Robotics
This is a collection of all my robotics posts
I’m always happy when I find a new kind of part that is cheap and easy to use with DIY electronics projects or robotics, the more standardized the better. There’s a whole world of smart electronics and helper things in the hobby and remote control world that are great for robots and other things. You probably already know that hobby servos are easy to control from any microcontroller like the arduino, but there are a bunch of other things that are just as easy to use. Generic motor controllers, battery systems are also equally as useful, but are...
Over the last week I’ve been working on the next version of the Jansen Walker, this will be the 3rd release.
The goal is to make it much easier to assemble, faster, and 1/3rd larger using 3mm (1/8in) material.
The biggest change is that instead of using modified servos, which seem to scare a lot of people off, use geared motors which are about the same price. That will make the electronics side easier, perhaps slightly more expensive depending on your controls.
The new version will use the Tamiya Twin-Motor Gearbox, that has a good 203:1 ratio that is ideal...
Recently, I posted a article about how much computational power it would take to emulate the human brain, and my calculations were off by a factor of 10. I've corrected my estimates and here are the updated sections:
Emulating the Human Brain
The Blue Brain Project has successfully simulated 1 cordical column on the Magerit super computer (100 TeraFLOPS), and human brain has an estimated 1,000,000 columns.
So with 5.2 ExaFlops, one could emulate 52,000 cordial columns. And that’s 1/20th of enough power to emulate a human brain.
To emulate the entire human brain you would need approximately 100 ExaFLOPs
That's a lot of...
As a brain exercise I decided to try and estimate the total processing power of all the computers on the entire internet, and see if that is enough processing power to emulate the human brain.
Since this is an estimate, I will try my best to figure it out with public data.
Here was my process:
Total Number of Computers
No one knows exactly how many people (computers) are connected to the internet since a single IP address can be shared with any number of pc’s, but the best estimate I was able to find was here: Internet World Stats
They use population statistics...
Todbot has posted an excellent tutorial on how to setup and use the minimal Arduino, which is the bare minimum you need to run a ATmega chip and the Arduino bootloader. Todd goes into detail about how to get the bootloader onto the chip as well as how to setup the Arduino environment to use it. Even if your not interested in building an Arduino from scratch, It’s a good read if you are interested in the technical aspects of what makes the Arduino work. http://todbot.com/blog/2009/05/26/minimal-arduino-with-atmega8/
I’m starting on a project that I’ll be using stepping motors and belts, and after looking for cheap parts online, I thought I could do better by stripping down some old scanners.
People are excited to get rid of there old computer stuff, the great thing is it doesn't matter if the old scanner works. Even if it doesn't turn on likely the motor and mechanical parts are still good for salvage. I posted a ad on Portland’s craigslist in the wanted section and got several responses, in a week I had a bunch of scanners for free, I only...
I’m releasing the plans for the beta 2 of the Jansen Walker,
Improvements include:
3 pairs of leg on each side instead of 2
A drop-in platform for the center
Several other small improvements
Improved building plans.
Check out the Jansen Walker project page for all the files and plans.
It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Theo Jansen’s work, he is the inventor of the Jansen Mechanism that I used as the basis of my recent Jansen Walker project.
Jansen was recently interviewed on the generically named "Robots Podcast" where he spoke about his thoughts on if he was a artist or scientist, if the Strandbeest have thoughts, his building materials, the design of the legs, how he would like the Strandbeest to outlive him, also microcontrollers and commercialism.
Check out the podcast over at Robots Podcast.
I’m officially releasing my Jansen Walker as a beta with the source files and a video!
4volt Jansen Walker Beta 1 Video
Jansen Walker: An openly designed Creative Commons licensed robot.
What you see here is the Beta 1 version of the walker, a laser-cut robot, based on the Jansen Mechanism. It has 8 legs and scuttles similar to a crab walking sideways. The brain is a Arduino, and the legs are powered by 2 micro-servos modified for continuous rotation.
If you would like to buy a kit of just the plastic in its current state, check out the...
There are many ways to power your next project but I’m quite partial to the continuous rotation servo because it’s very easy to hook up to your micro controller, you don’t need to build or buy a separate controller or h-bridge to power the motor. In a servo all that is built in. All you need to do is connect the power directly to your battery and send a low-voltage control signal to tell it what you want it to do.
Servos out of the box are meant to rotate in a fixed range of 180 degrees, but modifying them for...
Update Note: While I'm keeping this post for historical value, this post is not kept up to date with my Jansen Walker, look at the Jansen Walker project page for the latest details and plans.
Original Post:
If you’ve been following my posts lately I’ve been putting a bunch of my time into a robotics project that uses the Jansen mechanism for movement, if your not familiar look below for an animation.
I've spent quite a bit of time on the mechanical design on this robot, maybe more then was strictly necessary since I used this opportunity to learn SolidWorks, and since...
I spent most of last night designing the gears that will link the servo to the drive train on my Jansen walker, I'm hoping that a 1:1 ratio will be okay, the servos are surprisingly strong for how small they are.
I used a playing card as my test material, they are stronger are more ridged then cardstock.
The hardest part of the design was getting the teeth on the inside of the servo gear just right, I wanted to just slip the gear onto the servo horn and have the teeth grip the ridges that are on the horn...
Update Note: While I'm keeping this post for historical value, this post is not kept up to date with my Jansen Walker, look at the Jansen Walker project page for the latest details and plans.
Original Post:
So I updated my plans make a medium sized version and fired up my laser cutter. This version is about 5 by 4 inches and seems like a happy medium in terms of size.
I think I'll be able to use 2mm plexi-glass for the material, though I managed to break several parts while I was separating them from the sheet. I suspect that...
Update Note: While I'm keeping this post for historical value, this post is not kept up to date with my Jansen Walker, look at the Jansen Walker project page for the latest details and plans.
Original Post:
I’ve put a little bit of more time into my natural gearing walker, and got a few things done. Here is an animation of the quad-leg assembly, I plan on putting one of these assemblies on each side of the walker.
I’m still on the ropes about what type of motor to power the movement, I've been leaning towards continuous rotation servos, that would...
Update Note: While I'm keeping this post for historical value, this post is not kept up to date with my Jansen Walker, look at the Jansen Walker project page for the latest details and plans.
Original Post:
I posted a few weeks ago about the Jansen walking mechanism, and since then I've been working on a Solidworks model to test the proportions of the 12 numbers with success. Solidworks allowed me to adjust the length of any proportion in the model without redrawing anything.
I ended up using a variation of the numbers found by Rik at Lets Make Robots.
Below is an...
Update Note: While I'm keeping this post for historical value, this post is not kept up to date with my Jansen Walker, look at the Jansen Walker project page for the latest details and plans.
Original Post:
I’ve taken a strong interest in Theo Jansen’s walking mechanism, it’s a very efficient mechanical leg design for converting rotary motion into leg movements, and is very elegant in my opinion. The basis is the relative distance of the 12 joins, he calls them “The 12 Holy Numbers”. I’ve also seen “11 Holy Numbers” in a few references.
Another parallel interest I have with...
If you ever decide to design something mechanical, eventually you’ll need some gears. I’ve been experimenting with laser-cutting gears.
The first thing I found out is that drawing gears is hard, they are complex in ways you might not realize at first. Gear teeth aren’t simple squares, or triangles, or a easy combination of the two. The teeth are angled based on the diameter of the gear and the pressure angle. See the two following images to compare a small diameter gear and a large diameter gear with the same size teeth (20px) and pressure angle (20).
Luckily there is a easy...