Fast Robot Prototyping 56
Lana writes "This article walks you through various materials and techniques you can use to physically build a robotic prototype. See how to build a fast and easy prototype that can be disassembled, reconfigured, and reassembled. This article builds on a previous articles, entitled 'How to drive your wireless robot.'"
Next article in the series (Score:5, Funny)
Robots and cars (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Robots and cars (Score:3, Insightful)
Give a kid a fish and he eats for a day.
Give a kid a car, and he gets interested in everything *but* science and engineering...
--
Fourth post, Fourth post, Fourth post.
Mod me up from all these 0/1 comments.
Robots miss articles greater than one.
Re:Robots and cars (Score:5, Funny)
Build a man a fire, and you'll keep him warm for the night.
Set a man on fire, and you'll keep him warm for the rest of his life.
Re:Robots and cars (Score:2)
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you give up your monopoly on fisheries.
Yeah, but... (Score:1)
Sure, it all seems like fun and games until the damn things become sentinent. [imdb.com]
For knives and stabbing weapons... (Score:4, Funny)
You build one of those... (Score:1)
Re:You build one of those... (Score:1)
At least they don't have to bother killing you for being an idiot... You'll have done it yourself.
Hey... self-fulfilling Darwin Award!
"My parents will kill me..."
*BANG!*
Re:For knives and stabbing weapons... (Score:2)
Beautiful... (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to say, this is one of the most useful things I've seen on Slashdot in a while. For getting kids interested: my old middle school used to participate in a robotics league [usfirst.org], which really got me interested in the whole idea of AI and computer programmming. There was too much demand: we could only send 16 people (8 per team) and every year 50 kids would show up. Let's get some schools to join...
Re:Beautiful... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Public Alphas (Score:2, Insightful)
Anything that gets people to build stuff instead of playing xbox is good.
Re:Public Alphas (Score:2, Insightful)
Exaclty how I feel. That's why when my 7 year old expressed interest in robots when he was 5 I jumped at the opportunity to start teaching him how to build things. He's got a collection of Lego Galidor space robots he started building, morphing, and even hacking when he was 5. This summer he moved up to building a working model of an internal combustion engine and helped me build a mousey junkbot. I'm taking advantage of his inter
Hold on... (Score:1, Informative)
Let's not forget the first article [ibm.com] in the series...
Overall, it's not a bad primer on the field of robotics. The entire series is a refreshing read for beginners.
Excellent technique (Score:4, Interesting)
Step two is to replace part of the system with the real item. Repeat step two until you have a complete system comprised of 'real' parts. Then, you're done.
The beauty of this approach is that you are always dealing with a working system. If you build a part and it doesn't work, then that's what you have to fix. The alternative, where you build all the parts and assemble them and hope it all works, doesn't give you that advantage. If the system doesn't work, you don't know which part to fix first.
Is this a really a robot? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this thing anything more than a very expensive remote-control car minus the remote? I don't see any reference to sensors and feedback. Without some sort of sensor/feedback mechanism, some sort of intelligent behavior, I wouldnt call it a robot.
Re:Is this a really a robot? (Score:1)
Re:Is this a really a robot? (Score:1)
Well, it is only the second installment of a teaching series of articles, which ends by noting that this is not a complete robot, but only a prototype needing further development.
Without some sort of sensor/feedback mechanism, some sort of intelligent behavior, I wouldnt call it a robot.
Yep, a robot is as a robot does. You recognize them by their behavior.
And you've just described your home heating system's thermostat. The
Re:Is this a really a robot? (Score:1, Funny)
I dunno, sounds like the average slashdotter would put a pink bow on its head, call it "Natalie" and marry it.
Lego Mindstorms (Score:4, Informative)
Besides, with Legos, you don't have to have power tools. Just your handy dany digits.
Re:Lego Mindstorms (Score:2, Interesting)
An artificial muscle system would be great too, using their pneumatics systems perhaps? I doubt they'll do it though, you can't even order individual parts from Lego. You have to order them from people that buy stuff and sort all the parts.
As for lego mecha builders, check out these crazy talented japanese builders Nakany, Zizy etc. [linkclub.or.jp]. It
Re:Lego Mindstorms (Score:2)
Of course you can... [legoeducation.com]
They used to be called "Pitsco-Lego-Dacta", but apparently (recently?) they spun off their Lego Educational stuff into a separate site and store (Pitsco sells a lot of science educational stuff, not just Lego) - and finally, you can buy the blue tanks (for the pneumatics)!!!
most useful thing for physical prototyping (Score:5, Informative)
Tools wise a dremmel type drill, lathe, set of files, hacksaw, and a screwdriver.
Re:most useful thing for physical prototyping (Score:3, Informative)
Build a brake with a couple door hinges and 3 pieces of wood so that you can put in straight bends.
Johnny 5 Alive! (Score:5, Funny)
No disassemble!
Re:Johnny 5 Alive! (Score:1)
A new RoR (Score:1)
We model a robot based on a real human sample
So bring your buttler down and we'll auto-generate a butler robot based on the human model's attributes instrinsic to their DNA sequence
Bring some extra 2x4's and I-Beams, and you'll
How about wife prototyping? (Score:1)
Fast robotic prototypes one day... (Score:1)
I for one, welcome our new killer robotic overlords!
OMNI Magazine story on prototype robots in '81 (Score:5, Interesting)
When the robots started doing odd things, they learned quite a lot. One thing that was programmed into the bugs was to defend a territory. The bugs would run a perimeter, and if another robot had tresspassed, they would park and shine their headlights on each other. Theoretically, they should have stayed locked this way, but sometimes one would give up and stake out a new territory.
They were using this for prototyping, and I wonder how far they've come since 1981.
Re:OMNI Magazine story on prototype robots in '81 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:OMNI Magazine story on prototype robots in '81 (Score:2)
Re:More information.... (Score:2)
W. Grey Walters/Braitenberg begot Brooks which begot Tilden. W. Grey Walters built his robots out of vacuum tubes in
Re:OMNI Magazine story on prototype robots in '81 (Score:2)
Nowadays, Mark Tilden [wikipedia.org] actually develops robots for WowWee Toys. He's responsible for that RoboSapien [wikipedia.org] thing you see all the time in toy stores, and he's curently working on a number of robots to succeed it.
Re:OMNI Magazine story on prototype robots in '81 (Score:2, Funny)
Doing fine thanks! Read slashdot regularly, and have tried to get first post, but there must be faster models out there than me..
I look back at my territory-defending, headlight-flashing days and just laugh now!
Awesome (Score:1)
Old news... (Score:2)
They're called legos....
If the robot needs a brain (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.scn.org/~mentifex/mind4th.html [scn.org] is a free artificial intelligence for your robot
http://mind.sourceforge.net/m4thuser.html [sourceforge.net] is the User Mainual of the free AI Brain for robots.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectionism#Spreadi ng_activation [wikipedia.org] is the principle of operation of the free AI Mind for robots.
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/307824.307853 [acm.org] is an ACM paper on the AI Brain from 1998.
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1052883.1052885 [acm.org] is an ACM follow-up paper from 2004.
http://www.914pcbots.com [914pcbots.com] is w
ugly (Score:1)
Article reminded me of a robot I made... (Score:3, Interesting)
Oblig. Simpsons (Score:1)
See all that stuff in there Homer? That's why your robot never worked.
Oblig. South Park (Score:2)
Butters would be thrilled.