I wanted to control my Romo (the cellbot from Romotive) from my PC.  But I like Romotive’s control app and didn’t really want to write my own at this point using their SDK.  Instead, I just wanted to control their app from a script on my PC which hopefully would let it access all the functionality.  Of course, this meant using the protocol they use between their controller app and the app which is actually [...]

A couple weeks back I got Romotive’s Romo cell bot from a project I sponsored on Kickstarter. Cell bots use an onboard cellphone as their controller. As with other cell bots I’ve built, audio out is used to communicate with the robot platform. Some of the earlier cell bots actually directly controlled servo motors using the audio out. Romotive executed this far better with their robot base and it’s the best such small cell bot [...]

A few months back, I enjoyed assembling the Gakken Karakuri Somersault Doll (I got mine online from the Maker Shed).  What’s amazing about the doll is that it slowly completes a series of backward somersaults due to its internal mechanics and the potential energy it has from starting on the top of several steps.  The mechanism was designed long ago during the Japanese Edo period.  The hardest part of the build is probably threading the [...]

I first saw the EggBot in action at MakerFaire and then waited to get in the queue to get one as Evil Mad Science prepared the kit for sale (just as I await their Digi-Comp II now).  As I was just getting started, I went through a lot of ping pong balls — which were ideal to practice on although a bit small.  I later moved on to ornaments and eggs.  My first original design [...]

While walking around Akihabara in Tokyo, we stumbled across a robot competition.  This was totally unplanned on our part but it turned out to be a Kondo Robotics humanoid robot competition.  The small shop was packed but we captured this video of one of the matches from outside the shop.  This match resulted in one of the robots being thrown out of the ring by the other bot.

While visiting Tokyo, I spent some time in Akihabara where I stopped at the vStone Robot Store. I spotted a new balancing bot they had called the Beauto Balancer Duo (Reseller with English translation) and brought one home.  Two motors mount under the circuit board and use encoders.  The two AA batteries are mounted high up with spacers to raise the center of mass.  An optional radio control module (shown in the photo) mounts to [...]

I first saw Pololu’s 3pi robot in action at MakerFaire 2009.  It was an impressive and agile line follower with a well-designed compact body.  I brought one home and came to realize that it was even quicker than I’d seen at the show. I took some poster board and electrical tape and laid out a maze pattern.  The video below shows the 3pi learning the maze (code available on the pololu site). The second video [...]

I thought I’d share another project from a few years back. Back in late 2007 I just finished up my third DARPA Grand Challenge Event (as an author of the pre-event simulator and real-time tracking software used to run and judge the event — which unfortunately precluded me from participating on a team). So I started thinking it might be nice to build my own (albeit small sized) bot — starting with tele-robotic capabilities and [...]

There is a wonderful museum which exhibits working automata of the Edo era in Japan.  It’s called Shishi Kaikan and it’s located in Takayama, Japan.  The automata are mechanical marvels.  A couple of these have been modeled by Gakken and are available as scaled down kits.  I’ve included videos of a few of the larger displays below.  I’m calling these “automata” but the Japanese word is Karakuri which is a sort of puppet meant to surprise [...]