Giger’s upgrades got finalized late Sunday night and I had a bit of time to sit down and start to work on the walking gaits (from scratch). The EX-106+ is roughly 4x more precise than all previous Dynamixels, so the positional values do not translate over well when upgrading from a previous model. What does that mean? It was far simpler to just start over rather than try to scale the values step by step. All new custom brackets used in the legs and feet, as well as new elbow/shoulder brackets and arm extensions. Brackets were designed in Autodesk Inventor 2008 and machined by Rapid Sheet Metal. It’s worth mentioning that all of the custom, as well as the stock, brackets and frames that are used in Giger’s arms and legs are available in our store on our Dynamixel Servo & Bracket page! Even his ankles/hip joints or his entire legs!
A lot of projects tend to only show updates after many dozens and/or hundreds of hours of progress, but I like to show the little steps as I feel it gives one a better view of the evolution of a project and what goes into making a robot work. Keep in mind; I have this gait tuned to a very slow rate so that I can work on the balance and COG shifting correctly, it can then be sped up to a more realistic, useful speed. Here’s a short video of my initial walking gait progress (about 2 hours of programming work so far) on Giger 2.0:
I’ve been busy at work with Giger installing some upgrades before Robogames (in the tune of 10x EX-106+ actuators, as well as brand new machined brackets from Rapid Sheet Metal). That said, we decided to use some of the random footage we had taken of Giger to give an overview of the robot in it’s first revision, when it only had RX-64s powering its legs. We’ll have a lot more information, pictures, and video on Giger v2.0 in the near future!
BTW- If anyone is looking for a solid place to get some sheet metal cut/bent or some parts machined, check out Rapid Sheet Metal and their sister company Rapid Machining. I’ll give a bit more in-depth review of them in the followup post where we’ll talk more about Giger 2.0, but I was absolutely blown away by their quality and customer service, so I’ll say it here as well. Check em out! Tell em we sent ya! =)
We’ve been a bit quiet around here lately, mostly because we have our heads buried and are hard at work at bringing you guys some awesome new robotics products and kits! Wanted to take some time to showcase a new reworked section of our site that helps builders like you build your robots easier. Our Robot Servos & Brackets section has been completely revamped, pairing up the servos with compatible brackets and frames (tons of new varieties have been added, as well as more to come).
The Robotis Dynamixel Servos section should be of particular intrest, as we now stock individual Bioloid Frames as well as every type of DX/RX/EX Series Brackets and Frames.
Even our Hobby Servos section got a revamp, now offering Micro, Standard, and Giant Scale PWM Hobby Servos and compatible brackets!
We also started rounding up some cool user projects to demonstrate what can be done with these awesome actuators, which can be found on various related product pages. Here are a few examples!
Dr. Dennis Hong, who is in charge of the RoMeLa program at Virginia Tech recently made a presentation at TEDx showcasing some of his department’s very advanced, very cool robotics projects! I couldn’t help but notice watching through this rather lengthy video (it’s worth watching all of it, trust me) that a good number of Dynamixels from Robotis made an appearance. Check it out!
The long awaited Bioloid Premium Kit has arrived! Thanks to all of those who pre-ordered, your orders are being shipped today with Free 2nd Day Air shipping!
We managed to pick up a handful of extra kits for those who missed the Pre-Order. Quantities are extremely limited and available on a first come, first serve basis. Order now while there is still time before Christmas!
For those of you wondering about the availability and release date of the Bioloid Premium Upgrade Kit, which will allow Bioloid Comprehensive Kit owners to take advantage of all the awesome new features, these kits are estimated to be available in February. We will keep you updated!
We’re a little late to get this posted, but have been busy working on new robotic monstrosities in our lab, as well as moving to a much bigger facility! Check it out! iHobby was a blast this year.
Initial quantities are limited, the cut off date for this pre-order is December 7th! Act now to reserve your Bioloid Premium Kit.
This kit is expected to be ready to ship December 14th-18th, and due to the holidays rapidly approaching, we are offering FREE 2nd Day Air shipping to all pre-orders within the United States!
Forum member Xdream is working hard towards not only creating a bipedal Mech Warfare entry, but making it completely autonomous… and so far, he’s made some pretty solid progress. Heck, it’s more accurate than my current remote control setup. Check for updates on his project in the Autonomous Mech Thread.
Also, for those looking for an inexpensive bipedal Mech Warfare platform, the BRAT based Mech project over at Lynxmotion is turning out to be quite promising, with complete build instructions and code available.
Our good friend Jon Hylands has finally returned to producing his widely popular 3rd party Bioloid add-on & accessory boards, and they are now in stock and ready to ship! We have had a huge demand for these and many people were disappointed when production was stopped, but we and surely many others will be glad to have them back.
The Bioloid USB Bus Board provides a transparent and simple connection to the AX-12+ Bioloid Bus. This board allows your PC to communicate with Bioloid bus devices (AX-12, AX-S1, IMU, etc) using a USB cable (not included) at speeds of up to 1.0 Mbps.
This Bioloid I/O board gives your Bioloid robot the ability to connect to almost any analog (0-5 volt) sensor. It includes 6 analog inputs (10 bit resolution on each). It also includes four general digital I/O pins, and can drive one or two DC motors using either locked anti-phase or sign magnitude PWM.
This Bioloid Foot Pressure Sensor includes one board, four .2″ FSR pressure sensors designed to be attached to the Bioloid foot, and the wiring necessary to connect the sensors to the board.
Pressure sensors on the bottom of your biped’s feet will allow the robot to sense whether or not it is in balance if it is on a smooth flat surface.
I won’t even pretend that I understand all that is going on in the walking gait here, but this is darn near human-like in every aspect. And being able to walk like that is one thing, being able to recover from a sideways push is an entirely different accomplishment all together. Absolutely brilliant.
