the end of every episode! [...]

In an interview conducted while attending Robotdalen, Professor Paolo Dario outlines three waves of innovation in robotics, predicting that the coming third wave will be characterized by interdisciplinary efforts and robots that both contribute to and depend heavily upon the ambient intelligence of ubiquitous networks. Having received his graduate degree in engineering from the University of Pisa, Professor Dario, in 1989, founded the Advanced Robotics Technology and Systems (ARTS) Lab. He is also coordinator of the Center for Research in Microengineering (CRIM Lab), and affiliated with the Biorobotics Institute, which encompasses both, within the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, also in Pisa. He is a past President of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, and the first european to hold this position. Looking forward, Prof. Dario is coordinator of the Robot Companions for Citizens (RCC) project, which is one of six candidates to become a FET Flagship Initiative. The essential characteristic of a robotic companion seems to be reciprocal empathy between the robot and the humans in its environment.

Read On or Tune In

DIY drones are the rage! Chris flew a quadcopter off the stage, and entertained droves of questions from how much weight the copters can carry, to FAA regulations, and announced that they would have a new ARM-based APM (Ardu Pilot Mega) by Maker Faire New York.

In the world of electronics we have impedance; the combination of all forces which oppose the flow of electric current. Often times we have circuits with different impedances, 50 ohms for RF, or 75 for cable TV. It’s pretty important to use the right coax in these circuits, else you’ll be wondering why your RG-58 antenna feed line doesn’t give you anything good to watch.

It’s pretty important to match impedances when connecting different circuits. Apart from the obvious flaws such as a 50 ohm load blowing up a 300 ohm amplifier, there are subtler things such as signal reflection and destructive interference which might just be enough to break whatever it is your playing with. RF mosfets are not cheap! But how could we match impedances? Well we could always use a transformer, but those are rather expensive and bulky. What if we only have a box of resistors to play with? Well, we could build an attenuator! Most of you probably know what an attenuator is; if not, it’s a de-amplifier. Simply put, it’s a circuit which reduces the strength of a signal. Often these are called ‘pads’ in the RF world, and the pad most often used is the pi pad. By looking at the network’s schematic it becomes rather obvious *why* we call it that.

It looks like a π.

Now our guests want a 50 ohm signal attenuation of 3dBm, or 50%. Let’s pick some toppings for our pi then, shall we?

When Z=50, R1 and R3 equal…

[292.4 ohms].

Now R2 equals…

[17.61 ohms]

Well that was a pain. Luckily, there’s a cheat sheet for this.

So now we have our values, and assuming a 50 ohm load everything should work just fine. But wait! Somebody F*cked up and put a 300 ohm feed line on the end of the pad! Crap. Let’s look at the resistance values of the network now, from A to ground. I’m assuming you should know how to calculate resistances…

…105.7 ohms. That’s near double the 50 ohm input impedance and is going to wreak all hell upon the other circuitry. Sure, it does its job of reducing the signal 3dBm but still.

Now here’s the neat thing. Let’s pick some new resistor values so that we attenuate by 10dBm, or about 90%. According to our cheat sheet we’d need 71.75 ohms of attenuating resistance and 96.25 ohms to ground on either end. What’s the impedance mismatch now?

57.78 ohms, or 7.78 away from 50. That’s a lot better than before, and should actually be usable as an impedance matching network. Sure, you lose 10dBm or about 90% of your signal strength, but that’s nothing that can’t be compensated for by putting a Class-C amplifier in series with the attenuator. Even with an active component it’s still cheaper and smaller than a transformer. What I’m trying to prove here is that pi pads can be used as the poor man’s impedance matcher; as attenuation goes up the impedance mismatch goes down.

What’s nice about resistive pi pads is that they are ultra-wideband; since there are no reactive components this network will always attenuate by 10dBm and always match the impedance by 7.2 ohms. An inductive network such as a transformer might not work at both 200kHz and 200MHz. Actually, it certainly won’t work! Capacitive networks would have the same limitations.

</ LESSON>

Filed under: Ask Hackaday

Last year’s beautiful Makey Awards, designed by MakerBot artist-in-residence Jonathan Monaghan

We are thrilled to announce the 2nd Annual MAKE Magazine Industry Maker Awards (aka the “Makeys”)

Over the next 16 weeks, leading up to swanky award ceremonies at Maker Faire New York 2012 (Sept 28, 29), we’ll be profiling, here on MAKE, 12 companies that have shown outstanding support for independent maker/hacker culture over the past year. Four companies/products will be nominated in four categories, and a public poll will determine one winner in each category.

In 2011, we gave 3D-printed Makey statues to the follow recipients:

Microsoft Kinect – Most Hackable Gadget
PanaVise – Most Repair Friendly
Parallax, Inc. – Best Education/Outreach program
Lego – Best Product Documentation

As part of the program, a “Maker Hero” award will also be presented to an individual in the DIY/DIWO community who has made an outstanding contribution to the cause of maker-related education and/or open access to technology. The first award was presented last year to Mitch Altman, for his tireless work in building collaborative “hackerspaces” around the world and in teaching people the joys of hobby electronics and collaborative technologies.

The Makeys are being announced today at Maker Faire Bay Area. As this movement grows, mainstream companies are starting to take makers more seriously as a market segment. MAKE hopes that profiling and celebrating companies that are “getting it,” and giving four of them awards of appreciation, will help fuel their adoption of more open, accessible, user-friendly, and modifiable products.

Stay tuned for the announcement of the first 2012 Makey nominee, Monday, May 28, here on makezine.com. And you can nominate companies and track The Makeys process leading up to Maker Faire New York on The Makeys landing page. Feel free to also nominate companies and worthy maker heroes in the comments below.

After winning last year’s Most Repair Friendly category, for their indispensable electronics vises/circuit board holders, PanaVise added a Makeys “seal of approval” to their product boxes. SO cool!

Last year’s Makey award was designed by MakerBot artist-in-residence Jonathan Monaghan. We want to render the award in a different maker-friendly medium every year. We already have a good idea of what we’d like to do, but we’d love to take suggestions, too. What form would you like to see a Makey take?

There’s no question that Apple has their industrial design down pat; comparing a cell phone charger made by Blackberry or Motorola to the tiny 1-inch-cube Apple charger just underscores this fact. [Ken Shirriff] posted a great teardown of the Apple iPhone charger that goes through the hardware that makes this charger so impressive.

Like most cell phone chargers and power supplies these days, Apple’s charger is a switching power supply giving it a much better efficiency than a simple ‘transformer, rectifier, regulator’ linear power supply. Inside the charger, mains power is converted to DC, chopped up by a control IC, fed into a flyback transformer and converted into AC, and finally changed back into DC, and finally filtered and sent out through a USB port.

The quality of the charger is apparent; there’s really no way this small 1-inch cube could be made any smaller. In fact, if it weren’t for the microscopic 0402 SMD components, it’s doubtful this charger could be made at all.

Comparing the $30 iPhone charger of a cheap (and fake) iPhone charger, the budget charger still uses a flyback transformer but there are serious compromises of the safety and quality. The fake charger doesn’t use a power supply controller IC and replaces the four bridge diodes for a single diode to rectify the AC; a very efficient cost-cutting measure, but it does lead to a noisier power supply.

There’s also the issue of safety; on the Apple charger, there is a (relatively) huge physical separation of  ~340 VDC and your phone. With the off-brand charger, these circuits are separated by less than a millimeter – not very safe, and certainly wouldn’t be UL approved.

It’s worth pointing out that [Ken] compares a similar $7 Samsung charger favorably to the $30 Apple charger. Both are functionally identical, but Apple also has their  marketing down pat, to say the least.

Tip ‘o the hat to [George] for sending this in.

EDIT: In case a 1-inch cube wasn’t impressive enough, check out the euro version of the iPhone/iPad charger. It supplies 1A @ 5V, and isn’t much thicker than the USB port itself. Thanks [Andreas] for bringing this to our attention. If anyone wants to do a teardown of the euro version, send it in on the tip line.

Filed under: hardware, teardown

Have you checked out the MinuteBot Base project that Damien blogged about earlier?

The Kickstarter funding project still needs a few more backers to make it become reality.

Keep in mind that this is not 'donating'. If you pledge, you're buying a product at a discount price. The product is a Technic Base Plate, 21x30.

There's only 4 days left to pledge. If you'd like to have one of these plates for your robots, get one now you still can! To pledge, go here.

Here's a suggestion by Jetro on how to use the baseplate. What will you make?
Update: It looks like funding is going to be successful! (You can still sign up for one or more base plates until May 21). I'll keep you updated when I receive my base plates.

Announced via the Willow Garage website, the Open Source Robotics Foundation, Inc. (OSRF) is an independent non-profit organization founded by members of the global robotics community. Its mission is to support the development, distribution, and adoption of open source software for use in robotics research, education, and product development. OSRF's board of directors includes Professor Wolfram Burgard of the University of Freiburg, Ryan Gariepy, CTO of Clearpath Robotics, Brian Gerkey, Director of Open Source Development at Willow Garage, Helen Greiner, a co-founder of iRobot and currently CEO of CyPhyWorks, and Sam Park, Executive Vice President of Yujin Robot. Initially sponsored projects include the Robot Operating System (ROS), and Gazebo, a 3D multi-robot simulator with dynamics. Gazebo has been chosen by DARPA as the simulation platform for its recently announced robotics challenge for (humanoid) disaster robots.

While it took her 16 days to do it, Claire Lomas, who lost use of her legs in a 2007 accident, finished the London Marathon with the aid of a ReWalk powered exoskeleton from Argo Medical Technologies.

Berkley's Floating Sensor Network project launched 100 floating robots equipped with GPS-enabled smartphones down the Sacramento River on May 9. The launch was designed to test a new generation of water monitoring technologies. The 12 inch robots, called Drifters, are designed to provide real-time, high-resolution data of hard-to-map waterways. One of many possible uses is locating breeches in levee systems quickly enough to allow repair, before erosion destroys the levee. Other uses include identifying contaminants. Andrew Tinka, lead graduate student on the project notes:

“If something spills in the water, if there’s a contaminant, you need to know where it is now, you need to know where it’s going, you need to know where it will be later on. The Floating Sensor Network project can help by tracking water flow at a level of detail not currently possible.”

Deploying the robots is as simple as throwing them into the water from boats, docks, or helicopters. Each robot has a buoyancy control system, differential drive, GPS, compass, depth sensor, salinity sensor, Zigbee and GSM radios, and 72 hours of power from a lithium battery. The open source control system is written entirely in Python and runs on top of Linux. The project is headed by Alexandre Bayen of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS). For more details see the Berkley news release. The project has also released quite a few technical reports and papers describing the developments that went into designing the drifter robots. You can also check several videos of the robots in action.

We usually forget that apart from an exciting research field, robotics is also a huge industry. Frank Tobe, Editor and Publisher of The Robot Report describe the robotics stock exchange map from an investor’s perspective. There are numerous companies that are currently active on robotics but only a fraction of them rely heavily on that sector, most of these stocks are influenced by other trends. There are also newly formed companies that aspire to cash in on the hype that surrounds robotics as an exotic and innovative sector without providing evidence that they are a viable and healthy investment. You can read more about robotics stocks in the article from everything-robotic.com and also in the Robot Report.

To jest testowy wpis wysłany przez program Publiker. W tekście zawarte są polskie litery, aby w ten sposób można było potwierdzić poprawność komunikacji z preclem. Śląskie łóżka mają dużo polskich liter.
To jest testowy wpis wysłany przez program Publiker. W tekście zawarte są polskie litery, aby w ten sposób można było potwierdzić poprawność komunikacji z preclem. Śląskie łóżka mają dużo polskich liter.
To jest testowy wpis wysłany przez program Publiker. W tekście zawarte są polskie litery, aby w ten sposób można było potwierdzić poprawność komunikacji z preclem. Śląskie łóżka mają dużo polskich liter.

One of the challenges we robot builders have, is creating a nice stable base for our creations.  I've used the large Exo wheels in the past, but have always wondered why LEGO have never made a baseplate made entirely with the Technic holes.

Rather than waiting for LEGO to come up with something, Lasse Mogensen and Soren Jensen decided to make it themselves.  It's called the MinuteBot Base and they've jumped on Kickstarter to see if they can raise the funds to put it into production.

So what is it exactly?  It a LEGO baseplate, the height of a normal Technic beam with 21 x 30 holes.
It will make creating bases for all types of robots quick, and more importantly, not use up all your other vital LEGO technic beams!

Laurens Printer on 2 minutebot bases

At the time of this blog post, they had raised nearly $6,000 of their $11,000 target.  Basically that means they need another $5000 to meet their target and start production.  What happens if they don't meet the target? Don't worry, you don't actually pay your money unless they raise all the funds they need.

You can support their project and pick up your very own MinuteBot base here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/37801615/minutebot-base

($30 for one, cheaper if you buy multiple)

How would you use a Minutebot base?  Let us know in the comments.

If you're unfamiliar with Hannover Messe (Hannover Fair), the above video from ABB is probably worth the time it takes you to watch it. It's mainly in German, with English subtitles, and is more about the fair itself than about ABB's presence there. It may even make you want to put Hannover Messe 2013 on your calendar (link downloads ICS file).

Allison Kirk tells us about a new robot website: "TelepresenceRobots.com just launched its website to give businesses, hospitals and schools more information on telepresence robots and to assist them in choosing the best robot to fit their specific needs". The May edition of the robot competition list is out. Our friends over at Plasticpals.com let us know about a new post on the Russian space agency's answer to NASA's Robonaut. Did you check out our photo gallery of the 2012 VEX World Championship? Out of the The Swirling Brain come two robot news stories: first is a news release from Purdue on new research that let's robots see in 3-D with simulated, human-like visual perception. Be sure to check out the YouTube video. Then there's Smartinversion, a sort of flying, helium-filled geometric jellyfish robot that floats through the air by constantly inverting its shape. Know any other robot news, gossip, or amazing facts we should report? Send 'em our way please. And don't forget to follow us on twitter.

An avid reader of science fiction, Daniel Wilson originally wanted to be a sci-fi writer, but, because it still wasn't happening as he approached college, he decided upon a career in science, as the next best thing. Then, after some experience with computers, it occurred to him that they could be programmed to figure out how to solve problems, and he realized that AI and robotics were real fields with huge potential, at which point he was hooked, and that carried him through a PhD. in robotics at Carnegie Mellon University. But he never forgot his dream of being an author, and published his first book, How to Survive A Robot Uprising, in 2005, discussing this and other early work in a Talking Robots podcast in mid-2007. His 2011 novel, Robopocalypse, which Steven Spielberg is making into a movie to be released summer 2013, is the starting point for the current interview.

Read On or Tune In

A new start-up company from Spain is the latest addition to the very popular sector of multirotor aerial platforms. Intelligenia Dynamics aspires to provide a complete and competent aerial platform with substantial automation and embedded intelligence. Their website describe many of the possible application like remote inspection, fire prevention, rescue etc although not in depth. The generalized missions are more or less widely known, the difficult part is to develop a mature product or a complete solution and offer it commercially; very few companies have achieved that level.

The most interesting part at least from what they have already published is the UAV-01 platform. It may not be something groundbreaking but it looks very well designed with attention to detail. Instead of four single motor/props it has four double propeller co-axial units. That set-up is more expensive and slightly more complicated than a conventional quadrotor but it provides more lift for a given volume and it can also produce a more agile vehicle with quicker and more precise thrust control at each unit. The motors appear to be off the shelf commercial items (from Himax) although this is just the prototype. Apart from that, the frame and fuselage is well designed and offer a cartridge type battery swap. You can read more about intelligenia DYNAMICS at iuav.com

Today you can control my Alpha Rex NXT robot, from anywhere in the world! Check it out here or learn more here.

While Panasonic's legal department may be cringing at the prospect, this shampoo-bot appears to be headed straight for market, where it can relieve busy stylists from the need to also perform shampoos, while providing customers with more thorough shampoos and less water in the eyes. Add a sanitization cycle to keep from passing germs and parasites from one customer to the next (if it doesn't already have one), and it just might be marketable as is.

The Mediated Matter Group within the MIT Media Lab, is dedicated to the development and application of novel processes that enable and support the design of physical matter, and its adaptability to environmental conditions in the creation of form. One of their projects, CNSILK: Computer Numerically Controlled Silk Cocoon Construction, explores the design and fabrication potential of silk fibers—inspired by silkworm cocoons—for the construction of woven habitats. While the material being applied in the above video may not be silk, the principles being applied to wrapping it around the interior of a tension-providing frame remain the same. Phys.org has more detail.

Hannover Messe, the world's biggest industrial fair, took place April 23rd through 27th. Among the many exhibits there were Festo's ExoHand, which connects a glove, with an attached exoskeleton containing sensors, to a robotic hand with a very nearly duplicate exoskeleton, operated by pneumatic actuators. The robotic hand mimics the movements of the glove, but can do so with amplified force.

The video above shows the action of a gear-and-lever assembly designed to operate the legs of the TE+ND Rover, a gardening robot which will be on display at the Bay Area Maker Faire, May 19th & 20th. In the last week we have also been treated to another peek into the continuing drama of Q.bo's exploration of its environment, as one Q.bo meets another, and a pair of robot arms one of which draws pictures while the other holds the drawing surface. (videos after the break)

We recently received an announcement of a Mecanum-wheeled kit available from Nexus Robot (a.k.a. or at least co-located with Nexus Automation Ltd., possibly renamed due to a conflict with Nexus Automation GmbH). At first glance the announcement seemed to refer to a new product, however the product page on their website merely calls it a "special". I was unable to determine just how special since the online order system wouldn't work for me (perhaps you need an account first) and the price doesn't appear elsewhere. Nevertheless, these minor irritations which may simply be growing pains aside, and to judge from the collection of videos posted to YouTube last year by nexusrobot, the engineering side of this company seems quite competent, leading me to suspect that we'll all be hearing from them again. Nexus Robot is located in Dongguan, China, about midway between the urban center of Guangzhou and the port city of Shenzhen.

10 year old Peter Cembalest built and programmed this awesome NXT Pinball Machine, with 4 scoring sensors, all picking up different ways to score, 6 sensors total, and fun game play, all controlled by one NXT:



The design is based on the NXT Pinball Machine from the CD LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT 2.0 by Example, but Peter and his dad Michael made some significant enhancements.  The original game had two touch sensors to trigger the flippers, an ultrasonic sensor spotting a rotating spinner target, and a color sensor ball trap.  By using a HiTechnic touch sensor multiplexer, they were able to add two more sensors and get two more ways to score: A touch sensor target lever, and a HiTechnic EOPD sensor that senses when the ball passes through the center tires.  Peter rewrote the entire program to include the new sensors, new sounds and graphics, and other customizations.  Great job!

While the construction is pretty straightforward (3 levers that represent each of the options), the real intelligence happens behind the scenes.  This robot actually learns the rules of the game as it goes along.

"This robot does not play rock-paper-scissors in the way people play.  It first asks the user to input a move (either rock - paper - or scissors).  The robot then calculates the best move to play, and then will extend a retractable arm that shows its next move (a Lego rock, paper, or a Lego scissors).  The player must then tell the robot if the robot won, lost, or tied, against the player.  
While you may think that this robot is cheating, since it waits for the player to make a move, I did not program the robot to know the rules of the game!  The robot does not know that rock beats scissors, paper beats rock, or scissors beats paper!  Instead, the robot relies on the player to tell whether it won/lost/tied to learn from past success/failures and to use this information in the future!"

It looks like after around 10 rounds, the robot has enough information to successfully know the correct move to play for anything its opponent gives it.

The Instructable gives a very good description as well about the theory behind it and how it calculates the best move.  I love the fact that the robot is rewarded with a virtual point if it wins, but penalised 10,000 points if it loses or ties. (talk about incentive!)

Full Instructable here (including source code in NXC) - http://www.instructables.com/id/Self-Learning-Rock-Paper-Scissors-Robot-from-L/

The 2012 VEX Robotics World Championship is over and I've returned with hundreds of photos. This year's championship was held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, CA. Last year, VEX cohosted several other events including BEST competitions, a Coast Guard robot contest, and a Boy Scount merit badge event. This year it was all VEX, all the time. The special guests were Nobel Prize winning physicist Dr. Douglas D. Osheroff, Dave Lavery of NASA, and Miral Kotb's dance troupe iLuminate. Read on for more photos and coverage of the event.

Bottle openers seem to be popular posts here on theNXTstep (hmmm, I wonder what that says about our readership!) and this one from  R.J.McNamara is another great example.




Looks like some heavy duty gearing to get the torque necessary to unscrew the lid.  What is great about this build, is the amount of information he has also posted on his website.

http://www.rjmcnamara.com/2012/03/nxt-beer-soft-drink-bottle-opener/

There are plenty of photos, descriptions and even CAD models of the different sections you can download for yourself.

Not everything was smooth sailing though!  It looks like he had his fair share of 'issues'  :)

One of our contributors Danny Benedettelli,  has been working on a new sensor for the NXT, the NXT2WiFi



Now there are quite a few other WiFi sensors for the NXT out there, but this packs a whole lot more on board, over and above basic communication via WiFi.

• On board webserver, which means you can create your very own web interface directly on the unit itself
• Control your NXT from any device from anywhere in the world
• Lithium-Polymer Batter that can be charged over USB
• Can handle TCP, UDP Sockets, SMTP(email) and SNTP(clock/calendar)
• Allows you to directly control a robot from iPhone, iPod and iPads (as well as any other mobile device)

Now he has a protoype already working, but is going down the crowdsourcing route to fund a first run of 100 units.  Here's your chance to get in early and help make it a reality.  Once he gets to his funding goal, the orders will go ahead.

There are several tiers of support you can choose:

• € 10 or more - Public thanks on project website, and one of his LEGO MINDSTORMS books in digital format.
• € 80 or more - Public thanks on project website, and 1 (one) NXT2WIFI device for free. (instead of 100€ + shipping cost)
• € 500 or more - Public thanks on project website, and 8 (eight) NXT2WIFI devices for free. (instead of 800€ + shipping cost)
• € 1000 or more - Public thanks on project website, and 18 (eighteen) NXT2WIFI devices for free. (instead of 1800€ + shipping cost) 

http://www.eppela.com/eng/projects/162/nxt2wifi-modulo-webserver-per-lego-mindstorms-robots

You can see the full specs here - http://robotics.benedettelli.com/sensors/NXT2WIFI/NXT2WIFI_datasheet_eng.pdf

They people over at LEGO have updated the MINDdroid app that allows you to control your NXT robot from any Android device.

A few of the new features:
Upload a program to your NXT from your phone, no PC needed!
Control sounds and play music
Get sensor readings converted through text to speech



"What about doing xyz?" I hear you ask?  We no problem at all, they have also released all the code as Open Source, so if you're good with programming, you can dive in and modify to your hearts content!

Open Source Software: https://github.com/NXT/LEGO-MINDSTORMS-MINDdroid

Looks almost LEGO®ish, doesn't it?

Robot Virtual Worlds, the simulated environment where you can program a virtual NXT, has received an update.




One of the great things about RVW, is that you can write programs in RobotC, test them out on a virtual robot in the simulator first before testing on a real robot.  A very handy tool to have especially if you're using it in a classroom where you only have a limited number of robots to go around.

The new update includes handy features such as;

• Measuring tables - virtual table tops where you can calculate how far a robot travels based on wheel circumference
• Light Sensor testing tables - As your robot drives across these virtual tables, the sensor will give actual readings depending on the colour 
• New Navigation challenges - Billiards and Mini-Golf

You can get a 60 day trial download from here if you want to check it out - http://www.robotc.net/download/rvw/

Single licence is $49 for a year, with costs coming down if you getting enough licences for a classrom.

Yaya Lu (the teen who has been featured on here before) has another project up.



In this project, she uses the sound sensor and some RobotC software to tell the difference between a 'dit' and a 'dah'  (effectively Morse Code).  That then sends a signal via a NXTBee sensor to her wheelchair (teddy bear included of course) to make it move around.

As she points out, there are over 7000 languages, so rather than an expensive solution to learn all of them, simple long and short sounds are a better way to go.


Check out her video, it does a great job of explaining how she went about solving the problem.

More info here - http://www.yayalu.net/Yaya-Lu-2012/Yaya-Lu-2012.htm

A recent article in PCWeek, (for National Robotics Week), lists the top 10 most influential robots of all time.

The LEGO MINDSTORMS system (That includes the RCX as well as the NXT) was included alongside some of the greatest robots ever, including Honda's Asimo, NASA's Pathfinder and the first ever industrial robot arm, the Unimate.

Now lists like these are always incredibly subjective, but the ease in which LEGO MINDSTROMS allows everyday people to get involved with robotics is a pretty big flag to fly!

Check out the full list here: http://www.pcworld.com/article/253664/historys_10_most_influential_robots.html

Xander has been updating his RobotC driver suite for as long as I can remember so I guess it is about time he put together a "how-to" to actually use it :)

http://botbench.com/blog/2012/04/11/robotc-driver-suite-tutorial/

If you've recently been looking for a gyro sensor to build an NXT self balancing robot, here's another relatively unknown sensor for your consideration. It's the Microinfinity Cruizcore. Find a video of this sensor in action here.

There are currently three gyroscopic sensors available for the NXT (HiTechnic, Dexter Industries and Microinfinity), each with their own specific advantages. In my experience, they all perform equally well when it comes to balancing an NXT robot with RobotC code.

It should be noted however, that currently only an NXT-G balancing program exists for the HiTechnic sensor. It's possible to do this with the other sensors as well, it's just that those programs haven't been made or published online yet.

As I write this, I realize that a comparison page might be helpful. Coming soon then!

Mike Brandl published his Color Programmable Car as the eleventh NXT 2.0 bonus model. Find the building instructions and programs here.

The robot drives around in a path specified by the sequence of colored balls in the NXT set. Using Mike's words: If you throw in a ...

- green ball it will drive forward until the ultrasonic sensor detects an obstacle
- yellow ball it will turn approximately 90 degrees to the right
- red ball it will drive forward 0.5 m
- blue ball it will turn approximately 90 degrees to the left

RJ McNamara has been working on a very nice look quad motor holonomic drive platform.  No videos yet but plenty of great pitcures (and CAD renders) of his setup.

He has three different versions, 2 with 4xPF motors and one with 4xNXT motors.  The NXT one uses the Mindsensors Motor Multiplexer to control them all.  He also has spaced 4 Ultrasonic sensors around, and checks the readings one at a time to minimise interference from the others.

At the end of each motor is 2 RotoCaster omnidrive wheels (That's right, 8 in total!)


Lots and lots of great pictures, as well as the full LDD cad designs for anyone who wants to download them.

http://www.rjmcnamara.com/2012/04/quad-drive-holomonic-platform/

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Regular contributor Laurens Valk has put together a great Bluetooth tutorial for RobotC.  We often hear that Bluetooth implementation is tricky in RobotC, and so to have such a great step-by-step tutorial will be very helpful for many people. Sample code included! :)

One of the components of FIRST Tech challenge is to be able to drive around a robot that is powered by the NXT.  Now they can beef their robots up with other, stronger materials, but it looks like one of the real challenges has been the programming required to interface the NXT with a hand-held controller.

Titus Woo has written his own RobotC interface to make life a little easier for teams.

From the site:

Tele-op Catalyst makes it stupidly easy to create robust teleop (remote control) programs using a simple but powerful "click, command, create" workflow. While you still need to know how to write simple code such asmotor[motorA]=100, all the complexities of handling button presses, determining toggle states, driving, etc. are handled by Tele-op Catalyst, so you don't have to.

 While I've never entered FTC myself, I do hear that the interface part can be tricky for teams and this would allow them to get up and running quickly.

Anyone had a chance to test this?  Let us know in the comments.

Only five months after joining Google, Java creator and former Oracle employee James Gosling has announced that he’s leaving the search giant to become the Chief Software Architect for Liquid Robotics, a new firm that develops robots for maritime applications.

Gosling posted about the move on his personal website:

I’ve surprised myself and made another career change. I had a great time at Google, met lots of interesting people, but I met some folks outside doing something completely outrageous, and after much anguish decided to leave Google.

Liquid Robotics primarily develops Wave Glider, an autonomous robotic vehicle that is packed with sensors, powered by solar panels and wave action, and that uploads the data it collects to the cloud. Gosling described Wave Gliders in the Gulf of Mexico that are being used to monitor water chemistry. According to the Liquid Robotics website, the Wave Glider harvests energy from the environment in order to “travel long distances, hold station, and monitor vast areas without ever needing to refuel.”

It seems like just yesterday I was buying scoops of IRBT at $7 a share. Actually it was more like 30 months ago - but iRobot has been on an absolute tear since then. Despite the recession, the company's revenues and profits quickly rebounded and then hit all time highs, and the stock has followed nicely, roughly matching AAPLs performance in that time (without introducing an iPad I might add).

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iRobot's new robots are getting noticed as early home implementations of Kinect-style technology. Reuters has the story from CES.

Didn't expect this so soon: iRobot unveiled its telepresence robot, AVA. The telepresence robot is compatible with iPads and Android devices and is designed to be ready for APPs. iRobot CEO Colin Angle: "If you can program an iPad, you can program a robot." The new robot has sonar and mapping, and Microsoft Kinect-style technology. Here's PC Magazine's interview on YouTube: Exciting stuff!

iRobot Corporation (NASDAQ:IRBT) announced today that it will introduce all new models of its Roomba and Scooba lines at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The new Roomba 700 Series robots feature AeroVac II vacuum bin with more power, HEPA filtration, 50% better battery life, and improved dirt detection. The new 700 Series models will cost about double the $249 starting price point for the 500

The robotics field is heating up. Heartland Robotics, the company founded by iRobot godfather Rodney Brooks, announced Nov. 30 that they have secured another $20 million in funding. Can't wait for them to show off their supposedly amazingly cheap and useful products and have an IPO.

iRobot CEO Colin Angle gave an extensive interview to GetRobo.com where he praises Neato Robotics as a company and calls their laser rangefinder interesting, but ultimately dismisses the Neato XV-11 robotic vacuum, saying that it does not do as good of a job of cleaning as Roomba, because it treats such things as couch skirts as walls and doesn't then clean under the couch. Angle also said that

A couple of pieces of excellent news appears to be juicing iRobot's stock, which has come very close to the initial $24 IPO price, which would be a nice milestone for the company. Boeing, the company that markets iRobot's SUGV product to the military, announced that it has started delivering SUGVs under the low rate initial production phase of the brigade combat team modernization program, with

Reuters has an article that points out big defense contractors are buying smaller ones to find growth in a tight funding environment. Boeing, iRobot and Northrop Grumman are mentioned as focusing on unmanned systems, an area prime for growth. Link.

Roomba, or Neato?

Colin Angle iRobot CEO Colin Angle told Forbes magazine that he sees opportunities for continued growth in military robots even with future budget cuts in Defense spending. The company's robots cost a lot less than other military items (ed: like people), and are proven to save lives. Angle said he doesn't have a precise number of how many PackBots have been killed in action by roadside bombs,

iRobot's conference call this morning was very, very boring, almost tedious, and I blame the analysts. All they seemed to care about were vague questions about "color" for next year's numbers. Nobody had a truly insightful question, including the obvious ones: 1) How concerned are you about the threats from Neato Robotics, Mint Cleaner, Samsung, and are you worried that they are taking share in