The Cyborg Fly Project Guides a Robot Through an Obstacle Course

I want my Cyborg !!


The Cyborg Fly Project Guides a Robot Through an Obstacle Course
http://gizmodo.com/5624422/the-cyborg-fly-project-uses-a-tethered-fly-to-guide-a-robot-through-an-obstacle-course


So what's the significance of having a fly-controlled robot? Apparently, the technique could be used to help track micro and nano robots, which are difficult to follow due to their high relative velocities. Although the Cyborg Fly Project is not the only bug "flight simulator", it has a unique high-speed vision component that could translate into both future biology research and industrial applications like keeping tabs on a production line. [IEEE Spectrum via Boing Boing]

Free booklet on mechanisms for automata and other projects

MAKE:

Free booklet on mechanisms for automata and other projects

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/08/free_booklet_on_mechanisms_for_auto.html

For a limited time, Cabaret Mechanical Theatre is offering a free download of an eighteen page booklet by famed automata-maker Paul Spooner. This is a great resource for the mechanically-curious and must have for automata-makers.




--enjoy !!

--http://www.vintagecomputer.net/ragooman/

ERROR !!
***The schematic is being updated to reflect the fixes made over the weekend and will be posted online soon. ***

This is still using the AVR TINY2313. One of the guys picked up a RC Car from the Thrift store. So naturally he wanted to hack this into a Terminator, crush, kill, destroy --hah-- a robotic rover of course, something which could navigate on it's own.

The drive motor and the steering motor is wired using a L298 motor driver chip.

BTW, from all this we have another AVR convert !! Yes, another hacker devoted to the world of AVR microcontrollers :)

Make: Online : Multitouch robot swarm controller

This is a very interesting application for Robot Swarming technology

Make: Online : Multitouch robot swarm controller:
"Got an unruly swarm of robots that needs taming?
Whip them into shape with this multitouch control interface by Mark Micire of UMass Lowell. [via BotJunkie]"

LED Matrix using an AVR ATTINY2313 and 74LS374

LED Matrix using an AVR ATTINY2313 and 74LS374

This is a little circuit to drive a 5x7 jumbo LED matrix module that I picked up at a local hamfest. All it takes is a ATTINY2313 and a 74LS373 octal latch to create a row/column mux to access the individual Leds in the module. Attached is the schematic. the 6pin ISP programmer is not shown, this is a given , if you're using one of the available programmers, such as the AVRISP mkII from Atmel. I will post a pic of the module shortly with the pins labled.

NOTE: Atmel released a newer version of this microcontroller, it's now the ATTINY2313A

Slashdot Hardware Story | Dutch Hackers Create Wi-Fi Sniffing Drone

This looks like a great UAV Robot project...

Slashdot Hardware Story | Dutch Hackers Create Wi-Fi Sniffing Drone:
"The WASP, or Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform, has been built out of a hobby-grade airframe and open source Ardupilot autopilot, reports sUASnews. In the words of the Rabbit-Hole website, it's a 'Small Scale, Open Source UAV using off the shelf components. Designed to provide a vehicle to project cyber-offensive and defensive capabilities, and visual / electronic surveillance over distance cheaply and with little risk.'" Want a drone of your own? The makers have some pointers to helpful resources.

Final Projects ECE 4760

Here's a great AVR project page done by college students at Cornell. I only wish I was back in college with all that free time again :)
Final Projects ECE 4760

NASA - NASA's First Robotic Crew Member To Tweet From Space Station, Available For Interviews

NASA - NASA's First Robotic Crew Member To Tweet From Space Station, Available For Interviews

HOUSTON -- NASA's Robonaut 2 has no voice but is ready to tell you its story -- in 140 characters or less. The prototype robot will travel to space this fall to give NASA a deeper understanding of human-robotic interaction.

Called R2, the robot has started sending updates about its upcoming mission from its new Twitter account, @AstroRobonaut. With the help of its supporting team, R2 will document its preparations for launch and, eventually, its work aboard the International Space Station.

"Hello World! My name is Robonaut 2 -- R2 for short," R2 and the team tweeted this week. "Follow my adventures here as I prepare for space!"

Follow R2's updates on Twitter at:

http://www.twitter.com/AstroRobonaut

Robot Builders Sourcebook - my old webpage is in there

Whoa !
My old Robotics webpage from 1996 made it into the publication of Robot Builders Sourcebook. I never knew that !!
You can see the page in the book here. Google Books

=Dan

My old biped robot projects from 1995

Now here's some Biped Robots that I built some 15yrs ago,
when this stuff was still in it's infancy.




Pinocchio, 1995
http://www.arrickrobotics.com/robomenu/pinocchi.html













Gigantor, 1995
http://www.arrickrobotics.com/robomenu/gigantr3.html

Aldebaran Robotics, the creators of Nao | Aldebaran Robotics

Another cool biped robot

Aldebaran Robotics, the creators of Nao | Aldebaran Robotics

TOOLS: Lin Engineering - Online Conversion Tool

Here's a great online conversion tool, from/to any units, english/metric

Lin Engineering - Step Motor Specialists

Robots: Online Human-Robot Interactions

In its latest episode, the Robots podcast interviews Sonia Chernova at thePersonal Robots Group at MIT's Media Lab. Chernova is using a free, online game called Mars Escape to learn about how humans and robots can work in teams. As you log into the game, you are teamed up with a second human player, with one person taking on the role of an astronaut, and the other one controlling a Nexi robot. You and your astronaut (or robot) partner then find yourselves on a mission on Mars, where you will have to brave various challenges. This episode's second guest is Kenton Williams, also from the Media Lab. In the interview, Williams shares some of the technical aspects behind one of the Media Lab's most expressive robots, the MDS robot Nexi.Play the game, read on, or tune in!

CMU Launches $7 Million Educational Initiative

This is a big story...

CMU Launches $7 Million Educational Initiative

The CMU Robotics Institute, with the help of a seven million dollar DARPA grant, has announced the launch of a four year educational initiative called Fostering Innovation through Robotics Exploration (FIRE). The goal is to use student interest in robotics to encourage computer science education, and to steer students toward science and engineering careers. In addition to embracing existing educational robotics competitions such as FIRST and VEX, CMU will also be creating new competitions.

http://robots.net/article/3035.html

Welcome to the new Blog - This is only a Test 3 2 1

Welcome to the new Blog - This is only a Test 3 2 1

C code: Some weirdness with 'strcmp' when using Interrupts with UART

Below is an excerpt from the post I put on AVR Freaks under AVR Forum about this weird problem involving the 'strmp' library function. This was burning my metallic butt all week. I have a simple workaround to continue coding for now. The complete post with test code and display output can be see at this [link] If you night have any suggestions feel free to post here or on AVR Freaks.

I posted a problem about 'strcmp' in another post earlier today. I programming our robot to use a command line interface to accept commands over the serial port. This is wired to usart1 on a ATMega128 on a Olimex AVR-MT-128 controller with a DB-9 onboard.

Below is each test code and output showing that I get two diff results when using 'strcmp'. I don't know why this is happening.
Basically, 'strcmp' is supposed to return a 0 when the compare is true. This does happen when using 'fgets' to enter a string.

But in my other test code, where I use interrupts on the usart, the 'strcmp' *does not* return a 0 when the compare is true. Instead, it returns a 13. So I had to edit my test code in order to get it to work.

I hope somebody knows about this. In the meantime, I have to use '13' instead of '0' when using 'strcmp', this is how I have to get my robot to work properly.