Posts Tagged ‘arduino’

New Products – 12/12/2014

Friday, December 12th, 2014

New items to get your motor running this holiday season!

Is the Arduino Uno’s hardware just not cutting it? Do you need a more powerful platform, but you’re not ready to move away from the Arduino IDE? Then the Teensy 3.1 is the perfect ARM based microcontroller for your next robot project. The Teensy 3.1 is a complete USB-based microcontroller development system and is as versatile as it is powerful. A custom Teensy installer and bridge application will easily allow you to write sketches for the Teensy and load them on to the Teensy. All programming is done via the USB port just like the Arduino – no special programmer is needed.


 

Have you ever wanted to hook up your robot to your iOS device? Now you can utilize Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy (BLE) technology in your robot with the BLE Mini. The BLE Mini requires only a serial port for communication so it supports all major development platforms that have UART interface including ArduinoArbotiX-M Robocontroller,Geekduino, Raspberry Pi, etc. In addition, you are given access to all Ti’s CC2540 I/O pins and the ability to upload firmware via USB, making the BLE Mini an ideal development/protoyping board for your BLE project/accessory/Appcessory.


We have two new Dynamixel Pro robot actuators from Robotis, the DYNAMIXEL PRO L54-50-S500-R and the DYNAMIXEL PRO L54-30-S500-R. These new actuators have incredibly high power and precision, making them ideal for for everything from advanced robotics to industry applications. Using ROBOTIS’s frame system for the DYNAMIXEL PRO, you’ll be able to rapidly create a variety of different systems and robots. These new servos have position, speed, AND torque based commands.


Get your rover rolling with our new custom Robot DC Gearhead Motor & Wheel Starter Kit. Each kit comes with 2 motors and wheel sets as well as a pair of brackets to mount your motors to your robot. Each wheel is 90mm in diameter (including the rubber tire). The motors in this kit use Hall Effect Quadrature sensors to achieve an encoder output of 520 ticks/revolution, allowing you to control the motors very precisely. Each motor includes a 6-pin cable that breaks out motor inputs and the associated encoder I/O. Single wheel and hub sets are also available.


That’s all for now, thanks for checking it out. Stick around for more updates as products roll in.

RK-1, a wifi Arduino mobile robot for iOS & Android devices

Wednesday, June 5th, 2013

Today’s Kickstarter shout out is for RK-1, an adorable wifi arduino bot to be controlled by smart phones and tablet devices.

From the project page:

The RK-1 is a fun mobile robot, that uses an ad hoc wifi connection, which is controlled using your iOS or Android device.

The control board on the robot is built on the Arduino hardware/software architecture, which is open source, and the controller software and hardware will also be available open source. The idea is to give the community the ability to make Arduino projects mobile. There is no end to what you can do- you can add sensors and actuators to this fun little device and control it remotely.

I have implemented a new and amazing way of controlling the robot using swipe gestures.

RK-1, a wifi Arduino mobile robot for iOS & Android devices

Laser Dazer!

Thursday, August 23rd, 2012

As you may know, our Desktop RoboTurret is incredibly versatile and can perform a huge number of tasks. Latest on that list is : entertaining your pets! Just load up our Laser Dazer code onto the RoboTurret’s Arduino Compatible controller and you can turn your RoboTurret into an autonomous pet toy. The RoboTurret will fire up its built in laser, then pick random points to aim the laser at Your pet will be chasing the laser around in no time flat.

The code is ready to use out of the box, but we’ve also made it very easy to modify the variables that control the Laser Dazer’s behavior. You can change the speed, range and more on the RoboTurret to suit your pet’s personality. The Laser Dazer Code is available in the standard Desktop RoboTurret code download

New Robot Gearhead Motors

Wednesday, August 15th, 2012

Robot DC Gearhead Motor - 6v 180rpm w/ Encoder

The Trossen Engineering team goes through a lot of motors, so we have pretty high expectations of any motors we want to put in a robot. Well our new Robot DC Gearhead Motors w/ Encoder meet and blow past those expectations!

These motors are perfect for robots weighing 2-5 lbs, and the RPM allows them to pair perfectly with 3-4″ Wheels. Each of our motors have an integrated encoder to help calculate odometry data so these motors will help get your robotic rover up and running in no time!

Check out the video to see one of our test ‘bots zipping around the warehouse.

New RobotGeek Voltage Dividers are in the Store!

Wednesday, August 8th, 2012

RobotGeek Voltage Divider

Developed in-house, the RobotGeek Voltage Divider is a great little board that will make it easy to connect analog sensors up to our Arduino. Just about any analog sensor, like out Force, pressure, and flex sensors can be used with the Voltage Divider.

The three pin voltage divider can easily connect directly to the arduino, or attached to a breakout shield. Your sensor can connect to the voltage divider using the 2-pin male header, or the screw terminals. Finally, the built in potentiometer will let you adjust the circuit’s sensitivity.

Check out the product page for a wiring diagram and PCB files.

Howto: Controlling Solenoids, Pumps and More From Your Arduino

Friday, July 27th, 2012

Recently, we added Solenoids and Water Pumps to our catalog. These devices are extremely useful so they have a huge variety of project applications.

One question that comes up a lot is, ‘How do I control these devices with my Arduino?” Well in this quick video tutorial, we’ll show you how to use a basic relay to easily control your pump, solenoid or motor! Once you’ve got the basics of controlling these devices down, you can move on to making bigger, better and cooler projects!

Download the sample code and diagram here

We are Hiring! Job Title: Roboticist Apprentice Extraordinaire

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

ATTENTION: We actually have filled this position. We will announce the new team member soon. However, we very much encourage people who wanted to apply to this position to still say hello. We will be continuing to bring on new people as we grow. We always welcome good talent sending in their resumes with a cover letter letting us know a little bit about them. In fact, this is kinda how we do it. We like the organic approach and getting to know potential awesome peoples at any time. So saying hello before the next position is announced is a smart move.

 

We are looking to add a new member to the team. If you would love to get paid to build robots read on.

If you have a place to share this post, by all means, please do! Help us spread the word and help give someone their dream job.

Job Title:  Roboticist Apprentice Extraordinaire

Where? Chicago far west suburbs (Downers Grove, 60515) (With future relocation to Chicago)
How much? 25K to 35K depending on experience and fit
When? We hope to hire the right fit before end of February 2012
Relocate? We are happy to consider the right applicant from outside Chicagoland. We cannot cover all the relocation costs, but for the right rock star we will help out. Also, expect a trial work period before moving permanently to see if we like each other.

Trossen Robotics is looking to add another member to the team. The optimal applicant will be able to handle very very long hours, extremely sarcastic work environments, have a diverse skill set (IE: customer service skills are as good as engineering skills), readily tackle challenging projects, and be able to hold their own in Halo Firefight.

Was GLaDOS of little challenge to you? Do you have a lot of FINISHED electronics and/or mechanical projects that you built lying around your house? Can you be in the zone with Tool/Puscifer/NIN/Ministry/insert-other-awesome-industrial-genius-here blaring on the sound system? Did school bore you because your mind is so brilliant that you were smarter than all your teachers? How many things have you ripped apart, just because you just had to know how it ticked? Does your narwhal bacon at midnight? Are you willing to burn the midnight oil to get projects done? Not because you were told to, but because you can’t sleep until you see it working. Do you want to feel like the work you do is having an impact outside your cubical? Do you not want to work in a cubicle? Good, we don’t have them.

Not-the-most-fun-grunt-things-you-will-have-to-do-part-of-the-time-just-like-the-rest-of-the-team – Help in the warehouse, restock inventory, pack orders, help build kits and count things, process RMAs, answer the same question on the phone with a friendly voice 843 times a year, sing for superiors on command… okay not really.

Main-duties-we-need-lots-of-help-in-right-now – product entry, writing product pages, product photography, project/product videos, blogging, project write-ups, code examples, production runs on laser CNC machine (yes, you can wear a lab coat and be a REAL laser scientist), running community contests, participating in said community, build demo kits and robots, creating product manuals, customer service (talking to customers about robots, answering product related questions), tech support, and in general being an awesome team player.

The-awesome-stuff-you-can’t-believe-you-get-paid-to-do-that-you-will-get-to-do-if-you-get-your-daily-chores-done – assist in mechanical design and programming on robotics products and kits, create & build fun DIY projects and robots, be a part of the product development and prototyping discussion, build giant killer 6-legged robots armed with paintball guns (we’re already half-way there), come up with great ideas to generate PR and viral videos, and did we mention robots? You get to build robots. That is awesome, in case you were wondering.

You will probably be put through the ringer and made fun of a lot in your first six months, but the bright side is that then you will get to make fun of and ridicule the next person we hire. That is how it works. The other bright side is that you will get to be paid to build robots, learn engineering, programming, marketing, community building, laser science, warehouse management (Meaning putting stuff in boxes and closing them. With tape. Repeatedly.), and be proud to be a part of building a great new company.

Seriously, we rock and roll while we work, and we have a good time, BUT we have a very fast paced environment here and we all work very hard. We get a lot done fast because we love what we do and we want to be the best at it. We are very well known in the community and are expanding our offerings rapidly.

We really would like to find someone who is already familiar with the DIY Arduino community and has already done some Arduino projects, but we are flexible. If you don’t know Arduino, then you should at least know programming in C++, python, or processing etc. Must be self reliant and not only be able to do projects unsupervised, we expect you to come back with ideas on how to improve things. We expect the right candidate to be constantly learning and improving their own skill set. A large part of the job will be doing product page write ups, manuals, project write ups, etc. So you will need to know how to write very well and quickly about technical subjects. This is a deal breaker if you can’t. Please be ready to show us something that proves you can communicate in print.

Exact definition of the position is to be determined. We would rather find brilliant hard working innovators and mold the right position around them than to predefine something rigid. Please send resume with cover letter to [email protected]. Yes, we are serious about the cover letter. If you can’t take the time to write one and let us know this really hits your passion buttons, then you really shouldn’t be taking a shot at it. Plus, there was that whole thing above about the job being largely about writing stuff. We look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely,
The Trossen Robotics Team

Download the full job description here as PDF

Analog to PWM with Arduino

Wednesday, August 17th, 2011

Another introductory video tutorial.

Andrew demonstrates using an arduino to convert analog input into a PWM output.

Arduinos back in stock!

Monday, March 28th, 2011

Arduinos!

We’ve been having a hard time keeping the new Arduino Unos & Arduino Mega 2560’s in stock these days, but we just got a decent sized shipment of them in and they’re ready to go! If you’ve been waiting to get your hands on one, now is the time to jump on it; our last batch sold out in a matter of days.

RoboTurret Vision Tracking Starter Kit

Friday, October 8th, 2010

roboturret-vision-tracking-starter-kit

Trossen Robotics is proud to announce our partnership with Roborealm to bring an extremely affordable and simple way of getting started with Machine Vision! We present to you the RoboTurret Vision Tracking Starter Kit– everything you need to give your next robotics project the sense of eyesight! At the core of this kit is the MosquitIO Pan & Tilt Microcontroller, an Arduino-compatible board that provides a USB connected pan/tilt unit, I/O, motor control and a solid state relay. We’re also including a ready-to-mount Lifecam webcam and a FULL license of Roborealm to tie everything together on the PC side of things.

But wait- there’s more! We’ve collaborated with Roborealm to create a customized module built specifically for the RoboTurret withing the Roborealm environment, making it easy for those of you with little or no programming experience to jump head first into the exciting world of machine vision! On top of the module to help you get interfaced, we’ve also provided a number of various colored object tracking demos with more to come soon. Want to break out of the GUI of Roborealm and program directly to it’s API? We’ve got you covered there as well with .NET C# and VB code project examples! Never before has it been this simple to get into vision processing, and at only $150 for the entire kit we can’t wait to see what awesome projects you guys come up with. Turrets, motion detectors, robotic-surveillance, object recognition, object tracking, the sky is the limit!

Here’s a quick video showcasing some of the basic colored object tracking that can be done, but remember- that’s not all it can do!

And here is a quick video demonstrating some basic features of the RoboTurret itself (Now, with 75% more Techno Beats!):