Want to learn robotics? follow these tutorials and get making robots fast.
Making a robotic arm is a good introductory project for those wanting to get started with robotics. A simple robot arm can be straight forward to build and would require hobby servo motors to actuate each joint, a control system such as the Arduino, and a power source. Nevertheless, one of the mos
Google announced in the yearly Google IO event the release of the Android Open Accessory Kit. This kit consists basically of an Arduino Mega combined with the USB host shield and some customized firmware. What this allows us to do is to create Android applications that will interact with an Arduino…
We all dream of having appliances and machines that can obey our spoken commands. Well, let's take the first step towards making this happen. In this second iteration of Carlitos' Projects, we are going to build a speech-controlled Arduino-based robot. You may be thinking that makin
This is the first in a series of electronic or robotic DIY projects. These projects are accompanied by instructional videos that will help you trough the many steps involved in completing the task at hand. For this first iteration, we are making an RGB LED Mood Cube. Glowing colour-changing obj
This is a nice video from a while ago describing how to quickly and cheaply put together a robot by using an old RC toy, an Arduino (actually a Seeeduino), a Ping distance sensor and a couple of other components. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc6DKDFwg9c More in-depth videos of the construc
The RoBoard has been controlling robots for some time now. It is a single board computer featuring a Vortex86DX, a 32bit x86 CPU running at 1 GHz with 256MB DRAM, lots of PWM IO for controlling servos, and more. RoBoard RB-110 Single Board Computer A recurring feature that was always asked w
As we say goodbye to the 200x's and welcome the 201x's it's good to pause a bit and think about the world as it was ten years ago. There was no Wikipedia, no YouTube, internet access was still dialup for a huge portion of the population, and we didn't have a whole heap of really cool robots. To hig…
Shown below is a video of a robot that uses the perceived vanishing point of an image to navigate through a corridor. The robot, based on an iRobot Create, uses a standard webcam and video processing to locate the vanishing point of what it sees, and navigates towards that point. Such navigation wo…
The Visual Lego software project allows you to gain full control of your NXT brick via .NET (Visual Basic, C#, etc.). This software wrapper allows you to access all the bricks functionality over the serial bluetooth link. The library, written by Bram Fokke, is almost complete. It can be downloaded…
RoombaDevTools.com is a great way to get started hacking your Roomba. You can read a review of the RooStick (at left) over at TodBot.com. It allows you to easily connect your computers USB port up to the Roomba's serial hacker interface. Other nifty products include the RooTooth, which lets you c…
In this article, Jean-Christophe shows you how to maximize the utility you get out of a Sharp GPD12 rangefinder. Overview: This application note is intended to provide a good overview of the Sharp GP2D12 sensor (Fig. 1) and its use, especially for dynamics application. I hope it will…
Craig Gardner shows you how to build an infrared remote decoder - control your robot with a TV remote! Adding a form of remote control to your robot can be fun but radio can sometimes be over kill. Infrared such as used for your TV, VCR and other equipment is a simple way to add control to a proj…
Do not miss the new, up-to-date and detailed How to Build a Robot - Grand Tutorial Series This article lists some ideas for starting a simple robot. A good read for beginners. If you like this article, check out this. How to Build A Simple Robot, The Beetle Robot. This is the first of a series o…
Here's a nifty hack to add a shaft encoder directly into a servo box. Parts:1. Servo - Preferrably a Futaba or Tower Systems2. Drill3. Photointerrupter - Rat. Shack #276-142 (NOT the package with the diode and transistor separate),or any standard 'U' shaped photointerrupter …
This article shows how to use an ADC chip on your next project. Introduction For this this project you can either choose to use the MAX186 or the MAX187. The differences between these two chips are described below. The MAX187 is an 12 bit o…
This article shows how to hook up a LCD screen to your microcontroller. LCD displays are a great way to add output to your robot - they can be a very useful debugging aid and also can make controlling the robot much easier (setting options, vi…