We’re big fans of the Bioloid system.  We love the smart actuators and integrated sensor modules, but like many Bioloid users, we’ve lamented the lack of additional sensor inputs.  Luckily for us, Bioloid guru Jon Hylands felt the pain of the Bioloid community and created some devices to fill the void.  Thanks to Robotis’ published Dynamixel architecture, anyone who’s savvy with microcontrollers can create peripherals that will blend seamlessly with the stock Bioloid components.  Jon is as savvy as anyone, and we’re happy to be using and selling the hardware he’s created.  Anyway, here’s some cool stuff for all you Bioloid fans out there, or anyone interested in using Dynamixels in their own custom project.

USB Bus Board
	The USB Bus Board gives you virtual COM port access to the Dynamixel serial bus.  It has six connectors, but of course it supports a network of up to 254 Dynamixels.  It uses the FTDI transceiver chip, so if you’ve used other USB virtual COM port devices, there’s a good chance you already have the driver installed.  A great plug-and-play alternative to the USB2Dynamixel adapter.

Bioloid I/O Board
	This general-purpose 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 control one or two DC motor controllers using either locked anti-phase or sign magnitude PWM.  Pretty cool.

Bioloid IMU
	In one package, you get 3 axes of acceleration measurement and 3 axes of gyroscopic measurement. It comes fully assembled, and ready to install into a stock Bioloid humanoid chest compartment.

FSR Foot Sensor Board
	Look closely at the soles of your Bioloid’s feet.  Those little round indentations were clearly designed to accept 0.2" FSR’s.  This interface board can read 4 FSR’s, enough for one foot.  The board fits neatly into the foot, and plugs into the Dynamixel network.  The kit includes the board, 4 FSR’s, and leads for the sensors.

If you have any questions, or you need advice about using these boards, go ahead and post about it in the TRC Forums.

It looks like WowWee has taken on the sweet job of producing a commercial version of that lovable bot from everybody’s favorite yet-to-be-released movie.  We have to admit that we’re incurably infected with WALL-E-Mania just like the rest of you, but we can’t help but step back and marvel at the astounding level of buzz surrounding this movie.  It’s pretty neat to see the world go ga-ga over a movie about a cute little trash compactor on treads, toiling away in a barren post-apocalyptic future Earth.  Anyway, here’s WowWee’s "Ultimate WALL-E," which is slated to retail for $189.99:

WALL-E!

Pretty slick.  This will probably be pretty tough to get when it comes out, but we’ll do what we can.

We think this is pretty cool, but we’re DIY’ers.  What really gets us excited is seeing stuff that people have made.  So what we find even more impressive is that people have been building their own WALL-E’s in anticipation of the blockbuster release.  One of our TRC members, "4mem8," posted a great thread about his project.  Here’s a pic from the build process:

This robot is sad because he has no arms.

You can check out thead here.  Also worth checking out is the WALL-E Builders Group, an online community dedicated to this kind of thing.

WowWee Wall-E found via Engadget.

Enough said.

Good morning, everyone. We’d like to announce that we’re selling off the robotics division of Trossen Innovations. After three years of growth and prosperity, we’ve decided to change our focus to creating humorous animated gifs and pictures of cats with witty misspelled phrases pasted over them. We’re confident that our company will be in good hands, though. Take a look at this excerpt from AndroidThinkTank’s mission statement, and you’ll know why we fell head over heels for this organization:

This will create jobs…good ones!This will make us competitive World Wide!This is the way to become the Wal-Mart of mining! It is possible to build an android automiton that is controled by both computer and a cabbage worm.The worm knows how to look for food and eat.If a person designed the control part to reward the worm with a tiny piece of food each time it found the cabbage.The android would then pick the cabbage and put it in the wagon…the worm would then be allowed to search for food again.The cabbage worm would be the controller of choice for picking cabbage.God already put a cabbage monger here with the cabbage worm…might as well enslave them!To think a cabbage worm could do it you realize the wasted human potencial .I think that these androids will give us the tools we need to not waste our God given talents!The developement of a comprehensive applied android program would lay the ground work for major space exploration! Construction crews of androids on the Moon/Mars with the controlers on Earth or a space base/ship. I could see the UN having android observers/or IAEA Inspectors. I can see the day swarms of androids pick produce that is now limited to human pickers[only if they are cheap enough],and operate farm machinery.With the Baby Boomers reaching retirement more workers are going to be needed.The smart egg would get in front of this coming need.

Combining our love of androids and cabbage, they approached us and made an offer we couldn’t refuse.

So long and thanks for all the fish,
-The (former) Trossen Robotics Team

[Edit: happy April Fools Day, everybody. You can stop emailing us about this now. Sheesh.]

We now have the full run of Robot Magazine back issues available in our catalog, for just $5.99 per issue.  That’s almost three years of robot goodness!  Every issue is packed with product reviews, robot building tips, industry insights, and more.  Visit our Robot Magazine back issue section for more information about each issue, as well as links to free online content.

I can only assume that, having seen this, you’re about to go order all of the back issues so you can catch up on all the cool news you’ve been missing.  Go do that, and then head over to BotMag.com and subscribe!

Gepetto, one of the runners up in our last contest, got some airtime on G4 TV’s "Attack of the Show" this past Tuesday!  This bot has been generating quite a bit of buzz, which isn’t surprising.  It has style, good mechanical design, brains, and high-caliber weaponry.  Also, people just can’t resist videos of a robot attacking its creator (TR community member darkback2).  In the video, Gepetto is featured along with Plen and the CMU snake robot.

Congratulations!

Linkage:
AotS Blog post
Video

We don’t want to take too much credit here, but let’s not forget where we first saw Gepetto.  Right here, in the Trossen Robotics Community.  Booyah.

Get your robots ready, people.  Time is running out to register for the 2008 RoboGames!  This is a huge and diverse event, and chances are good that if you have a robot, they have a competition for you.  To see a complete list of competitions and entry fees, go to the RoboGames event list page.  Tons of remote and autonomous combat categories for those of you who like to see the sparks fly, football competitions for wheeled and legged bots, micromouse maze racing, sumo, various autonomous and R/C humanoid competitions, Tetsujin, and more!

Awesome poster designed by Josh Ellingson

So, head over to the RoboGames site, and register your robot for some events!

In case you’re new to the Trossen Robotics Community, here’s a quick refresher on how this contest works:  First, all kinds of fantastically talented and dedicated people come to our Project Showcase forum to tell us all about the projects they’ve been working on.  Periodically, we (the Trossen Robotics team) sort through these projects, and score them very scientifically in the following categories: "Wow" factor, Ingenuity, creativity, and presentation (this includes graphics, videos, documentation, explanation, etc.).  This is the fourth contest we’ve run here at Trossen Robotics, and the projects just keep getting cooler!  This time around, we extended the deadline and upped the stakes.  Since the last contest, the community has grown and expanded well beyond our expectations, and this has resulted in some of the best work we’ve seen yet.  If you showed off your project in our Project Showcase forum, give yourself a big ol’ pat on the back.  Now, let’s get to the meat and potatoes.  Here are the runners-up and winners, in suspense-building ascending order!

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Honorable Mention

Project: "Johnny 5.3"

Creator: Andrew Alter (Tyberius)

We’ve been working a little too closely with Andrew to let him enter the contest, but we can’t totally leave him hanging.  He’s been building a "Johnny 5"-inspired humanoid/trackbot hybrid, and it’s really coming together.  His brain (Johnny’s, not Andrew’s) is a Pico-ITX running Windows XP Pro.  It has a vocal synthesizer, great big grippers, a reinforced suspension system, a snarky personality, and I’ve heard that it drives around harassing Andrew’s baby.  It’s the embodiment of robotic awesomeness, in other words.  Check out his thread, picture gallery, and his blog.

Runners-Up

Project: "Leviskate"

Creator: Rodger Cleye
Average Score: 7.63 / 10
Prize: $20 Trossen Robotics Gift Certificate!

The Leviskate is a "self-balancing motorboard."  Kind of like a Segway for people who really like head injuries.  Seriously though, this contraption is truly awesome.  There are some cool videos in Rodger’s thread, too.  Our favorite thing about the videos is that Rodger sounds genuinely amazed that it actually works.

Project: "The Bratinator Project"

Creator: SN96
Average Score: 7.67 / 10
Prize: $20 Trossen Robotics Gift Certificate!

It walks, it talks, it scares the kids.  It’s… the Bratinator.  Built around the Lynxmotion Brat biped, this monstrosity features speech, binaural hearing, a custom-machined aluminum head.

Project: "Gepetto"

Creator: darkback2
Average Score: 8.25 / 10
Prize: $20 Trossen Robotics Gift Certificate!

It really pains us to see Gepetto in the runners up, instead of placing in a cash-winning position, but sometimes that’s just the way it goes.  This was a very close race.  This bot is beautifully made from wood and metal, has a really cool suspension system, carries its laptop brain around with it, and is programmed with some really interesting behavior/mood software.  That’s really just the tip of the iceberg, so you’ll have to read through the thread to see Gepetto’s full story.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Third Place

Project: "eyeRobot"
Creator: Nathaniel Barshay
Average Score: 8.38 / 10
Prize: $100 Trossen Robotics Gift Certificate!

The eyeRobot is a robotic guide for people with vision impairments.  It has a whole slew of IR and ultrasonic range sensors for collision avoidance, and pathfinding software to keep it moving through the clearest area.  This was a proof-of-concept prototype meant to "marry the simplicity of the traditional white cane with the instincts of a seeing-eye dog."  This project is going places, and hopefully one day it will help other people go places.

Second Place

Project: "Frameless Laser Harp"
Creator: Stephen Hobley
Average Score: 8.88 / 10
Prize: $250 Trossen Robotics Gift Certificate!

Twenty-two years ago, he saw Jean-Michel Jarre play a laser harp at a concert, and from that day he’s been on a mission.  This mission finally came to fruition last month, when he completed his own laser harp, and let me tell you, it’s a pretty stunning piece of equipment.  Using a galvanometer to very rapidly and precisely aim a pulsing laser, light sensors to detect where a beam has been interrupted, and an Arduino brain; the harp sends MIDI control signals to a synthesizer.

First Place

Project: "Phoenix"
Creator: KÃ¥re Halvorsen
Average Score: 9.63 / 10
Prize: $500 Trossen Robotics Gift Certificate!

Phoenix is a six legged walking robot.  Wait, we know some of you out there may be thinking that hexapod robots are old hat.  Well, you’re wrong.  So very wrong.  Wait until you see it move.  Phoenix’s real beauty lies in her graceful motion, which is some of the most convincing and eerily lifelike that we’ve seen in a robot that uses standard hobby servos and a common off-the-shelf servo controller.  The kinematics are computed by an intricately programmed spreadsheet, which we highly recommend you check out if you’re a fan of trigonometry.

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We want to thank everyone for their great submissions.  If all goes as planned, the next contest (which is already underway) will conclude at the end of May 2008.  You can stay up to date on contest rules and regulations at the Trossen Robotics Project Contest page, and start posting your projects in our Project Showcase Forum.

We’ve just added a bunch of Spark Fun products to our catalog!  We are now proud resellers of the massively popular Arduino, and a bunch of other cool stuff!

NEW STUFF:

Arduino Diecimila USB IO Board

Arduino is an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple i/o board and a development environment that implements the Processing/Wiring language. Arduino can be used to develop stand-alone interactive objects or can be connected to software on your computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP). The open-source IDE can be downloaded for free (currently for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux).

Price: $34.95

Arduino ProtoShield Kit

Riding on the waves of the very popular Arduino USB board is this small prototyping shield. The Protoshield mates with the Arduino USB board and gives the user a small soldering area, two general LEDs, access to a BlueSMiRF socket, a general pushbutton switch, and most important of all - the Arduino reset switch is brought to the top level.

Price: $16.95

USB Weather Board

Are you an aspiring meteorologist?  This USB weather station can immediately tell what the current pressure, humidity, and temperature is. Graphed over time you can watch weather fronts move in and the rain come down.

Price: $124.95

Compass Module with Tilt Compensation - OS5000-S

The OS5000-S is an extremely small form factor (1×1â€? square) three axis, tilt compensated digital compass. The flexible design allows customers to use RS232 Serial connection for system integration. The OS5000-S provides precise heading, roll and pitch data ideal for rapid attitude measurement. The compass offers an easy to use ASCII interface which includes hard-iron calibration and simple data configuration for your application.

Price: $269.95

Accelerometer Breakout Board - ADXL210AE +/-10g

Breakout board for the Analog Devices accelerometers in the E8 package. The ADXL is a solid state MEMS accelerometer with digital PWM or Analog output. The ADXL can measure both static and dynamic acceleration. This means the ADXL is suited well for sensing tilt (used in many Glove / Air Mouse applications) and for sensing brute acceleration (rocketry and general motion sensing applications).

Price: $39.95

Triple Output LED RGB

Ever hear of a thing called RGB? Red, Green, Blue? How about an RGB LED? These 5mm units have four pins - Cathode is the longest pin. One for each color and a common cathode. Use this one LED for three status indicators or pulse width modulate all three and get mixed colors!

Price: $1.95

Serial Accelerometer Tri-Axis v5 - Dongle

The SerAccel v5 is a 3 axis accelerometer up to +/-6g with a simple serial interface.

Your Price: $74.95

Gyro Breakout Board - MLX90609 - 150 degree/sec

This is a simple breakout board for the Melexis gyroscope featuring both analog and digital (SPI) interfaces. Designed for dead reckoning navigation applications, the MLX90609-E2 is a 150 degree/s max rate gyro with low drift and programmable bandwidth, this gyro is perfect for digital stabilization and control.

Your Price: $59.95

Gyro Breakout Board - MLX90609 - 300 degree/sec

This is a simple breakout board for the Melexis gyroscope featuring both analog and digital (SPI) interfaces. Designed for dead reckoning navigation applications, the MLX90609-R2 is a 300 degree/s max rate gyro with low drift and programmable bandwidth, this gyro is perfect for digital stabilization and control.

Your Price: $59.95

EasyDriver v3 Stepper Motor Driver

EasyDriver v3 is a simple to use stepper motor driver, compatible with anything that can output a digital 0 to 5V pulse. The EasyDriver requires a 7V to 30V supply to power the motor, and has an on board voltage regulator for the digital interface. Connect a 4-wire stepper motor and a microcontroller and you’ve got precision motor control!

Price: $14.95

Triple Axis Accelerometer Breakout - MMA7260Q

Breakout board for the 3 axis MMA7260Q accelerometer from Freescale. With a low power shut-down mode, high sensitivity output with selectable ranges (+/- 1.5, 2, 4, and 6g), this sensor is one of the very first to market with three accelerometers sensors built onto a single IC!  Board comes fully assembled and tested with external filters installed.

Price: $39.95

Triple Axis Accelerometer Breakout - LIS3LV02DQ

Breakout board for the 3 axis LIS3LV02DQ accelerometer from ST Micro. With a digital interface (SPI or I2C), the user only has to initiate commands to get 1mg resolution! Independent channels can be shut off, the sensor can be powered down, even an interrupt threshold can be set and used to awaken the sensor from power down! Selectable ranges are available for +/-2g and 6g. This sensor is one of the first with triple axis and an easy to use digital interface. Board comes fully assembled and tested with external decoupling caps.

Price: $43.95

Stepper Motor

This is a simple, but very powerful stepper motor.

Features:

• Step Angle (degrees) :1.8
• 2 Phase
• Rated Voltage : 15.4V
• Rated Current : 0.28A
• Holding Torque : 2.4kg*cm
• Detent Torque : 120g*cm

Price: $14.95

There you have it, folks.  If you like what you see, click the links, read some manuals and spec sheets, and buy things.  As always: if you have questions, feel free to drop us an email, post in the forums, or if it’s an emergency and your leg is going to fall off if you don’t find out what the difference between an accelerometer and a gyro is RIGHT NOW, give us a call.

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