BotDev

New Url

2009-02-26T16:46:00.001-08:00

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

2009-02-17T17:51:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-07T15:03:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-07T14:04:00.000-08:00

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.

Solar Frog

2008-12-02T16:47:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, I have been developing a new solar walker (hopper) on my free times. I have built 4 of them, by improving on each version. I finally came up with the latest version of my new bot Solar Frog mark IIII.
Here is the design:

Here is a video of mark III. I dont have a video for the final one, but I will upload it soon. (the new one has awesome plexyglass legs and body)

Solar Frog Mark III from MrBeaver on Vimeo.

Rock & Paper & Scissors in Amber 08

2008-11-27T13:13:00.000-08:00

We have joined to the exhibition Amber 08 ( http://www.a-m-b-e-r.org/ ) with our robot arm playing Rock & Paper & Scissors. I don't have the photos and videos from the exhibition yet, but check out these final photos of the robot with the protective stand we have prepared *winks to Kemal and Gulay* for the exhibition.

Unnecessary calculations, "Was the protective stand really required?" We have done some tests with 10 subject and reached these calculations:
- %60 of the subjects tried handshaking with the robot
- %20 gave the robot a high five
- %10 spilled coke on it (this wasn't a part of the experimentation, happened randomly, but still.)
- %10 of the subjects tried pulling its finger, while hoping it will respond by farting. (I have decided not to see that subject again.)

Rock, Paper and Scissors Robotic Arm

2008-10-22T04:20:00.000-07:00

We have finally completed the plexiglas mechanics and built the real arm. And Jim Qode has completed the camera tracking functions. The only thing left is integrating them together. Here is a video of the test movements of the final arm.

Rock & Paper & Scissors Playing Robotic Arm from MrBeaver on Vimeo.

Mars Roller, Solar Stinger and Solar Juggernaut

2008-09-27T10:39:00.000-07:00

Ive made these 2 little and 1 giant solarbots a few month ago. But somehow I forgot to post them to the blog. Here they are;

Solar Stinger. Uses two serial attached 4.5v solar panels. Which lets him collect the voltage required even on weak desk lamps. It uses two pager motors to vibrate its legs to move:

Mars Roller. This guy is a really small solar roller, which quite looks like the mars rollers. It uses a 0.33 F gold capacitor, a really efficent gear motor (that I stole from a small broken r/c car of my cousins (melkur, sinkur, wink) ) and a 6v solar panel. This guy charges in 30-40 seconds under direct sunlight, and cover about 10-15 meters at once. I know, its neat.

Solar Juggernaut. Probably the biggest solarbot Ive built. I came to building a big solarbot idea once I figured out that solarbots with small wheels can not move on grassy environments. But the idea behind building a solarbot is building a small life form that can take care of himself, by feeding on sunlight, avoiding dangerous obstacles etc. And since most of the life forms in nature, has adapted moving on grassy surfaces, Ive decided to build a big and tough solarbot, which can endure many physical damage, and be able to move on grass with its giant wheels.
Solar Juggernaut has 2 walkman geat motors, 2 solarbotics 70 mm rubber wheels, 2 giant 4.5 volt 150mA solar cells and 2 separate operating solarengine that has been completely covered with hot silicone (which makes it water proof. you know. there is something troublesome called rain, in nature.) One day I plan freeing this guy by releasing it in a field or something. It would be awesome if I could add a light weight gps tracker.

Rock, Paper and Scissors

2008-09-26T08:34:00.000-07:00

We have recently started building a robotic arm, with Jim Qode. This arm will track your hand movements with a cam, and will play the rock, paper and scissors game with you, in a realtime action.
Here are a few photo and video from the development stage. The hand here is the test version, the final one will be more eye candy, as the mechanic parts are designed digitally and will be prepared on a cnc machine with plexiglass sheets.

We have used a Sanguino kit to be able to control all the servos.

Test video of the hand movements:

Rock, Paper and Scissors Robot from MrBeaver on Vimeo.

Incoming.

2008-08-06T14:27:00.001-07:00

New quadropod. We will add a video once we complete the software.

Zvicnik, the Quadropod

2008-07-18T04:48:00.000-07:00

We have finally got time to finalize the quadropod on my previous post. And now we have started building a smaller quadropod and a tiny hexapod at the same time.
Here is a video from Zvicnik (got the name from the sound he makes)

Zvicnik the Quadropod from MrBeaver on Vimeo.

Arduino Operated Quadropod

2008-06-05T05:23:00.000-07:00

Recently we have been working on the biggest robot project that I have worked on till now, with my friend Jim Quode. It is a scrap bot at the basic, all the parts, including the gearmotor are homemade. It is controlled with an arduino microprocessor.
This video is for testing its basic movement ability and interaction with the environment with a simple AI.

Quadropod AI Test from MrBeaver on Vimeo.

Tiny Solar Walker

2008-06-05T05:19:00.001-07:00

I am currently working on a solar walker using a bicore. Which is a hard task tho, I have managed to set up the basic circuit running with a solar engine. It is not finished yet. Once it is finished I will post more photos and video.

Revival of Mr. Walkman

2008-04-29T16:54:00.001-07:00

Recently Mr.Walkman broke another gear of him while he was hanging around. So I have decided on removing the toy gears and walkman motors (this does not mean I have failed on making a walker out of a walkman, it worked for a while right?) and installed 2 humongous solarbotics GM2 gear motor. After doing that I have prepared new more suitable legs, added end-switches to the legs to keep the new powerful gears unharmed, mounted new battery holders for 4x 1.2V 3000mA ni-mh batteries (due to my calculations it can run continously about a week without any need of recharging with these babies) and done a few more trimming. Now he is back on his foot with more speed, power and better obstacle avoidance.

Mr. Walkman

2008-04-16T18:13:00.000-07:00

The walker on my previous post had a quite low performance on walking. 2 days ago, I have accidentally found 2 really cheap toy trains on my local market and bought them immediately. I have disassembled their gearboxes and worked out a connection with the walkman motors own gears. The result was a success. The attachment of the gears and legs, and the trimmings required to make it walk with its new heavy-duty legs took about 10-12 hours.
Then I have worked on its obstacle sensors in order to make it reverse and go to another direction in order to prevent it from getting stuck.
Finally I have made a simple head with flashing eyes to add some smooth personality.
+In addition, I have done the connections required to attach a pic chip to the robot, to make it software controlled in near future.

Here is a video, demonstrating the obstacle avoiding of the robot (yes, it falls from the table in the end of the video. but thanks to the flexibility of its epoxy jointed body, it didn't get any damage)

Walkman Powered Walker

2008-04-12T19:38:00.000-07:00

Made out from walkman motors (most would think its impossible to do a walker with them). This walker has a photofobic behavior (it runs away from the light basically).
This is a test video, I am still working on the gears to make it more efficent. More video and pic will be added soon.

New images and video of the walker

2008-04-02T05:46:00.000-07:00

Here are the high res images and video of the robot on the previous post.

2 Motor - 4 Legged Walker

2008-04-01T19:02:00.000-07:00

This sunday we have started building a walker with a friend of mine. After a few days of work the body and main electronics are completed. Now it is only walking forward as a default movement, but next weekend we will install a pic chip to control the behaviors of the robot.
Sorry for the low photo and video quality, I will post better ones soon with the circuit and more info about the robot.

Solar Roller with 12x 4700uF capacitor?

2008-03-28T08:33:00.000-07:00

I looked everywhere in my stuff to find a gold or aerogel capacitor. Looks like I don't have any left. And it was the middle of the night. What would you expect me to do?
Yes, I have parallel connected 12x 4700uF (and 1x 3300 in addition) capacitor to run this monster.
It has a simple 1381 solarengine. The special thing about this is I have made my own gear system to run it on problematic surfaces. It works pretty well. Charges for about 15 seconds under direct sunlight and runs about 15-20 cm at once.
I have built this one for my girl friend. I am a geek after all.

Here is the gearwork;
While working on the roller;

The childhood Toy Truck came back. Cyborg Style.

2008-03-28T08:19:00.000-07:00

Well I got sick of trying to build bodies for robots from nothing. So I bought a small toy truck. And built a robot over it. This is the most successful one that I have built so far. It has touch sensors both in front and back. Which lets it reverse to get away from obstacles. And has a light seeking behavior which lets it finds the place in the house where people are hanging at that moment. (room with people = lights open, room without people = lights off).
I have built it as optimized as possible. It runs for about 3 days with duracells. It runs with my humongous 3000 ma nimh batteries for a week before he needs a recharge! The sensors lets him hang around the house without getting stuck. And the hardcore GM2 gearmotors I bought from solarbotics.com helps him to pass over any small obstacle such as cables and funky carpet edges.
I will soon post the circuit and video. It is based on the classic herbie circuit with LM386 but it is modified for the reverse function.

Here is the circuit. The small chip (LM386) is for light seeking. The bigger one (74HC14) lets him reverse and control the information leds. The green led is the charge indicator and the red one flashes while the robot is reversing. The capacitors over there are the reverse caps. And the trimpot on the middle is for adjusting the motor speeds.
I love these GM2 engines.
These are the front sensors, made with tiny buttons.

Robosapien Playing Football

2008-03-28T08:11:00.000-07:00

As a software programmer. I thought I may need some time off from hardware development and I have started a software based robot project. I had a few robosapiens and decided to make them play soccer. I have programmed a software which uses a camera at the top of the field, calculates the coordinate and angle of the robot, calculates the coordinate of the ball and commands the robot to the ball, step by step.
This is a bigger project than others of mine, so I will add documents and making of videos soon.
For now, here are the photos from the test runs.

This is a screenie from the software running.
Here, my other wowwee robots are on autonomous mode to create moving obstacles while the Robosapien V1 is trying to reach the ball.
There is your target robosapien. Go and get it!

The Big Fella

2008-03-28T08:05:00.000-07:00

I have bought 2 cheap walkmans, took off the gears and motors and made 2 gear motors to power a bigger robot. This one is a robot with 4 stacked 74HC240 chips. It has 2 feelers which lets him avoid obstacles and 2 IR photodiode eyes to follow the light source. I will prepare and post the circuit soon.

Even Smaller Fella

2008-03-28T08:00:00.001-07:00

I did not get satisfied with the previous Small Fella I made. This one works much better, and much smaller. A 555 photovore circuit is used. And I have made a case for 6V small batteries to power the bot. The capacitors have no function, they are for balancing the bot as it was falling without them. I have built 2 versions of it, here are the photos.
This one is much more balanced, since the motors are on the back.

Small Fella

2008-03-28T07:56:00.000-07:00

Not much to say about this one, I have build a photovore circuit with 2 transistors and 2 LDR only, under a 2 aaa sized batteries. It looks much more like 2 batteries running on the ground.

Solar Spider

2008-03-28T07:48:00.000-07:00

I was doing lots of 1381 solarengine, and since the 1381 can't be found in local electronic shops here, I decided to build a fled one. I have picked the FRED circuit, as it is the one with the highest performance among the fled engines.
I have bought 2x 1.5 v solar cells. (as you need minimum 3V to run a solarengine)
2 little pager motors at the end of the back legs are used as the muscles.
The 2 red fled (this is why the circuit is called Fred =) ) are the eyes and the voltage pumpers of the solarengine.
Here is the result;
Isn't it cute? ^_^

Here is the circuit, taken from solarbotics.net;
And here are some photos of the free-formed FRED.

Solar Powered Mini Robosapien

2008-03-28T07:37:00.001-07:00

Recently mac donalds was giving mini versions of wowwee robots with the happy meal. I got a wind-up robosapien and started on thinking how can I turn it in to a solarbot. I have opened it up and took away some parts of the wind-up and installed a gear motor on the back of the robot which contacts with the gears inside the bot. You can find these small gear motors from an old walkman or any cassette player.

The electronics are a 1381 solarengine free-formed. You can see how to free-form one in the Make Magazine Volume 6.

The bot works pretty well. I was expecting it walking a lot faster tho. Yet it is not possible since we use a gear motor and our output speed is decreased. But there is not a way to do it without a gearmotor as running the gearwork in the robot requires lots of torque. I am now thinking of adding a 0.1 F gold capacitor instead of 3 parallel 4700uf I have used on this version. That will make the robot charge slower under sun, but once its triggered I believe it will walk for a lot longer.

Photopopper

2008-03-28T07:15:00.001-07:00

This one is a kit from solarbotics.com. I bought it to practice. It is a quite complicated one for beginners, yet it works great if you solder it right. It calculates where the light comes and goes there precisely. I recommend you to build a few kits before starting building your own beambots.

The Scavenger

2008-03-28T07:04:00.000-07:00

A really old solarbot of mine. Made out of two classic 1381 solarengine, and 2 cross solar panel, this bot has a behavior on going to the brightest light source in order to feed himself.

Here is a photo of the bot.

It is made out of %70 from broken electronics and plastic parts.
Only the panasonic 1381 voltage triggers and solarpanels are new.

Here is the circuit used. (circuit images are taken from solarbotics.net)

You can find the 1381 voltage triggers from www.solarbotics.com (do not search this part from your local electronic shops. You won't be able to find it. If you don't want to wait, just build a FLED solarengine instead.)

Here is a FLED engine circuit;