Posted May 16, 2012 by Chris

“Students were asked to build an autonomous robot capable of playing ‘SPDL Happy Fun Ball’. SPDLHFB is played on a large flat field, which has at its center a ball dispenser. Robots must request balls from the dispenser, then either launch them or transport them to one of three goals at the perimeter of the field. The objective is to score as many points as possible in 2 minutes of play, or until the ball dispenser runs out of balls.”

Posted May 15, 2012 by Chris

“The goal of this project was to develop 3D spinning mechanism capable of displaying smooth video or static images. The device uses a spinning ring with tri-color LEDs inside, and relies on precise angular sensing and persistance-of-vision and to create the effect of a spherical display surface.”

Posted May 14, 2012 by Chris

“This project involved the building of ‘Simple-Volt’, a tiny, light-weight R/C Battery Voltage Monitor using a PIC microcontroller. This PIC project includes an A-to-D application that measures the voltage of a battery pack via a resistor divider network, compares it to a reference voltage (5v regulator) and then displays the battery voltage on 2 LEDs, indicating battery voltage strength.”

Posted May 13, 2012 by Chris

“The basic ingredients are a big felt pen, large enough to host some batteries, a bunch of old CDs forming the flying wheel, an embedded ATmega microcontroller, 8 small SMD LEDs, and some wires. Glue about four CDs together and mount them on the felt pen as shown in the figure.”

Posted May 12, 2012 by Chris

“TI has hit a homerun with the $4.30 TI Launchpad. This low-cost, professional, easy to use tool gives the beginner everything he/she needs to get up and running in the world of microcontrollers and robotics.”

Posted May 11, 2012 by Chris

“Apelike swinging motions achieve unprecedented energy efficiency for a climbing robot that combines mechanical ratcheting with precise electronic control algorithms to navigate vertical ascents.”

Posted May 10, 2012 by Chris

“In this article we will move forward with the Building A Robot series by adding the electronics necessary to control the speed and direction of both motors on the robotic chassis, which we developed in the previous article, Part 1: The Chassis. The two main additions in this portion of the project are a microcontroller and a motor controller IC.”

Posted May 9, 2012 by Chris

“I mentioned last week that I wanted to have MANOI’s RGB LEDs fade in and out at different rates from different starting points to different ending points. Luckily, it was a pretty easy task to accomplish, so now I can share the code with everyone!”

Posted May 8, 2012 by Chris

“Lobo was constructed largely from bits and pieces we had just laying around: Javelin Stamp, ASC16 – a dedicated RC servo controller, SRF04 ultrasonic ranger for obstacle avoidance, 13 unmodified RC servos…..and 2 zip-ties for ‘ears’ (certainly, the most critical component).”

Posted May 7, 2012 by Chris

“The goal of the 2005 Telerobotics project was to start the autonomous navigation theme in the telerobotics series. Students designed a guide-bot that would guide its user to a location selected from the pre-encoded terrain map. Only acoustic sensors and wheel encoders were used for navigation and that made the project somewhat challenging to implement. It is much easier to navigate with laser distance sensors.”