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.
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.
The arbotiX Robocontroller has been a hit so far in the robotics community! We’re starting to see projects popping up that take advantage of this awesome new controller, and specifically a few quads have caught our attention in the TRC, so we figured we’d share.
Some great progress so far and we can’t wait to see more!
On a side note: We’ve been a bit quiet lately because we’re in the process of moving to a much larger facility where we can build bigger, better robots! We’ll get caught up soon.
With my Hagetaka project on hiatus (eventually being rebuilt using EX-106s), my efforts had been diverted to a simpler and more manageable design. Originally intended as a last minute work around for Robogames, this project ended up being a permanent effort, and one that I’ve grown rather fond of.
Giger is a 24″ custom 24 DOF Humanoid using 16 RX-64 and 8 RX-28 Dynamixel Servos, weighing in at 9lbs total. He uses the same Gumstix based onboard controller that Hagetaka did, designed by Farrell Robotics, and is powered by two 1900mAh 4S LiPo batteries.
Walking gait is being refined, I’ll have video in the near future but much progress has been made. If all goes well, I’ll have him up and running for iHobby 2009 next month! Here are a couple of pictures, for the full set that we took check out my gallery in the TRC!
In March we announced that our contest would go in a different direction this time and with even bigger prizes:
This round is going to be a Tutorial Contest , and is quite a bit different from our previous contests. Think of it as an ‘Instructables meets How Stuff Works’ style contest: We want you to submit entries in the form of a detailed step by step ‘How-To’ or Informative Tutorials.
We had a good amount of solid entries in our first Tutorial Contest so picking our winners was a not an easy ordeal. Our entries covered many different topics, from electrical and soldering basics to more advanced robotics navigation tutorials. We highly suggest that you take a look at our Tutorials Section, there is a lot to be learned and if you have knowledge to share we highly encourage it.
Jes1510 submitted some ‘back to the basics’ tutorials which were well documented, easy to read through, and really helpful for the beginning robot hobbyist! He’ll be walking away with an Ollo Bug Kit!
Pi Robot amazed us with two extremely detailed, professional tutorials that cover some very advanced robotics applications by breaking it down into more digestible bite sized pieces. Both are excellent pieces of literature, definitely worth a read through! Pi Robot will be walking away with a Bioloid Beginner Kit for his contributions!
lnxfergy was determined to win 1st prize! He submitted awesome tutorial after awesome tutorial covering some pretty major aspects of robotics. All of these tutorials are very helpful for beginners and even more advanced builders can take something from them. From practical navigation systems to controlling AX-12 servos, lnxfergy demonstrated an amazing grasp of current hobby robotics technology, and was kind enough to share that knowledge with us. For his massive effort, he will be awarded with a Bioloid Comprehensive Kit!
We want to thank everyone involved with our first Tutorial Contest! Determining the winners was not easy, as there were many great tutorials to browse through. Again, we highly recommend you check out our Tutorials section, as there is a lot to be learned! Stay tuned for an announcement on our next round of contests!
We had a blast at Robogames 2009 and had quite a few of our Community members show up and hang out in our lounge. Robots were battled, discussed, and otherwise shared! We cannot wait until next year, and we hope to see more of you there. Here is a quick highlight video showing some of the lounge and the attending members, as well as some of our member’s robots interacting with the crowd.
We’re rather lucky that we have such a large group of talented individuals in our community who are willing to share their progress and projects! A few recent projects have caught my eye so I wanted to share the wealth; some pure robotic goodness to be had here.
First up we have the infamous Zenta’s quadrapod robot project: Felix! Zenta has recently picked this project back up and teased us with a quick video of the bot walking. You can certainly see its Big Dog inspired walking gait and design.
WGhost9 is impressing us all with the professional machining skills displayed in his latest project, Beetlejuice. This is a hybrid hexapod with wheels on each end actuator, coupled with some fantastic craftsmanship on the shell that gives it a great aesthetic. It’s still a work in progress, but he is detailing each step he is taking in the project, definitely something to keep an eye on.
And last but not least, newcomer Upgrayd is detailing his quadrapod Mech build, “Second Amendment“. He is also posting as the project progresses, so the readers get a chance to see the thought process and inevitable mistakes that come along with any big robotics project. Can’t wait to see this bot at next year’s Mech Warfare!
After Year 1 of Mech Warfare, the competitors are busy working away to improve their bots, control scheme, weapons, etc… so it was only a matter of time before we would see someone adapting an iPhone to control their mech. Seeing as though the iPhone can be used for anything (Defibbing people, saving kittens from trees, backup generator for your house, etc), remotely controlling walking combat robots was the next logical step.
Builder Mannyr7 and his mech project CLYDE suffered some last minute setbacks that prevented him from competing at Year 1 (though he did show up to cheer us on and impress us with his professional airsoft gun setup), however he has taken the time to write up a tutorial and shoot a video on his latest iPhone control scheme. Definitely check it out, as its applicable to a variety of robots!
And as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, so we’re at least in the million “word” range with our TRC Gallery. Over the past year our Community has grown considerably, and with it a really awesome collection of pictures from our various members’ projects! We highly recommend a look through if you’re the robot savvy type. Here are just a few choice pics to share:
I remember being blown away at how strong my first hobby servos were when I built my Hexapod 2 from Lynxmotion about 12 years ago. In comparison, they were literally just a fraction of the strength of modern digital servos, and the gap widens even further when put up against a robotic actuator such as the RX-64 Smart Actuator.
I was working on my mech Hagetaka the other night and made the mistake of grabbing at the robot to stabilize it while it was moving, and managed to graze my finger in one of the joints. It drew blood and immediately reminded me that working with these types of servos was an entirely different ballgame than your standard hobby servo. With that in mind, we put together a little demonstration video of just how powerful these servos can be! Enjoy!
