Posted September 13, 2011 by Chris

If you were a fan of my Tupperware Turret then don’t miss this revamp design of a Robotic Airsoft Turret. Using a similar, but different approach, this design combined servos and airsoft guns with some mounting hardware to create an awesome but potentially (non) lethal turret. Build details, pictures and action videos are included in the article.

Posted September 7, 2011 by Chris

A Chess Playing Robot? Hell yeah! In a great display of what one engineer can do with some spare time, here is an automated system that will play chess against you and probably even beat you. This type of robot bridges the gap between playing against a computer on your monitor and actually moving chess piece on a board in real life. See the website for documentation and source code.

Posted August 29, 2011 by Chris

If you’re interested in computer vision, here’s a project that can give you some ideas for the limitations and capabilities that one person can achieve. This student built SLAM for his graduate thesis and the outcome is quite impressive. The project write-up has a lot of video demonstrations, pictures and details on how it was made and how it works.

Posted August 28, 2011 by Chris

This project is pretty crazy, some bored people in Austria made a piano that speaks english! It sounds hard to believe, but check out the demo video in the article and prepare to be impressed. There are also a lot of technical details for how it was built (PIC powered) and the software that drives the system.

Posted August 26, 2011 by Chris

When Halloween time starts to come around again, it’s always best to have the coolest and scariest decoration on the block. This project was posted in a forum and shows how a Winged Demon with animatronic movement was created. Not many specific details about it, but there’s a lot of pictures and action video. Scary stuff!

Posted August 25, 2011 by Chris

And now to finish off Robotics Week strong: This week, we’re adding an Animatronic Neck to the grand Animatronic Head that we’ve been building. A Pan and Tilt system will be used with 2 servo motors actuating the system. Pictures and demo videos document the construction and testing process for the final chapter in PyroElectro’s robotics month.

Posted August 16, 2011 by Chris

Adding a little intelligence to your robot is as simple as adding a proximity sensor. The flatpack walker uses servo motors to walk and the sensor to know when there is something in its way. The software and construction details are all in the article.

Posted August 11, 2011 by Chris

Ready for the next Animatronics Tutorial for robotics month? This week, we’re building Animatronic Eyes using an improvised 2-axis gimbal system. Realistic robotic eyes are difficult to build but this pair of eyes creates quite a decent illusion. Pico/Micro Hobby Servos are used as actuators and standard MDF board for building material.

Posted August 5, 2011 by Chris

Just as popular science says “now this is the droid we’re looking for!” Someone with far too much time went ahead and stuck 8 console gaming systems inside of an R2D2 model with a projection display. I wish there were more details on the electronic innards but the pictures will have to suffice my curiosity.

Posted August 4, 2011 by Chris

Finally, Robotics Month is here! To celebrate, a host of Animatronics Tutorials will be released starting today: Animatronic Eyebrows. This tutorial gives you an intro to some basic animatronic terminology while also building a system capable of expressing emotion. Mini Hobby Servos are used as actuators and a microchip PIC 18F452 performs the digital control.