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

Enough said.

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.

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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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.

Let’s get right to the heart of this thing.  Project CONDOR is a high-tech immersive multimedia sensory experience.  An array of eight robotically controlled helium-filled blimps, each with a speaker hanging from it, dynamically repositioning sound sources, with audio streaming to each blimp via Bluetooth, playing a separate part of an electronic musical composition, floating around inside a large indoor space, accompanied by a light show and video projections…  I’m on the verge of a flashback just from writing that sentence, so I can only imagine how trippy the actual performance is going to be.  Tonight and tomorrow night (That’s June 29 and 30, 2007), starting at 8 pm, Project CONDOR will take flight in Chicago’s Broadway Armory.  Admission is only 10 bucks, and I have no idea how many people they’re letting in, so get there early if you want to check it out.

Thanks to Chicago Public Radio for covering this story while I was on my way to work this morning.  Their pledge drive is still going on, so head over to WBEZ.org and give them some money.

Story at news.big.net

Project CONDOR event posting at Metromix

I couldn’t find any Project CONDOR pictures, so I ran a Google image search for “psychedelic blimps” and this is what I got.

…is an unbelievable band that you really need to experience to understand. From their press kit:

“Captured! By Robots was started back in 1996. Jason Vance could not get along with human musicians and he decided to build himself a band… a band of robots. Shortly before their completion, he accidentally spilled coffee on their CPUs. When he awoke the next morning, they had come to life and he had been given a Bio-Cerebral chip that allows them to control him. From that point on, he was JBOT, of Captured! By Robots.”

Yeah. JBOT and his creations put on a great show, busting out quirky rock and metal tunes with a robot-supremacy theme. Since the Trossen Robotics team will be out at Maker Faire this weekend, we’re going to miss their gig in Chicago. If you live in or around Chicago, C!BR is playing on Saturday May 19 at The Note. Go there. Seriously. You will be entertained and impressed. I should probably note here that this is not a family show. C!BR will terrify small children and offend those with delicate sensibilities. Thankfully, I don’t think many people from either of those groups read this blog.
Here’s the next few stops on the tour, if you’re interested:

May 17, 2007 Minneapolis, MN @ Triple Rock
May 18, 2007 Madison, WI @ The Annex
May 19, 2007 Chicago, IL @ The Note
May 20, 2007 Dekalb, IL @ Ottos
May 22, 2007 Champaign, IL @ High Dive
May 23, 2007 Carbondale, IL @ Big Boy’s BBQ
May 24, 2007 St Louis, MO @ Off Broadway

So check out the Captured! By Robots web site, head out to The Note this Saturday, and don’t forget to tip your bartender.

It must be “fun stuff” day because that’s all we are posting Well, Happy Wednesday with fun stuff posts

Check out this cool roboart !

link

via Gizmodo

There is no bigger tease that robot art. It’s like hopping inside a Ferrari, hitting the gas and realizing that there is no engine inside. But then you remember: it’s owning a Ferrari gets you laid, not driving one. (Or so we understand).

Created by Greg Brotherton, these “robots” are handmade with hammers and steel, because once we grow sick of Apple everything will have rivets and the distinct possibility of cutting your primitive, sissy flesh. Roughly 7 feet in height, these robots weight between 80 and 200lbs. And hopefully, when we do have sex slaves robots they will look at least this awesome (but maybe lack the horns). – Mark Wilson

link

This is an older post, but I just saw it and it’s way cool so I’m posting it!

Steam Powered Robots by I-Wei Huang !

via ancient boingboing post

link to gallery of bots