Archive for the ‘Misc’ Category

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Trossen Robotics Contest #9 Winners!

Thursday, January 10th, 2013

2012 has come and gone, and its finally time to announce the winners for the Ninth Trossen Robotics Community Contest! There were a lot of amazing entries, but six of them battled to the top to win our contest. Check out the end of this post for videos of all of our winners in action.

Sixth Place – OARC Rover by Yosheli

The Obstacle Avoiding & Remote Controlled Rover (or the OARC Rover) is a great little project by Yosheli. It has everything you need for a roving robot – a drive system (4 DC motors with encoders controlling 2 treads), a distance sensor (an ultrasonic range sensor), wireless communication(XBees) and a main processing unit (an Arduino Mega).

This robot has a two modes of operation – the first is direct remote control via a custom wireless controller. The second mode is a purely autonomous one. The OARC Rover will go forward until it detects an obstacle – at which point it will move to avoid the obstacle. To help overcome the limits of the ultrasonic sensor, Yosheli mounted the sensor on a pan servo, enabling the robot to get better readings on curved surfaces. This panning motion also gives this little robot a lot of character.

The idea of an obstacle avoiding robot certainly isn’t anything new, but its a great example of how many problems you need to solve when building a basic robot. Yosheli gets points for overcoming these obstacles on his first fully fledged Arduino Project

Yosheli will be receiving one of our RoboTurret Vision Tracking Starter Kits.

Fifth Place – Maxwell by Lnxfergy


Maxwell is lnxfergy’s Mobile Manipulator Robot. This robot can map a room and traverse the room based on that map. Then it can use its custom arm and manipulator to pick up objects and interact with the room. The latest version of Maxwell even has a linear actuator to move the arm up and down, allowing it to pick up things from the floor as well as table-height objects.

Maxwell’s arm is comprised of 2 EX-106s, 2 RX-64s and 3 AX-12s. Lnxfergy’s did a lot of work in ROS to get his custom manipulator running properly, which is a great thing for the robot community. Lnxfergy’s is commited to open source projects and his work in open source robotics has been the basis for robot after robot in the comunity. We absolutely love that Lnxfergy has made all of Maxwell’s code available. Check out this thread post for mor information about Maxwell.

Lnxfergy will also be receiving one of our RoboTurret Vision Tracking Starter Kits.
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Check out the new WidowX Robot Arm!

Wednesday, November 28th, 2012

Our newest creation, the WidowX Robotic Arm is our smoothest, most powerful arm to date! The MX series actuators provide a full 360 degree freedom of movement in the base, ultra-high resolution of up to 0.088° , user-definable PID parameters, and extremely smooth interpolation. The hefty MX-64 shoulder servo gives the WidowX very strong lifting strength in a slim frame. If you are looking for medium lifting strength and desire smooth control, high accuracy and repeatability the WidowX is a great mid-level arm choice.

Learn more about the arm here, and stay tuned for videos of this arm in action!

Posted in Front Page News, Misc, New Kits / Products | No Comments »

New MX ScorpionX and WidowX Robot Turrets!

Thursday, November 15th, 2012

widowx Robot Turret

We’ve just updated our WidowX and ScorpionX Robot Turret from the DYNAMIXEL RX line to the new MX line. These new servos have almost 4 times the resolution of their predecessors! That’s .088° resolution! These turrets have silky smooth movement and still sport impressive torque. And because the new MX servos have a full 360 rotation you get more pan coverage than ever before!

Since all our turrets are built with the Arduino compatible Arbotix Robocontroller, you can leverage the power of the Arduino environment to customize your turret. You can control the turret using a PC, a XBee device (like the Arbotix Commander), or even make it fully autonomous! And because these servos run at 12v and use a 3-pin TTL connection, they’re fully compatible with AX-12 and AX-18, making expanding your turret even easier.

These turrets are perfect for projects ranging from photography to Paintball Turrets and more! With our open source software, the sky is the limit!

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TR TV Episode 5: Andrew Finally Cracks

Wednesday, November 14th, 2012

The latest episode of TRTV we take a look at Andrew’s new designer eyeware, and our newest line of robotic accessories. We’ve also got some footage of Erik reviving of our popular Scorpion Turret based Paintball Gun Sentry.

Ever wonder what world class robotisists eat to keep them going? Check out Matt and Andrews new diet, as well as the office’s new juicing habit.

And finally, for this episode’s namesake, Andrew Finally Cracks

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Trossen Robotics Shop Talk # 2

Wednesday, October 31st, 2012

Trossen Robotics Shop Talk 2

We’re constantly talking about new technologies, products and media that relate to robotics. Now, we’ve decided to let you in on the conversation, and to take a peek at the things that are piquing our interest.

This episode focused on Robotis and their line of Robot Actuators, the DYNAMIXELS.

(0:47)First Andrew talked about the MX DYNAMIXEL robot actuators, including their history, features and why he loves them so much.

(7:44) Andrew went on to talk about the amazing new DYNAMIXEL PRO Robot Actuators. These new powerful and precise actuators are are designed for full-scale robots. With up to 4x the torque of the current most powerful DYNAMIXEL, these servos have everyone at Trossen Robotics very excited. These actuators will be available in 2013, and you can get more information here

(16:27) Matt and Andrew went on to talk about ROBOTIS and why they’re so successful. They also shared some stories of their trip to South Korea (19:35) and some rarely seen footage of the trip.

(23:10) In the Sneak Peak section, they showed off some of our products that are currently in the pipeline. Matt showed off a new mobile robotics platform based on the Budget Bot. However, this platform uses the Arbotix RoboController and will have a built in robotic arm, making it an amazing mobile research platform. Andrew showed off the two new MX based Robotic Arms that Trossen Robotics will be releasing. These arms use the MX-28 and MX-64 DYNAMIXEL servos, making them our most powerful and smooth arms to date. They also gave us a look at a new joystick control panel for controlling our robotic arms.

(28:54)Matt gave shout outs to both All Electronics and Alltronics, two great places for sourcing electronic parts and components. Andrew gave a shout out to American Science and Surplus, a Chicago based surplus store that has everything from military supplies to electronic components. He also mentioned Mech Warfare Warrior Ryan Lowerr and his projects, including his ATMEL based tracking system

(31:31)For this week’s Tips and Tricks, Matt shared tips about weights, both for testing load capacities on our robots, and for weighing down arms and cameras. Andrew showed us how to make a quick experimenter’s power supply with a computer power supply, and where to go once you need even more amperage.

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Dangerous Things

Thursday, October 18th, 2012

People use the things they buy from us to a lot of different tasks. From lifting gates to building robots, we see a lot. One of those things is implanting RFID tags in the human body. We carry Glass Ampoule Tags, but we’re pretty clear that we do not advise or encourage users to implant the RFID tags we sell into humans.

However those interested in implants can look no further than Amal Graafstra’s new store, Dangerous Things. Amal is a long time friend of Trossen Robotics and has undergone multiple implantations of RFID tags. Amal has written a book on RFID and done work on our own RedBee RFID reader! His experience and expertise in the field make it especially well suited to head this new store.

The new store has sterile tags, injection kits, readers, and an access controller!

There are even forums where you can ask Amal himself about RFID implantation.

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DYNAMIXEL PRO Specs!

Wednesday, October 17th, 2012

Check out even more information on the DYNAMIXEL PRO line!

Last week ROBOTIS gave us a sneak peak of their new DYNAMIXEL PROline, and this week they’ve given us some solid specs on these awesome new actuators. This spec page has almost everything you need to know about the three new servos as well as PDF dimensional drawings. Here’s some of the highlights:

Servo H42-20-S H54-100-S H54-100-S
Torque 5.596 Nm/57kg-cm 21.142Nm/215.58kg-cm 39.131Nm/399kg-cm
Output Power 23.64 W 144.58W 262.66W
Resolution 304,000 Step/turn 502,000 Step/turn 502,000 Step/turn
Dimensions 42 x 42 x 84mm 54 x 54 x 108mm 54 x 54 x 126mm

You read right, 399kg-cm! That’s almost 4 times the torque of an EX-106!

Some other features of the servos include:

- 1,000 pulse incremental encoder before gear reduction
- 4,096 step absolute encoder after gear reduction
- Electrical current sensing based control
- Internal temperature sensing
- Position-based command
- Torque-based command
- Speed-based command
- Cycloid type detachable reduction gear (Straight, Right Angle, Belt)
- Various communication physical layer (RS-485, CAN, TTL, Ethercat)
- Various optional frames

We know what’s on our wishlist for 2013, the DYNAMIXEL PROs!

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Trossen Robotics Shop Talk

Monday, October 15th, 2012

We’re constantly talking about new technologies, products and media that relate to robotics. Now, we’ve decided to let you in on the conversation, and to take a peek at the things that are piquing our interest.

In this episode of Trossen Robotics Shop Talk, we focused on the amazing Raspberry Pi, and the evolution of embedded computers. The recent progress from the larger SBCs to the smaller boards that are blurring the line between linux computers and microcontrollers has opened up whole new worlds to professional and hobby roboticists. . The effect that these smaller computers have on projects is evident in some of Matt’s early Robot Prototypes, as he shares in the video.

Andrew gave a shout-out to the Reddit Robotics Community and the Arduino Community , two great places to learn new things about the Robotics and Arduino World. Kyle mentioned the newly revamped Trossen Robotics Community and the return of the TRC Contest. Matt told us that ServoCity has a great library of parts from gears and pulleys to rods and gearboxes.

We shared some of our favorite new products, including our new 3-Axis Joystick and 2-axis joystick and the Seeed Motor Shield.We also showed off some of our new products including our RobotGeek Voltage Dividers and our own Squid Cables. We also took a look at our 6v Gearhead Robot Motor and our awesome new Budget Bot Chassis. Finally we talked about our great new PhantomX Pincher Robot Arm and PhantomX Reactor Arm.

At the end of our show, we watched some of our favorite “Terrible” Robot Movies. Andrew reminisced with the robot that got him into mechs, Robot Jox and Matt subjected us to the bizarre Demon Seed.

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DYNAMIXEL PRO Actuators are coming!

Thursday, October 11th, 2012

Check out even more information on the DYNAMIXEL PRO line!

Something new is brewing at ROBOTIS and we’re really excited! The new DYNAMIXEL PRO actuators will be the strongest, most precise DYNAMIXELs to date, and have been designed with full scaled robots in mind. Some of the things we’ve learned about them include -

-10x Higher Torque/Precision over the DXL series
-Uses a Novel Gear Reduction System
-Current Based Torque Control
-Supports multiple communication protocols including CAN-Bus and RS-485

We’ll keep you posted as we learn more details about these amazing actuators. And once these actuators are available, look out for some awesome new Interbotix Labs products based around them.

Check out the Teaser Video below!

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Posted in Front Page News, Misc | 1 Comment »

Robot Bootcamp Primer: Materials and Manufacturing

Tuesday, October 9th, 2012

Robot Bootcamp is our newest series and a great place to get started in the world of robotics.
In this primer video Matt and Andrew talk about different materials and manufacturing methods associated with them. They mention different kinds of plastics, metals, and when to use them for different kinds of robots. If you’ve ever wondered about creating custom parts for your robots and projects, this video is a great place to start.

Future videos will cover basic robotic concepts, common pitfalls, general practices and more!

If you have any comments on our Bootcamp Video, or questions for future videos, leave a comment below!

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