301 Moved Permanently

Posted June 10, 2011 by Chris

This simply DIY styled robot uses continuous rotation servos for its wheel motors and a few sensors to guide and control it. The design allows for remote control via a TV control which is a great addition. The article includes a parts list and very detailed build description. A great first robot to get you started!

Posted June 9, 2011 by Chris

Here’s a sweet little robot that is remotely controlled via WiFi 802.11. It uses a PIC at its heart and a bunch of other peripheral devices to ‘see’ its surroundings and move about. The article has tons of pictures and a good explanation of how everything was implemented.

Posted June 8, 2011 by Chris

This is a great old-school article about how embedded systems used to be built. The article explains how to use a Motorola 6809 with some ROM, RAM and peripheral devices connected up to the address and data bus. A memory map is built up and rom programmed with some code to get things going. The author has all schematics and firmware available for download.

Posted June 7, 2011 by Chris

There’s nothing too complex about this LCD clock circuit, so its a great project to build if you want to get started with the MSP line of microcontrollers from TI. The article describes how things work, includes schematics and firmware for the MSP. The system runs off of the single battery coin cell, as all the ICs are low voltage.

Posted June 6, 2011 by Chris

Brushless DC motor control is far more complex than stepper or basic DC motor control. Because of this, we must take many extra things into account while designing the controller. This article shows you how to prototype together your very own brushless motor controller in about a days time.

Posted June 5, 2011 by Chris

This is a bit of a unique gripper in than it uses expansion properties for gripping objects using a vacuum. However crazy that idea might sound to you, it’s actually not too hard to implement. This article explains how you can use everyday parts to build your own universal robot gripper.

Posted June 4, 2011 by Chris

Flying UAVs seem to be the ultimate challenge for robotics. Stabilizing the flyer is very difficult since you need to combine multiple sensors’ data into control loops. This article shows a successful build of a quadrotor and lists all parts used. A PID control loop is used for movement stability.

Posted June 3, 2011 by Chris

Now you too can join the ranks of all those old school movie evil genius’ with global world domination maps. The build process is very straight forward with mostly analog connections and no programming. The article lists parts used and has a lot of pictures to help you build your own.

Posted June 2, 2011 by Chris

This article explains in some depth ac motor and generator theory and then continues to build an example using styrofoam and some wire. The parts list is very simple and not expensive with a lot of pictures of how to build the generator. Don’t miss the action video at the end of the article!

Posted June 1, 2011 by Chris

Solar powered robotics can be difficult to design, however this article gives a great example of how to make it work. The smiley solar powered robot uses differential drive motors with an analog brain to find its way. The article has the schematic and board layout available for download and describes how the robot works. Smile and build your own!