Pteradactyl/T-Rex/Shark/Dragon Robot Project ^___^

[akdabaous]

Hey there everyone! ^___^

It’s been quite a while since my last post but I have been pretty busy with a few things (including a new robot ^___^). I finished Uni on the 14th and I’ve pretty much been working on the robot design and electronics since then (as well as cutting out the brackets, etc.) but sadly I’ll have to greatly slow down the work on this latest project towards the end of the month because I need to start revising for exams and start writing up essays but I wanted to have all the parts ready so I could work on it a bit here and there.

Anyway, onto the new robot design …
So one night a week or so ago, I was doodling a quick comic book when I had this “Robotic Epiphany” in which I was given this pretty interesting robot idea so I started designing it there and then. The robot (who’s name has not yet been chosen ^___^) is intended to be a cross between a Pterodactyl, T-Rex, Dragon and Shark - now this probably sounds pretty weird and everything but I’ll leave you guys postulating about it’s design - I’ll post some photographs tomorrow of how much I’ve managed to assemble. :mrgreen:

Just some more information - the colour scheme this time is black and gold which I personally think looks pretty nice because the gold is rather dark too which allows it to blend into the black without pulling away too much attention from the remainder of the non-gold parts. ^___^

Um … yes, that’s all I’ll post for now - the remainder of the information will be posted tomorrow with some photographs as well as some information on a failed cube circuit board I was working on.

AKdaBAOUS

[akdabaous]

Hi everyone!

Today has been a fairly productive day so to speak, I managed to spray the brackets (which needed spraying) gold and and I started the assembling of the arms and legs. I still have yet to assemble the whole thing so that’ll most likely be done tomorrow. ^___^

Um … that’s pretty much it for the physical robot for the time being - I’ll move onto the PCB now.

Well, my first idea for the circuit was to make it a little gimmicky by dividing the design into 6 (or less segments) and then joining the sides together to form a cube which I would have named “The Soul Cube” (based on a fun idea of the circuit board being the soul of a robot because the servos and parts are essentially the bones and muscle, the battery is the heart and blood and the brain the the micro-controller - the board itself is the ‘soul’ because even if the servos and brackets break and the battery runs dry and the micro-controller gets fried, the actual board itself would more or less be fine - unless you took a hammer to it, hahaha ).

Well the idea was good and it would have worked if I had perhaps used jumper wires to connect the sides instead of using wires soldered onto the tracks but yeah, some wires must have shorted or something when the box was closed (they were packed together pretty tightly) so when the power came on - pow, didn’t work. ^___^
I’m going to give it another go at some point but for the time being (and for simplicity) I’ll be sticking to a regular flat board - which I have decided to name “The Soul Board”. :mrgreen:
Oh and for full closure, it was a 4cm cube (4.2cm if you count the board thickness).

I’m planning on using an ATmega328 chip (with an Arduino bootloader) as well as a 12 Servo Controller chip so I can have a total of 24 usable outputs for servos.

Um … that’s about it for the time being - I think …
I just need to finish assembling the robot and some components for the PCB have still yet to arrive so it might be until after Christmas that I get them (although I hope that’s not the case).

Well, without any further a due, here some photos. Enjoy! :mrgreen:

AKdaBAOUS

P.S. If I forgot to mention this in the previous post - I’m using HS-225BB servos for most of the robot and HS-645MG servos for the ‘shoulder’ joints - it should hopefully be clearer in the post tomorrow.

[innerbreed]

I love this idea for your pcb. That may catch on.
I cannot say to much at the moment about your project asbo feel you are holding out on us… we want to see more.

Again your brackets look great. That golden “C” bracket looks really professiona.

[akdabaous]

Hahaha thanks - I’m glad you like it. :mrgreen:
Well, hopefully most of it will be unveiled tomorrow so ‘tensions’ can drop.

While I was working on the cube pcb idea - I was thinking of various ways to get the tracks ‘printed’ on … just throwing this out there but would it be possible to print the tracks onto some kind of film like they have on printer cartridges? That way, you’d have your conductivity and flexibility so making a cube would be pretty straightforward. ^___^
Also, since it’d now be on some kind of film - the cube itself could be made out of any material and the size could be reduced by quite a fair amount.

[akdabaous]

Hi guys! ^___^

Luckily I didn’t oversleep today so I have been able to take some half decent photos of the assembled Fusion Robot (while there’s still enough natural light). The robot is still missing a proper head (which I have some ideas for but it’s going to be a detailed 3D model which has yet to be fully designed and made) and I did cut out some feet but they’re pretty small compared to the width of the “C” brackets used towards the bottom of the legs, so having them there would look odd because of the proportional difference. Nonetheless, all the necessary brackets have been assembled together to produce a workable model for the Fusion Robot - I’ll add in the “fine tuning” when I can get a chance. :mrgreen:

Oh, before I continue, I should mention that the components that I ordered for the PCB have still not yet arrived (although my free samples for blank ATmega328’s arrived before them and I only ordered them a day or two ago ^___^ - I’m planning on using the ATmega328 with the Arduino Bootloader to burn a Bootloader onto the blank chips so I can have an unlimited supply of micro-controllers in the future :mrgreen: ) so it looks like The Soul Board won’t be ready until after Christmas now.

Anyway, moving on …
I think it would be best if I actually explained the choices for the Fusion Robot because at the moment it sounds pretty random - ok, here I go.

Pterodactyl: I’ve loved watching those Dinosaur documentaries, ever since I was a child, because of all the weird and wonderful creatures that used to exist millions of years ago and the dinosaurs themselves also provide some inspiration for robot designs, etc.
So I was watching an episode about winged dinosaurs and for some reason, I was inspired by the Pterodactyl walking - it used its wings as the front two legs with the hind legs keeping their original function. It reminded me a bit of the walking style of a Gorilla - the part about arm/leg sizes; they both have longer front arms than hind legs. Now my idea isn’t to imitate the Pterodactyl walking style but more to use it as a guide to allow the robot to use the arms as legs and them walk in a quadruped fashion.

T-Rex: This can’t really be seen from the design but the legs were meant to be based on that of a T-Rex (in terms of general shape) although they didn’t really come out as close to the original as I had wanted, but they look nice regardless. ^___^
Also, I’m not sure if you guys see it like this but to me, the torso plate looks a lot like a Dinosaur fossil (or perhaps a human pelvis?).

Shark: You might have been able to already see part of this design - where the Pterodactyl would use it’s wings, I replaced them with fins. It makes it look a bit more menacing too (because it looks like a pair of scythes). The rest of the Shark side is going to be incorporated into the head.

Dragon: Designs for this are spread throughout the entire robot in small pieces here and there (i.e. Feet Brackets (which turned out to be too small but were identical copies of the ones designed for Moonlight Dragon), Arm design, Head Design (once completed), etc.).

So, um, yeah, that’s pretty much the background behind my choices for the Fusion Robot - so I guess the only thing to do now is post the photos! Enjoy! ^___^

AKdaBAOUS

[roboted]

Ahoy Mighty Akdabaous,

Love your Fusion Robot and Soul Cube!

Are you sure Rube Goldberg en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg started out this way??

You must have your engineering professors tearing out the remnants of their hair by now and wishing you would use more Chamomile Tea in your nightcaps. Anyway, we all look forward to your highly imaginative projects, so try not to get well any time soon.

More seriously, I think your soul cube idea might have some real future. It would probably be a manufacturing nightmare with current methods, but if 3-D printing could interweave some type of highly conductive ‘plastic’ among the insulating plastics, it should be possible to produce your designs. This should also work for multi layer PCBs. To me, the beauty of your cube is more access room for ‘fumble fingers’ like me to attach increasing numbers of servo and sensor wires.

Happy Christmas to you. Don’t spend all the time on robots; that’s what you have class days for.

[akdabaous]

Ahoy RoboTed! :mrgreen:

Looks like Goldberg was living the life - a cartoonist and an inventor; fun times!
Hahahahaha! Well I don’t think I’ve driven anyone to the stage of hair pulling but it’s not long now.
I’m glad that you are all enjoying the project.

Well it seems that more people are becoming interested in The Soul Cube so I think I’ll do some research and perhaps attempt to make a second model within the next week or two. :mrgreen:

Merry Christmas to you to!
And of course, a Happy New Year!

[akdabaous]

Heading in the right direction:

technologyreview.com/view/507596/physicists-laser-print-conducting-polymer-circuits/

:mrgreen:

[akdabaous]

Merry Christmas Everyone! :mrgreen:

Hope you all have a fun day - watch out for those presents though!

AKdaBAOUS

[akdabaous]

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to give you all an update on the Fusion Robot Project …
Well, my components finally arrived yesterday so I was going to start putting the new circuit board together when luckily I looked at the tracks and spotted that I kind of made a mistake - I accidentally connected the 5V regulated supply to the +VE 6V line for the servos so there’s a current supply issue now - the good news however, is that I re-designed the “Soul Cube” and it should now work perfectly well (if my reasoning is correct). I should hopefully be making that next Monday/Tuesday (most likely Tuesday ).

I’ll make sure to upload an annotated circuit diagram for it once it’s (hopefully) up and running - I’m going for the Arduino Shield philosophy here, where each face is essentially an add-on to the main part of the cube (i.e. the 5V regulator face and the main ATmega328 IC face) so you have boosted functionality, etc. This could also hopefully allow for multiple layers to be added to each face as well (which would be separated by spacers of appropriate length).

Now if that all works, then the Fusion Robot (whose name I have still not thought up ^___^) should be up and running that weekend (or perhaps the next since I have some exams starting on Jan. 14th).
Hm … I think that’s all for the time being …
Oh, I’ll post some photos of the Fusion Robot in Pterodactyl Walking Mode tomorrow. Also, I’m still thinking of a name for the robot so I’m open to any suggestions. :mrgreen:

AKdaBAOUS

P.S. The design for the head is also in progress - I’ve got some rough ideas for the shape and content on the head so I’ll post some sketches once they’ve been drawn out nicely.

[akdabaous]

Hi guys! ^___^

Just some photos of what the Fusion robot will look like whilst in Pterodactyl Walking Mode - Enjoy! :mrgreen:

AKdaBAOUS

[zodius]

Hi Akdabaous,

Another great looking project! It won’t be long until you have a whole army of bots under your command .
Did you make those brackets yourself? If so, care to share your secret? I can teach you how to use the ACSE departments 3D printer in exchange for your knowledge

-1

[akdabaous]

Hahaha thanks! :mrgreen:
My robotic empire is coming together nicely - now I just need a secret island base and a cat.

Well, it kinda depends on what you mean by “make it yourself” - I designed the brackets and then let a CNC machine do the hard work.
For the “3D” brackets (i.e. C brackets, Servo brackets, etc.) - I simply heated up and bent the required sections using a strip heater. So I’m afraid it’s not really a secret.
Thank you for the 3D printer offer but I wouldn’t want to be a bother.
I was actually contemplating on purchasing a small 3D printer of my own - I found one at this site (solidoodle.com/) which looks quite nice and is about £470-ish once the printing material, P&P, etc. has been added. Not really sure if it’s a good deal but it sounds alright.

[innerbreed]

Yes another great project. Do we get the fun in seeing a family photo?

[zodius]

@akdabaous

Well, it kinda depends on what you mean by “make it yourself” - I designed the brackets and then let a CNC machine do the hard work.
For the “3D” brackets (i.e. C brackets, Servo brackets, etc.) - I simply heated up and bent the required sections using a strip heater. So I’m afraid it’s not really a secret.

I figured they wouldn’t be that accurate if cut by hand . I’d love to make parts as cool as that, what model of CNC machine and heater are you using?

Thank you for the 3D printer offer but I wouldn’t want to be a bother.
I was actually contemplating on purchasing a small 3D printer of my own - I found one at this site (solidoodle.com/) which looks quite nice and is about £470-ish once the printing material, P&P, etc. has been added. Not really sure if it’s a good deal but it sounds alright.

I would recommend giving someone elses machine a try before splashing out on your own. There’s a lot of limitations you have to work around to get good prints out of them.

-1

[akdabaous]

@Innerbreed: You just read my mind . I’m currently thinking up some kind of dance routine with Infinity Mantis and NEXUS and hopefully the Fusion Robot should jump in at some point too. :mrgreen:

@Zodius: Well, the CNC machine belongs to the Tech. block of my (ex-) School but I’m pretty good friends with the teachers/technicians so when I pop in to say “Hi!” every few months, they let me cut out some parts. :mrgreen:
Here’s a link to the machine (techsoft.co.uk/products/milling-routing/RotoCAMM-MDX-40AE.asp) and a photo of it on the workbench.

The heater is pretty old - I can’t remember the exact model however, it looks about 98% similar to this:

http://www.hellopro.co.uk/images/produit-2/7/4/3/the-hot-wire-strip-heater-600-features-50347.gif

I would recommend giving someone elses machine a try before splashing out on your own. There’s a lot of limitations you have to work around to get good prints out of them.

Very good point. :mrgreen:
Well, I don’t think I’ll be making any choices for quite a while yet anyway - tests/quizzes in a few weeks and this Global Engineering Week Challenge is going to keep me fairly busy until early Feb.

[akdabaous]

Hey there everyone!

Sorry it’s been a while but I have been revising for tests and stuff and then on top of that, I caught a cold - just my luck.
Anyway, I’ve got the new “faces” for the Soul Cube (V.2) but I didn’t have enough time to produce a solid frame to hold it together - I did try a method using bits and pieces I had lying around but it wasn’t as stable as I had hoped. I do however, have another idea but it might have to wait a bit until I have some more free time.

In the meantime, I’ll be attaching the 3 “faces” to the empty space on the robot’s back using adhesive pads (which I still need to buy) but I’ve gotten the boards all connected and as far as voltages, connections, etc. are concerned, everything is A-OK.
Unfortunately, I’ll have to put most of it on hold for a week or two because starting tomorrow, we’ve got exams and stuff for 2 weeks which will keep me busy most of the day - I’ll try to work on it during the evenings.

Um … yep, I think that’s everything for the time being, so without further a due, here are some photos. Enjoy! :mrgreen:

AKdaBAOUS

P.S. I’ll post annotated circuit diagrams within the next few days.

[cbenson]

The PCBs are custom but not hand-made… outsourced?

[akdabaous]

Well they are technically hand-made and by that I mean I drew the circuits on my laptop, printed them on an acetate sheet, used a UV light box to transfer the designs onto some photo-resist board, let the board develop in some developing solution (sodium something if I remember correctly :mrgreen: ) and then leave them to etch in ferric chloride for a few minutes. :mrgreen:
It took ages!

[cbenson]

It took ages!

Very well done. I’m certain the community would love to see a tutorial about the process.