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.

Stephen Hobley is at it again.  His laser harp was cool enough to win second place in our project contest a few months back, and since then he’s managed to make it even cooler.  Using a Wiimote to accurately track the positions at which the beams are interrupted, he added some very clean and precise pitch control to the already impressive instrument.  Watch the video.  After about a minute of demonstration, he gives a quick explanation of how the modification works, so be sure to watch the whole video.

He started a thread about this in our forums, so head on over there to give him props, ask questions, etc:
Laser Harp Mk III

If you haven’t read the original thread from when he first completed the project, check it out here:
Frameless Laser Harp

If you want more info on how it was made, or if you want to build your own, follow this link to Stephens’s site:
The Laboratory

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.

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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.

Jeffery Stephenson of Humidor PC fame was also at the press lunch with his latest creations the Pico Bayard and the G-metric Nano. Jeffrey specializes in making really beautiful custom PC cases using small ITX boards that combine modern technology with classy old world style. His creations are vaguely steampunk without the steam. Jeffrey has a whole pile of his projects profiled on his website SlipperySkip.com.

Jeffrey describes his Pico Bayard: “This computer was inspired by a design by the French clockmaker Bayard. It is an example of the art deco skyscraper school of design that flourished between the world wars. The clock’s landscape orientation was rare for the period.”

The Pico Bayard and the G-metric Nano by Jeffrey Stephenson

More pictures after the fold…
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Another contest, another batch of cool projects!  Once again, the TR Community came through with some great ideas.  As per usual, the Trossen Robotics staff scored projects from our "Project Showcase" forum on a scale of 0-5 for documentation, coolness, ingenuity, and creativity.  This is only a sampling of what’s been posted in the Project forum, and there are still some great projects that unfortunately didn’t make the cut.  I wish we could give awards and salutations to all of them, but we can’t, so when you’re finished reading this, go check out the rest of the projects in the Project Showcase forum.  And now, here are the finalists of the "Submit Your Project And Win" contest!

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Runners Up:

Project: Wiimote Firefighting Robot
Creator: tempalte
Prize: 10% off next TR order

This bot detects fire using the IR camera in the Wiimote and talks to a computer via Bluetooth.  Very cool.

Project: Skype Controlled Roboquad with Spy Capability
Creator: roschler
Prize: 10% off next TR order

Roboquad + wireless cam + Robodance + USB UIRT + Skype = Awesome.

Project: Distributed Autonomous Swarm of Maxelbots
Creator: uwdrl
Prize: 10% off next TR order

Ultrasonic swarm localization and heavy metal.

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Third Place
Project: Halloween Hologram / Spirited Tree R/C Holiday Double Whammy
Creator: Rodger Cleye
Prize: $50 TR Gift Cirtificate

If you don’t know what the hell’s going on in the above picture, you’re not alone.  Rodger submitted the "Holographic Halloween Robot" in October, then repurposed the hardware and resubmitted it in November as the "Spirited Tree."  Both were highly entertaining and totally ridiculous.  The base is a modified electric wheelchair drive system.  The hologram illusion was created with an LCD and an angled piece of plexiglass.  The LCD can display video broadcast live from an IR camera or a DVD player. With Halloween receding into the past and Christmas looming on the horizon, Rodger replaced the hologram rig with a music playing light-up Christmas tree.  Rodger is a newcomer to our forums, but if you’ve been reading Hack a Day and other DIY news outlets for a while, you’ve probably already seen his self-balancing electric unicycle and electric skateboard.

Second Place
Project: Front Door RFID Security
Creator: fish123456
Prize: $100 TR Gift Cirtificate

This guy hacked into his electronic deadbolt, adding a Phidget RFID reader so he could unlock his front door with an RFID key fob.  This has been done a few times before, but we decided we needed to reward "fish123456" for going the extra mile, because in addition to RFID, he also created a web interface that he can access from his cell phone.  This has a lot of potential.  For instance, if somebody needs to get into your house when you’re not home, you can unlock it remotely for them.  Or if your RFID chip is implanted in your hand, and that hand gets bitten off by a shark; you don’t need to hunt down the shark and wave it in front of the door to open it!

First Place
Project: Otto
Creator: kdwyer
Prize: $200 TR Gift Cirtificate

Otto is a humanoid/track hybrid droid with an incredible range of capabilities.  Kdwyer's mission was to make an autonomous robot that could avoid obstacles, track motion, and interact with people through speech and gestures.  Otto's brain follows a distributed architecture, employing 2 Oopic R's (the "upper" and "lower" brains).  He boasts a boatload of sensors, such as IR rangefinders, Ultrasonic rangefinders, a digital compass, and a color video camera.  We like this project a lot, mostly because it was built from the ground up using a pile of hardware from numerous different sources.

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Thanks to everyone for your submissions.  The next contest is rolling as we speak.  As always, we’re looking forward to seeing what else you can come up with!  You can stay up to date on contest rules and regulations at the Submit Your Project and Win contest page, and start posting your projects in our Project Showcase Forum.

In this increasingly technologically saturated world, electronic communication has become a vital part of our lives.  Communication between sentient carbon-based life forms such as ourselves is fairly straightforward, but what about communication between the electronic devices that surround us?

Making Things Talk, a new book from the fine people who bring us Make Magazine, demystifies device level communications with a series of fun projects presented (as always) in a friendly, nonthreatening manner.

If you haven’t checked this book out yet, we highly recommend it.  You’ll learn how to make a video game out of a stuffed monkey, add a web cam to your cat, and by the time you’re done, you’ll be tracking your grandmother by GPS and your underwear drawer will be sending you status updates via email.

It’s a good primer for all sorts of communication methods; from short range communication using IR, Zigbee, and Bluetooth, to communicating over vast distances over the Internet.  It’s also a good way to get familiar with basic electronic prototyping, microcontrollers, and TTL-level serial communication.

Making Things Talk is not an exhaustive encyclopedia, but more of a well-rounded cookbook.  If you’re a beginner, it will help you get your feet wet.  If you’re more experienced, it should still teach you a few new tricks.

Buy your copy of Making Things Talk at the Make store.

We’ve been through a lot of sweat and blood here at Trossen Robotics, but nothing prepared us for a trial like this. Deciding on the winners of the Submit Your Project and WIN contest was a blast, but it wasn’t easy. Seriously, we wanted to give first prize to almost everyone who entered. We couldn’t though, so instead we employed our objective grading system; rating each entry on a scale of 0-5 in the categories of Wow-Factor, Ingenuity, Creativity & Documentation. Each TR employee graded the projects individually, then everything was totalled up and averaged. In the end, we had 3 prize winners, and 3 that were soo close to third place that we had to give them honorable mentions.

Without further ado, here they are:

First Prize: $100 Trossen Robotics gift certificate goes to…
Vaughn’sVirtual Crib home automation/security system
Average score: 4.34/5
Comments: Lots of in-depth work with both hardware and software, combining everything seamlessly into a very immersive project. You turned your house into a robot, dude. We like that.

Second Prize: $50 Trossen Robotics gift certificate goes to…
jonathanuwguy’sOfficebot
Average score: 4.25/5
Comments: It’s a flexible, feature-rich telepresence platform. Also, it has a nerf missile launcher. Fun stuff.

Third Prize: $25 Trossen Robotics gift certificate goes to…
JonHylands’Bioloid Gripper
Average score: 3.91/5
Comments: This one impressed us because it involved microcontroller programming, mechanical design and fabrication, integration with the Bioloid serial network, and it’s something we would be likely to sell if it were a commercial product.

Honorable Mentions (in no particular order)
bmouring’sLunar Rover Robot
streetpictures’Evil Babies
Brandon121233′Wall Avoiding Robot

Great work, guys. You three runners up will each receive a discount on your next order. We’ll email you the coupon codes shortly.

To everyone else: Thanks for participating! September’s contest is open for submissions, so go ahead and post more projects.

BIG NEWS HERE: For September’s contest, we’re doubling the prizes! That’s right; first place will get $200, $100 will go to second place, and third will get $50. That’s serious business, people!

This is a link to our Project Showcase forum.  Go there.  Brag about the cool stuff you’ve made.  Win fabulous prizes.

We’ve also updated the Submit Your Project and WIN Contest page, so please be sure to check it out.

Could we be any more behind on posting our Makers Faire videos? I don’t think so…

We were invited out to Makers Faire by our friends over at Microsoft Coding4Fun. They wanted us to build some fun stuff using Visual Studio Express that would entertain the kids and families attending the event. The Visual Studio Express is a free version of Visual Studio that is aimed at the hobby market place. We use it in a lot of our projects and find it has most everything you need even if you are a serious developer.

We built two projects for the Faire. One was a shooting gallery which we have no good footage of and the other project was our magic air tubes. Below is the only descent footage we got of the air tubes because we were so swamped the whole time we could only grab a camera when there wasn’t a sea of ankle biters swarming the booth

See if you can figure out how we built it before scrolling down to the answer below.

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How we built the project.

Input: 8 IR sensors plugged into a Phidgets 8/8/8 Interface Kit (A/D converter)

Then we wrote a program which converted the variable signal input caused by people waving their hands into a variable fan speed output.

Output: 2 Phidget 4-servo motor controllers plugged into 8 Banebot DC motor controllers plugged into 8 high speed fans.

And that my friends is how you entertain Makers Faire Attendees.

Lots of good humanoid news today. Matt Bauer posted his newest Robonova mod in our forums this morning. Just in time for the release of the new Transformers movie, we have this:

More than meets the eye, indeed.

Check out the thread in the TR Forums for bigger pictures and enlightening discussion.