The simple 2-servo walker (which I hope to use as a fablab-ready robot kit) went through its first paces today. The microcontrollerboard used is an ATmega32.. my ‘ottantotto’s haven’t arrived yet 🙁 The robot walks well, now it’s time to make it turn, avoid obstacles, sit up, make noise, etc… You can see it walkRead more
This is a try-out of a FabLab-ready kit design for a 2-Servo walking robot. The design is inspired by the lynxmotion kits and the designs by david buckley. The goal for this project is to make all mechanical parts for the servo walker out of 1 A4 size sheet of plywood (or perspex, lexan, delrin,Read more
I’m really enthusiastic about the reprap project. The whole Idea of having a printer that can print functioning parts, just on your desktop is .. well.. cool. The reprap is a machine that can replicate part of its own parts. However, to build one from scratch you get a certain ‘bootstrap’ problem.. Hence you haveRead more
The previously discussed LED matrices have been mounted on a perspex stand, and instead of the mublock controller I have used a normal Arduino Diecimila. Since the software was originally written for WinAVR using some of the AVRlib functions, I haven’t made a full functioning Arduino sketch yet. Bitmap images give the start configuration forRead more
…or what to do with hundred-or-so tiny magnets… I took these magnets from a ball-and-magnetic-stick building kit, of which the balls had started to corrode. With a pair of pliers I crushed the plastic sticks, freeing the tiny magnets. They live happily on my refrigerator now.Read more
First of all I wish you an inspiring and creative 2009! The remainder of this post is about the Dot matrix LED display. This ‘game of life’ simulation is running in Processing, communicating via serial port to an ATmega32 controller which controls two LED dot matrixes. The displays were on sale at baco-army-goods, and hadRead more
Today this tiny crawler took his first steps! This robot uses 5 small-size RC servo’s and is controlled by a small custom microcontrollerboard using an Atmel ATmega8. This controller board is very minimalistic. No power supply regulator, no crystal, just the controller, some capacitors and pcb edge connectors for directly connecting the servo flat cables.Read more
More details on the mechanics. The frame has been made from the cover of a discarded CD-ROM drive. The frame had been cut using metal scissors. Bras tubes have been soldered to the frame in order to form the middle joint. The whiskers are made from guitar string, mounted to paper-detect switches that had aRead more
Listening to electromagnetic fields is easy and fun (you can actually listen if a wire is ‘live’ or not, provided AC current is running through). Especially laptop computers emit a lot of EM noise in audible range. Use the electronics of an old walkman. Perhaps you have the guts of a walkman lying around, perhapsRead more
I remembered reading once that manufacturers of electric candles had been using melody-card chips as LED drivers, causing these candles unseeingly to emit music. In order to ‘audify’ this optical sounds, I connected a BPW34 diode (with large Silicon cell, so it actually generates a voltage) to a jack chassis and hooked it up toRead more