Trossen Robotics Blog » Hack / DIY Stuff

iHexi – The iPhone Controlled Hexapod Robot

Andrew — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:00:22 +0000

Okay, not only is this little custom hexapod outstanding looking, it’s control solution is beyond cool! Controlled via a custom iPhone app that utilizes the touchscreen and onboard accelerometer, the iHexi’s IK driven movements are controlled precisely and wirelessly. Check out the forum thread for more info and videos (definitely check out the last video, the quad-variant walking gait is equally awesome)!

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Brainbot Gets Bigger and Badder

Andrew — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:16:31 +0000

Some of you may remember Brainbot, a project directed and funded by the Brain Engineering Laboratory and Neukom Institute at Dartmouth College, designed in collaboration with Jon Hylands and HUV Inc. The purpose of which is to enable the study and practice of brain engineering.
Well, Brainbot is getting a brain transplant into a 1/5 scale top of the line rock crawler chassis, for the purpose of creating a navigation variant. Onboard smarts? A Core 2 Quad, 2.83 GHz, 2 GB RAM, and a 32 GB Solid State HDD, 802.11n wifi, GlobalSat USB GPS, Prosilica gigabit ethernet camera (640 x 480, 60 fps) which plugs into Roborealm, and a Hokuyo UTM-30LX scanner laser rangefinder.

In Jon’s new Project Thread, he says:

I went out and bought a 1/5 scale RC rock crawler chassis. Just for scale, those tires are 8″ in diameter, and the whole thing is 30″ long. We chose this chassis because it would have no issues going long distances at speed, and it would be able to handle curbs and grass and such with no issues. Being a rock crawler, it also goes slow enough that the sensors can keep up…

Right now, it has the quad core mini-itx mounted, and is being driven around with my Logitech wireless joystick. The motor driver (a Sabertooth 2×25) is controlled from one of my Bioloid I/O boards, which is connected to the bus. A program (written in Squeak Smalltalk) takes the joystick input, and sends speed and steering commands over the bus to the I/O board and the steering servos (AX-12’s).

Here is a short video of it under remote control:

Edit: Another Video just posted!

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Wi-Fi Warhog Mayhem!

Andrew — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:43:19 +0000

Our pals over at Coding4Fun wrote up a pretty extensive, and pretty awesome tutorial on how they made their Wi-Fi Warthog project a reality. Remember Power Wheel toys as a kid? Add in Phidgets, Nerf Guns, computers, and Xbox 360 controllers, and you’ve got yourself a real life videogame!

The video below shows the Wi-Fi Warthogs in action at PDC09!

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Sparkfun Free Day Video!

Andrew — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:01:28 +0000

On Jan 7th, Sparkfun did an awesome thing for the DIY hobbyist community; they gave away $100,000 worth of stuff for free. Free Day was a massive thank you to all that supported them growing as a company, a way to give back to the community. While we at Trossen Robotics cannot fully express just how much we appreciate such a gesture, the move was one that sparked both love and hate from their many fans, customers, and followers. The website was up and down all day under the immense amount of traffic they were experiencing and many of those who were not able to get their free stuff were ‘outraged’. How one can be mad over such a generous gesture is beyond me, but as the age-old saying goes: “No good deed goes unpunished”.

Anyway, Sparkfun put together a pretty cool video highlighting the chaos from their POV, check it out!

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SMALdog, Sorta Maybe Almost Littledog

Andrew — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:17:16 +0000

If this robot looks vaguely familiar, it’s because it is inspired by Boston Dynamic’s LittleDog.

SMALdog, or Sorta Maybe Almost LittleDog, is Mike Ferguson’s (creator of the Arbotix Robocontroller) latest addition to his AX-12+ based quadrapod robot lineup.

Rather than utilizing the more common ‘lizard-style’ leg configuration, SMALdog has a more ‘mammal-style’ leg configuration that provides some interesting walking gait variations. The biggest difference is even with very little gait programming done so far, it’s already faster than the award winning Issydunnyet quadrapod. There is still a lot of work to be done on refining the walking gait, and the turning gait is barely functional, but this platform certainly shows promise. Check out Mike’s thread for more information and updates!

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T-Hex: Zenta just needs to knock it off at this point.

Andrew — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:43:24 +0000

Seriously. I’m getting a bit tired of Phoenix hexapod inventor Kara Halverson, aka Zenta, constantly showing everyone up. We get it, you’re awesome at building awesome robots. Could you please just stop and give the rest of us a chance to catch up? It’s just cruel at this point.

The T-Hex is Zenta’s newest creation, inspired by all the Mech Warfare talk buzzing around the forums. He decided to jump in and build a ‘mech like’ hexapod, complete with a whopping 4DOF per leg. And of course, in the process, made the rest of us look like complete amateurs. Aesthetics aside this thing is amazing, and the fact that he has a working IK solution for it already just adds to the fact.

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