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Robotics Technology

Fast Robot Prototyping 56

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the zero-to-hal-in-sixty-seconds dept.
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.'"
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Fast Robot Prototyping More

Fast Robot Prototyping

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  • Next article in the series (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10, 2005 @09:58PM (#13761189)
    "How to make love to your robot"

  • Robots and cars (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zegebbers ( 751020 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @10:00PM (#13761199) Homepage
    are excellent for getting kids interested in science/engineering. These sorts of things can be modified and are fun to learn so they're perfect. The prices are also relatively modest compared to other expenses.

  • For knives and stabbing weapons... (Score:4, Funny)

    by JoshRoss ( 88988 ) <josssssssssssssh@gmail.com> on Monday October 10, 2005 @10:05PM (#13761231) Journal
    My rapid prototyping machine is the T-1000. The biggest problem is that it can't form complex machines. Guns and explosives have chemicals, moving parts. It doesn't work that way.

  • Beautiful... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RedNovember ( 887384 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @10:07PM (#13761236)

    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...

    • and I think that kids interested in science is something we really need. I mean, if we want to keep a strong science industry going, we need the future generation, basically anyone my age or younger (18), to not only use computers and techno-toys, but understand them to some degree.

  • Hold on... (Score:1, Informative)

    by RedNovember ( 887384 )

    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)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10, 2005 @10:15PM (#13761282)
    While it may look Mickey Mouse, building a prototype with Lego can save a huge amount of time. It is very easy to get a working system using Lego. I've had students build pick and place robots and conveyer systems with Lego. That's step one. At that point you have a working system consisting of mechanical parts, electrical parts, driver circuits and software.

    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)

    by rufusdufus ( 450462 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @10:16PM (#13761284)
    I saw my first homemade robot well before the PC ever came out. It was made by a guy with only rudimentary electronics skill; he used a blow torch as a soldering iron. The thing didn't do much, drove around and moved its arm up and down and it had a great gripping arm. But from what I see on this page, it did a lot more than this "robot" from the year 2005 can do.
    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.
    • I have to assume it's building up to that. If you haven't built robots before, maybe you don't want to start fiddling with sensors until you've got motors down.
    • Is this thing anything more than a very expensive remote-control car minus the remote?

      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)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The thing didn't do much, drove around and moved its arm up and down and it had a great gripping arm.

      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)

    by endlessoul ( 741131 ) <endlessoul.gmail@com> on Monday October 10, 2005 @10:27PM (#13761335)
    After skimming TFA, this idea seems all well and good. However, this immediately brought to mind Lego Mindstorms [lego.com].

    Besides, with Legos, you don't have to have power tools. Just your handy dany digits.

    • Re:Lego Mindstorms (Score:2, Interesting)

      by PromANJ ( 852419 )
      Yeah, mindstoorm is nice, but the different engines and stuff looks a bit clumpsy. It would be great if they made some proper servos (like in those humanoid robot kits).

      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
      • I doubt they'll do it though, you can't even order individual parts from Lego.

        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)

    by Mungkie ( 632052 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @10:36PM (#13761366) Homepage
    Some stuff called polymorph (a trade name I think?) it's a thermo plastic that becomes maleable in boiling water and sets tougher than most other plastics. Perfect for making parts for almost anything that is not heated above 50'C.

    Tools wise a dremmel type drill, lathe, set of files, hacksaw, and a screwdriver.

  • Johnny 5 Alive! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mr.Progressive ( 812475 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @10:38PM (#13761372)
    See how to build a fast and easy prototype that can be disassembled

    No disassemble!
  • I'd like to announce a new RoR framework -- Robots On Rails -- it's a full stack, open source, robotics framework.

    We model a robot based on a real human sample .. no tricky programming ... no need to bother yourself with the hum-drum responses to sensory inputs ...

    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 ... all you need to do is extend the base DNActiveRecord

    Bring some extra 2x4's and I-Beams, and you'll
  • They need to do this for spouse prototyping. Would save a fortune on divorces. You would see a lot of lawyers homeless. Is there a downside to this???
  • Yeah yeah, fast robotic prototypes one day, Skynet the next.

    I for one, welcome our new killer robotic overlords!

  • OMNI Magazine story on prototype robots in '81 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RancidPickle ( 160946 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @11:24PM (#13761696) Homepage
    Back in the early 1980-1981 era, OMNI magazine had a great artical on building prototype robots that thought like insects. The gent in charge of the program at MIT decided that it would be a good idea to begin a robotic life at the insect level, then build (evolve?) from there. He used toy cars from Radio Shack, and they had programmed responses, such as flee when the lights came on, following tail-lights, and setting up a territory.

    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.
    • I believe you're talking about Mark Tilden and B.E.A.M. robotics. IIRC, he now works (worked?) at Los Alamos with his bottom-up approach.
      • I think he's referring to Rodney Brooks [mit.edu]. Along with much of the robotics community, Tilden was heavily influenced by Brooks in the late 80s (see this article [wired.com]). Brooks preached an approach of building and evolving robot designs, starting with simple "insects" first. Tilden has taken the simple-only approach a bit further than anyone else though, and remains pretty controversial in his ideas.

        • I think he's referring to Rodney Brooks. Along with much of the robotics community, Tilden was heavily influenced by Brooks in the late 80s (see this article). Brooks preached an approach of building and evolving robot designs, starting with simple "insects" first. Tilden has taken the simple-only approach a bit further than anyone else though, and remains pretty controversial in his ideas.

          W. Grey Walters/Braitenberg begot Brooks which begot Tilden. W. Grey Walters built his robots out of vacuum tubes in

      • I believe you're talking about Mark Tilden and B.E.A.M. robotics. IIRC, he now works (worked?) at Los Alamos with his bottom-up approach.

        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)

      by Anonymous Coward
      >> They were using this for prototyping, and I wonder how far they've come since 1981.

      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!

  • Maybe I should build myself a robot one of these days, would be fun. Too bad that 'battle of the robots' TV-craize died out, even though those shows were dumb and pointless.
  • " See how to build a fast and easy prototype that can be disassembled, reconfigured, and reassembled."

    They're called legos....

  • If the robot needs a brain (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    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)

    by jotux ( 660112 )
    See how to build a fast and easy and ugly prototype that can be disassembled, reconfigured, and reassembled.

  • Article reminded me of a robot I made... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) on Tuesday October 11, 2005 @08:06AM (#13763644)
    When I was around 13 years old, a friend and I built a robot out of a yellow plastic garbage can for the body, a paint can for the head, and red and green lights for the eyes and nose. It was assembled using some basic switches and alligator clips we got at Radio Shack. It basically did nothing more than light up as 'yes' and 'no' responses, make some noises and provided hours of enjoyment for some bored kids.
  • Now that we've actually built a starter robot, we're in a great position to talk about programming and wireless technology issues in future articles.

    See all that stuff in there Homer? That's why your robot never worked.
  • It's AWESOM-O!

    Butters would be thrilled.

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