Category: Mad Science

Robot Magazine On the Stands

Robot 

I’ve been reading through the premiere issue of ‘Robot Magazine’ and have nothing but good things to say about it. Anyone that has an interest in the growing area of hobby robotics needs to read this publication. No matter if you have a LEGO Mindstorm kit and want to get some ideas, a new VEX robotics system, or are building a ‘Robo One‘ classed robot there is going to be something in this for you. The lead story of how the Mythbusters built their own PackBot out of the new VEX Robot System is a great read. First class stuff!

Robot Magazine

DIY Line Following Robot2

 

 There you go, a fantastic DIY project that involved LEGOs, electronics, and robotics.

As any good engineering project goes, we will start out with a problem and a solution. The problem is going to be to build a Lego robot with sensors, a motor controller, and a microcontroller that 1. Follows a black tape. 2. Upon reaching the end of the tape will pause for three seconds. 3. After pausing for 3 seconds will return back to the starting point.

This reminds me of my first robot. I had just about the same setup as he does except I had touch and IR sensors connected to a Basic Stamp all on a LEGO body. I used a hand built H-Bridge to drive the motors and not a 2998. It worked OK except the motors were geared wrong and it went far too fast. After smacking into one too many walls I took it apart and started on another project.

DIY Line Following Robot2

King Pong!

PONG!

More Pong goodness! The German group, ‘chaos computer club‘ wired up lights in all the windows of an eight story building and interfaced it to a computer that can be controlled via cell phone. What you get is a massive video arcade that anyone with a cell phone can call into and play. Just amazing what time and know-how can do isn’t it?

Project Blinkenlights: Blinkenlights

Sony Makes a Buckyball Film

Right now it looks little more than a chunk of kelp that washed up on a beach somewhere but trust me, its much more than that.

The formula Sony has developed uses the buckyballs arranged in clumps of eight. Sony is mixing them in a polymer to form a barrier that makes for thinner membranes. The goo helps stop the penetration of oxygen across the fuel cell’s membrane and stops methanol leakage, which in turn boosts the power density…or so the Sony boffins say.

Huh? Sounds like the oxygen doesn’t stand a chance at making little buckyballs, poor buggers. All kidding aside, this should help make fuel cells more efficient with a power density of about 100 milliwatt-hours per square centimeter.

[via Core77 ]

Sony super fuel cell film

Robot Football With Mr. Soccer

Robot Football

What could be more fun than robot football, er.. I mean soccer?  Each of your little robotic (remote controlled, but some hacking can give them the gift of autonomy) is about two inches high and run off from two AAA batteries. The starter pack comes with two robots (England and Brazil) but you can have up to seven on a side. I can imagine that having 14 robots on a playing field is going to require some unique markings added to your robot, good thing it comes with a sheet of stickers. I’m hoping that these end up being sold here in the states, with such a low cost (apx $56US for the base kit and $25US for each extra robot) these could be bought in a large quantity and used in a robotics lab as the basis of some swarm bots.

Robot Football