New Url

We have decided to move the blog in a more flexible platform. From now on the blog will be reachable on this address:
http://botdev.symbolengine.com/

Solar Hopper

Making a robot jump is a hard task. Making it jump with solar energy is harder. Well this solarbot prototype jumps about 4-5 cm high, by using solar power. It uses a 1381 solar engine. Pumps the energy to a modified servo (circuit and pot is removed, its basically a gear motor now). The servo arm pulls the upper body of the robot down, which is attached to the legs with a spring, and releases once it reaches to the maximum position. This way the legs quickly hit the ground in order to make the solarbot jump.
I am only uploading the photos now, since the video with the desk lamp is so slow and will get you bored. I will upload a video once I can catch some sun light. COME ON SUN, ITS ALMOST SPRING, SHINE ALREADY. For the love of cyber gods, Its all cloudy lately, I am as depressed as my poor solarbots.

Sebastian 3000

Haven't you ever wanted to have a robot servant? Serving around sandwiches and cookies at your cool parties? Yes, I know you did. And here he is! Sebastian 3000, your immortal non sleeping servant that will cheer up every party you throw, or will kill you in your sleep with his ultimate mustache of destruction if you forget turning it off.
Anyway, Sebastian 3000 is a sanguino powered robot, with 2 hardcore tank treads driven by 2 gigantic gearmotor (a lovely set from solarbotics). he has 2 servo in his neck in order to let him look almost any angle he need. He can create maps of his vision by scanning the environment angle by angle with its infrared rangefinder. Plus he is using an awesome high speed obstacle avoidance algorithm in order to find his way in a complex party environment with many moving obstacle (we call them humans).
Here, a couple of photo:

And a video, as a test run it carries some tools. Imagine them as a bunch of delicious cookie.


Sebastian 3000 from MrBeaver on Vimeo.

Solar Frog Mark IV

The last step in solar frog evolution, the mark IV. It has a cnc cut plexiglass legs and body. The circuit board is printed to fit it perfectly in the design (thanks to Jim Qode for his ultra tiny board design). It uses 2 solarbotics high quality solar cell which creates a total of 10.5V in direct sunlight, and the high voltage average lets the robot work under weakly lighted places.
Here are some photos:




And here is a video under a weak lighting. The bot runs much faster under direct sunlight (in theory of course. Lately its cloudy and rainy every day. I guess it has something to do about the earths angle/coordinate relation with the sun. Oh wait, its called winter! )


Solar Frog Mark IV from MrBeaver on Vimeo.