We have some exciting news for all of you fine people who have been calling us up over the years asking why there isn't an inexpensive plug-and-play solution for controlling stepper motors from a computer.  Phidgets has just released the PhidgetStepper Unipolar 4-Motor controller!  This little board, which is retailing for just $72.74, allows you to control up to 4 unipolar stepper motors from your USB port.  Building a CNC rig?  Building a wheeled robot that will need fast, precise speed and position control?  Buy this controller.

From the official press release:

It's spring cleaning time, folks!  We're clearing out some of our storage space to make room for new stuff, so we're offering up some great kits for dirt cheap.  Here are some recent additions to the Trossen Robotics Garage Sale:

Superdroid Tri-Wheel Omni-Directional Vectoring Robot Kit Vectoring omni-directional bots are really cool, and you know you've always wanted one.  Buy this kit, give it a brain, and then come post about it in our forums.  The platform is 12" on each side, so there's plenty of room for a small single-board computer. Included: All the nuts and bolts, 2 platforms, battery packs, dual-layer omni-wheels, hubs, motors, and wires.  Basically a complete hardware package.  All it needs is motor controllers, a brain, and… you. Sale Price: $200

24V 3.6Ah NiMH Intercooled battery pack The cells are spaced for air flow, and and the pack is equipped with two built-in fans.  Active cooling allows for longer high-current operation and faster charging. Sale Price: $40

BattleKits Feather Weight Kit 16 inches wide by 16 inches long, this is the baby of the BattleKits family.  Despite (or perhaps because of) it's small size and simple design, this is a bad ass battle bot platform.  It has great mobility thanks to its two 3-horsepower 24V motors, and the slotted top panel allows the wheels to be in contact with the ground even if the bot gets flipped. Included: Chassis, motors, wheels, battery pack, Ampflow Mini motor controller… all you need is an R/C receiver or other control signal source, and of course some flame throwers and pneumatic rams and spinning blades and whatnot. Sale Price: $700

BattleKits Light Weight Kit 16 inches by 18 inches, four wheel drive.  Chassis only.  No motors, batteries, or controller. Included: Chassis, wheels, and drive mechanism. Sale Price: $400

BattleKits Middle Weight Kit 21 inches by 22 inches, four wheel drive.  Comes with two S28-400 dc motors, each churning out a hefty 4.5 horsepower.  The motors themselves are worth the price of this kit. Included: Chassis, wheels, drive mechanism, motors. Sale Price: $600

BattleKits Heavy Weight Kit This is the granddaddy of the BattleKits line.  The chassis itself (which, coincidentally enough, is all we're selling here) is 30 inches by 24 inches and weighs 87 lbs.  This thing is solid as a rock. Included: Chassis, wheels, and drive mechanism. Sale Price: $500

BattleKits Drive Modules Module A, Module B Don't want a whole BattleKits chassis?  Bolt these onto your own design.  We only have one of each (form A and form B) left in stock, so it's perfect if you only need two wheels.  Motors not included. Included: Chassis, wheels, and drive mechanism. Sale Price: $80 per module

That’s it for now, but keep your eye on the Garage Sale.  You never know what you’ll find.

Phidgets has just introduced the PhidgetInterfaceKit 0/0/8 I/O board, which gives you USB control over 8 Double-Pole Double-Throw (DPDT) relays.  The relays can’t handle quite as much juice as those on the 0/0/4, but you get a whole bunch of them!  The relays are DPDT, so you can control 2 separate circuits with each relay.  And now, just for fun, here’s a DPDT diagram:

You get eight of these.

Just like the rest of the Phidgets line, this device can easily be used with any of the mainstream programming languages, thanks to some very friendly API’s.  Still not excited?  Read this excerpt from the press release:

Now go buy a Phidget 0/0/8, and start switching!

OR, you can check out the entire Phidgets Phamily.

Here at Trossen Robotics, we like modularity.  It's been part of our philosophy from day 1.  So needless to say, when we first discovered IB Technology's series of modular RFID reader/writer boards, we knew we had to have them.  IB Technology is a British company, with limited distribution and relatively little promotion  in North America.  We'd like to change that, so we are proud to announce that we are now carrying this fine line of RFID products!

What's so special about IB Technology?

• Modularity:  Start with the "Universal Socket Board," which has built-in antennas for both 125 kHz and 13.56 MHz, and add whichever reader/writer module is necessary for the protocol(s) you'll be using.  You can also add external antennas if you need to increase range or reliability.
• Affordability: IB Technology's RFID products are affordable, fitting in to the same price range as the rest of the RFID readers we sell.
• Flexibility/Versatility: The ability to use one base board and swap out reader modules is great for prototyping, when you may have to evaluate a number of different formats to decide which is best for the system you're designing. 

After the fold: A rundown of the available hardware, and what it can do.

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We’ve been pretty quiet about CES 2008, mainly because the other tech blogs are doing such a good job covering it.  However, this is definitely something that warrants some attention.  While at CES, we swung by a great little press lunch held at Piero’s restaurant. (Martin Scorsese fans may be interested to know that some scenes from Casino were shot there) VIA had a large presence there and they were showing off all kinds of computers and fun stuff using their infamous line of tiny mainboards. They had a box of the new ARTiGO there and I dove on it like a spastic kid at Christmas. I’m not tech press so you will have to make do with a pile of poorly lit pics . We have been ranting about using mini-PCs for years in robotics and VIA continues to push the envelope shrinking their boards down smaller and smaller. With powerful single-board systems like the Pico, computers are truly getting small enough to compete with microprocessors as the brain of choice for mobile robotics. Click pics for larger versions.

The ARTiGO specs list. Since I’m incredibly lazy I’ll just post a pic instead of writing them out

We’ll tease you with the stats first.  More pictures after the break…
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First off, happy new year from the Trossen Robotics crew!  We hope you had a fun and safe holiday season.  And now… on to today's article.

We last reported on the RoboPhilo when it was unveiled at the iHobby Expo.  We had a good time talking to the RoboBrothers team and messing around with their new bot, and we've really been looking forward to getting the RoboPhilo in our shop.  Well, the time has come!  We received our first RoboPhilo shipment last week, and we've been itching to show them off.  So, like a kid at Christmas, we tore open the boxes and examined all the fun bits inside.  The following is a rundown of the major parts that come with the kit and some important features that we think you should be aware of.

We have both the kit version and the ready-to-walk version, but we took more pictures of the kit because… well because everybody's already seen pictures of the assembled robot and we just like kits better.  This guy comes in some pretty swank packaging, complete with a window so you can see everything inside.  As usual, the pictures link to larger versions.

Front.

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The immensely popular Surveyor SRV-1 has just received some major upgrades!  The tracked base remains unchanged, but the electronics have gotten a complete overhaul.  Wi-Fi has replaced the slow and sometimes unreliable ZigBee wireless link, the camera can now grab video at a maximum resolution of 1280 x 1024, an Analog Devices Blackfin processor has replaced the comparatively puny ARM7 processor, and they've even added laser pointers for distance sensing.

Wi-Fi:

The SRV-1 now benefits from the extended range and faster data rates of Wi-Fi.  All you need is an 802.11 b/g wireless LAN card and you're ready to start spying on the neighbors.

Camera:

Speaking of spying on your neighbors, this 1.3 Megapixel camera is roughly on par with most cell phone cameras, with a maximum resolution of 1280 x 1024.  Unlike your cell phone camera, this one’s going to be riding on tank treads.

Main Processor:

Here it is, fully assembled.  The red board on top carries the 1000MIPS 500MHz Analog Devices Blackfin BF537 processor.  [Editor’s note: When I was 17, I built my first computer around the 500MHz Pentium, which was the top of the line at the time.  Now you can get all that power on a circuit board that’s smaller than a playing card.  Crazy, huh?]

Lasers:

Fact: lasers make anything cooler.  The new SRV-1 uses two parallel lasers as a low-cost range-finding system.  Try not to blind your friends/family members/pets.

Links:

Purchase the new and improved SRV-1

More information (Manufacturer’s site)

Do you need a simple and versatile RFID solution?  If so, you should check out the pcProx USB RFID reader module from RF IDeas.  Requiring no programming and no software, it's the quickest way to implement the security and convenience of RFID technology into your project.  It acts as a "keyboard wedge," inserting an RFID tag's unique serial number into any selected text field automatically when a tag is swiped near the reader.

Instead of typing in a password, you can use the pcProx reader to log into your computer.  Use it to streamline data entry and inventory tracking.  It also works great as a drop-in replacement for many barcode scanners.  Using the intuitive configuration utility, you can also format the output; omitting digits from the tag ID or adding characters such as Tab and Enter.

Check out the pcProx RFID reader module in our store for more information!

We also offer this reader in a kit, which includes an assortment of 125kHz (EM4102) RFID tags.  If you're not sure which tag will be best for your application, why not get the kit and test them all out?

We just got WowWee’s RS Media in stock!  As we’re sure you already know, this is the newest incarnation of the revolutionary Robosapien series, and it’s clearly the most advanced robotic media appliance on the consumer market.  I don’t even know where to start.  First off, it’s huge.  Well, it’s 23 inches tall, which may not sound that huge, but it’s pretty imposing.  If you stood him on a stool in the middle of a room full of dancing badgers, nobody would pay attention to the badgers.  That’s right.

Check it:

Hello, sir.  Please don’t hurt me.

We’re glad that WowWee finally strayed from the white-with-black-accents motif.  RS Media proves that they are no longer competing with Apple for shiny monochromatic blandness.  Here’s a full shot of him, still in the box. Unfortunately, he’s going to have to stay there until we have time to give him a proper test-run.

As with all WowWee products, he’s strapped into his box like a monkey ready to be shot into space.  A space monkey.

Seriously though, you’ll need much more than a test-run to really get the full experience.  It has more amazing features than Ron Popiel’s Magic Rotisserie.  For starters, it’s a really cool looking bipedal humanoid robot that’s loaded with sensors and other goodies.  That, in and of itself, should have you running for your credit card.  It can roam free, responding to its environment by talking to inanimate objects and ordering around your other WowWee Robo-family bots.  From the remote, you can trigger demo moves, walk around using three different gaits, move his arms around, pick up and throw stuff, switch between his different personalities, and run through his various media capabilities.

Let’s talk about those media capabilities.  RS Media is a walking and talking MP3 player, audio recorder, still picture camera, video recorder, video player, and video game system.  If he had cell phone and internet capabilities, you’d pretty much never have to buy another piece of consumer electronics ever again.  Pretty much everything he does is modifiable via a slick software interface.  He connects to your computer via USB, and from there you can upload and download music, pictures, videos, personalities (including new voice files), motions, and Java games.  He has 40 MB of on-board memory flash memory, but you can add up to 1 GB to this by installing an SD memory card.

RS Media comes packaged with several Java games (one of them resembles the old Neo Geo game "Bust-a-Move," one of the greatest time-killer games ever), and you can even upload Java-based mobile phone games!

For those of you who haven’t seen it, here’s WowWee’s promotional video:

For more information, check out the following links:
Robosapien RS Media product page at Trossen Robotics
Official RS Media Home Page
RS Media Roboguide page at Evosapien.com (Hacking tips, including pictures of RS Media’s guts!)

Last week, when we got back from the iHobby Expo, there was a nice surprise waiting for us: our iSOBOT shipment finally arrived!  Naturally, we did what all decent geeks do when they get a new toy.  We took a bunch of pictures and videos, and now we’re sticking them on the internet.

The box is pretty awesome.  It looks like brushed stainless steel.  It’s so shiny that it kept overloading my camera’s iris, causing most of my pictures to come out almost completely black.

 

More shiny packaging.

 

Still more.

 

Ok, here’s what you get: 1 robot (duh.) a controller with two analog sticks and lots of buttons 3 NiMH AAA batteries a charger that will charge up to four AA or AAA cells an instruction manual an "Action Table" quick-reference sheet for remote commands an allen wrench for tightening the joints if necessary.

 

Download the Action Table and manual in PDF form for a closer look!

 

He’s just a little taller than a piece of American paper currency.

 

Leg detail:  The servos in this guy are freaking TINY.  You have no idea how hard it was to resist the temptation to just tear this thing apart and build something else out of the tiny servos.

 

The battery case, located in i-SOBOT’s chest cavity, holds three AAA batteries.  Below the batteries you’ll see his speaker, which is behind the gray plastic grill.

 

Hand detail:  The thumb, finger, and wrist are movable, but not motorized.

 

Head detail: The head swivels.  There is one green LED inside, and one blue LED outside.

 

The IR receiver, located on this critter’s right shoulder, looks identical to the one found on Robonova’s head.

 

And now, some videos!

Quick demo.  One of the cool things about i-SOBOT is that, in addition to using the canned motions, you can also directly control his limbs from the controller.  That’s mostly what we were doing in this video.

 

Here are some of his slick fighting moves.  He punches, kicks, and makes some fun sounds effects.  He also talks, laughs, and I think he even begs for mercy at one point.

 

Tomy i-SOBOT: $299.99 $239.00!