Archive for December 4th, 2006

PC Robot Demo Sneak Peak

Monday, December 4th, 2006
Trossen Robotics PC Robot

Here is a sneak peak of the robot that was built for the next article in Robot Magazine’s series on building PC based robots!
Below is a fun little video showing us drive the robot around. We built this robot for the second article in the series which covers the chassis, power supply, computer selection, and motion control output. As you can see in the video we are controlling the robot via a wireless logitech gamepad to test our motion control output. (So what it really is at this point is a very expensive RC vehicle.) In the future articles we will show how to add sensors and autonomous control to the project to turn it into a real live robot!

Look for the PC Robot article in the spring issue of Robot Magazine.

PS: The metal decks used to build this robot are a sneak peak at our new modular chassis system which is coming soon. The aluminum decks allow for extremely fast and flexible robot building. Just slap a miniPC or laptop onto the chassis and voila, you have a robot. (click on the pictures to enlarge)

Trossen Robotics Modular Chassis Trossen Robotics Modular Chassis Trossen Robotics Modular Chassis

Flash Back Fun

Monday, December 4th, 2006

Giant Magazine posted their pick of The 50 Greatest Commercials of the ’80s. While they missed some painfully obvious ones like Apple’s 1984 Macintosh Super Bowl ad they still dug up some old classics that take us waaaaay back. Have fun seeing if the child geek still within you remembers some of these ancient technology products.

Commodore Vic-20 commercial

Paperboy

The Go-Bot Command Center

The Legend of Zelda

Apple’s 1984 Macintosh Super Bowl ad