Rovio owners have always been able to control their sentry bot from their iPhone using WowWee’s browser-based interface, but someone has apparently found that not good enough, so he built his own iPhone/iPod touch app. It looks pretty neat. It gives you a larger view of the Rovio’s webcam feed and also lets you use the accelerometer to control the bot. The app is free.
We would all like to have our own robot. And hey, it’s a bonus if that robot doubles as a cool CNC router. We’ll here’s your opportunity to build your own six legged robot with an attached CNC router for a head. Check out this awesome demo video that shows off the robots mobility while it carves a super detailed 3d human face.
I think this solves the mystery of that huge face on Mars. Somewhere out there, some alien is controlling a gigantic robo-router for their own amusement. The awesome thing is that you can build your own version. The site is selling kits with everything you need. Soon you too can make detailed human heads of your very own.
This is a video of an iPhone robot, complete with springy tail. It’s a self-propelled iPhone robot that uses a small electrical engine and a Arduino board. It runs on 4 AA batteries and apparently prefers to dance to the sounds of Techo.
Oooooh, Robot Galaxy is a store, not an actual galaxy, oooooh. Based on its namesake comic book, Robot Galaxy is a toy store that lets customers create their own robots. A body here, some arms and extenders there, voila, a custom-built killing machine. It’s like Build a Bear but Build a Bot.
This isn’t to teach kids fundamentals of engineering or robotics programming, you’ll find no such brain meltery here. No, no, these robots are simply to let children (or robot-loving adults) flex their creativity.
They do have sound effects, with different sounds corresponding to different robot parts. The robot’s owner will also be able to connect it to the internet, where a virtual representation of the bot will interact with other Robot Galaxy robots online. Developers say that Robot Galaxy is more geared to boys than similar products like Webkins or Neopets.
Robot Galaxy is a small chain with only three stores — one in West Nyack, New York, one in Freehold, New Jersey, and one at the Toys R US in Times Square. With finished bots ranging in price from about $20 to $75, this doesn’t seem like a bad deal. If you’re not near any of those stores you can also make creations online at RobotGalaxy.com.
Here’s a mini-segway wannabee. It’s the work of Italian programmer Nicola, The robot is based on an Arduino mainboard and gyros, with a couple of motors capable of feeding back their position. The gyros work with accelerometers to monitor whether the robot is moving forward or backward, spinning, tipping forward or falling back. That data is handled by the Arduino, which also gets input from the motors to figure out the robot’s speed.
It will cost around $350 to build, but it’s not perfect yet. Eventually the robot does fall, but it balances pretty well before that happens. In the last video, the bot does well balancing a wooden stick. Nicola believes that with a couple more weeks of working the bugs out, the consistency rate will improve. Videos below. Read the rest of this entry »
Dogs like to play fetch. Maybe too much. They never tire of it, even though you are over it. Never fear Fetchbot will play with your dog for you. FetchBot is a tennis ball catapult built mostly from a cannibalized document scanner. You could easily build this yourself and if you do, every dog in the neighborhood is going to be at your place. Video below. Read the rest of this entry »
Robot builder Matt Denton built a Hexapod robot for himself awhile back, and now offering a kit of a similar bot to the general public through Micromagic Systems. It’s appropriately and looks pretty simple, boasting a built-in HexEngine with plenty of pre-loaded settings, and built-in PS2 controller suppport. Experienced robot builders have a whole slew of optional add-ons for the kit. Comes in your choice of black, red, or silver for about $168. Read the rest of this entry »
Some guy really hates to dispose of disposable razors and spent about 800 hours cutting up 2,120 disposable razors and gluing them together to make a functional 43 pound robot. You crazy, razor-man. But your psycho project is retro-cool.
Build a functional AT-ST walker that looks like it came from a kid-made Star Wars movie. Then have it walk over Jar-Jar until you are satisfied. The AREXX YT-3000 aka “YETi Walker” is a pretty cool bi-pedal robot which can be programmed using your PC or remote-controlled via an IR interface. It’s powered by an ATMEGA8 microcontrolller, which can be easily programmed in C. In its basic configuration, the YETi is a simple walking machine, but you can expand it with additional sensors and modules, like an ultrasonic obstacle detector and an external LED display.
The basic YETi Walker kit is available for about $114. I would build it and then paint it up to look like a real AT-ST.