4 ms·

Robots at the Intersection of Cool and Useful

33 points by hugs 14y ago

stephengillie 14y ago
This article exactly describes the startling realization I had last October when I first used Arduino: all of the parts exist to create robots; they just have to be put together. We have all kinds of sensors which can take information about the world and turn it into voltage pulses. We have all kinds of motors and servos which can take voltage pulses and move. We have microcontrollers and microprocessors which can use voltage pulses as digital input, and output digital signals as voltage pulses. Also these are robust enough to count microseconds and run several-thousand-line programs. With these few parts, we can build numerous input loops. My favorite is having a motor scale output based on the input given from a distance sensor, so an RC car will slow as it approaches a wall. I have done this in ~40 lines of code. I want to see just how much can be done with ~4000 lines of code. I am currently building a self-driving trash can from an RC car, Arduino, some sensors, and code I've hacked together. I have dreams of building robots that swap HDDs for rackmount servers and also building seeing-eye robots. While many hackers find satisfaction in seeing their code run on servers or be used, I find it much more enjoyable to see my code rolling across the floor.
- hugs 14y ago
  "all of the parts exist to create robots". Yes, Arduino handles the software and electronics, but as I created the robot, I also realized there was another missing piece -- a low-cost open source building platform for the physical mechanics. So I created "bitbeam", too -- a Lego Technic compatible building tool you can lasercut, CNC mill, or 3D print. http://bitbeam.org/pages/about http://bitbeam.org/pages/about
- Symmetry 14y ago
  And if you want to get more advanced, there's this great open source framework... http://www.ros.org/wiki/ http://www.ros.org/wiki/
  - hugs 14y ago
    Yes, totally. ROS support is definitely on my watch list, especially for getting an OpenGL virtual representation of what the bot is doing. I like the idea of ROS -- a publish/subscribe hub of messages between every thing on a robot -- however, I don't know if I'm going to love the actual implementation. It feels like Too Much Code. But again, I'm speaking from non-experience actually using ROS.

33 points by hugs 14y ago

This article exactly describes the startling realization I had last October when I first used Arduino: all of the parts exist to create robots; they just have to be put together. We have all kinds of sensors which can take information about the world and turn it into voltage pulses. We have all kinds of motors and servos which can take voltage pulses and move. We have microcontrollers and microprocessors which can use voltage pulses as digital input, and output digital signals as voltage pulses. Also these are robust enough to count microseconds and run several-thousand-line programs. With these few parts, we can build numerous input loops. My favorite is having a motor scale output based on the input given from a distance sensor, so an RC car will slow as it approaches a wall. I have done this in ~40 lines of code. I want to see just how much can be done with ~4000 lines of code. I am currently building a self-driving trash can from an RC car, Arduino, some sensors, and code I've hacked together. I have dreams of building robots that swap HDDs for rackmount servers and also building seeing-eye robots. While many hackers find satisfaction in seeing their code run on servers or be used, I find it much more enjoyable to see my code rolling across the floor.

hugs 14y ago
"all of the parts exist to create robots". Yes, Arduino handles the software and electronics, but as I created the robot, I also realized there was another missing piece -- a low-cost open source building platform for the physical mechanics. So I created "bitbeam", too -- a Lego Technic compatible building tool you can lasercut, CNC mill, or 3D print. http://bitbeam.org/pages/about http://bitbeam.org/pages/about
Symmetry 14y ago
And if you want to get more advanced, there's this great open source framework... http://www.ros.org/wiki/ http://www.ros.org/wiki/
- hugs 14y ago
  Yes, totally. ROS support is definitely on my watch list, especially for getting an OpenGL virtual representation of what the bot is doing. I like the idea of ROS -- a publish/subscribe hub of messages between every thing on a robot -- however, I don't know if I'm going to love the actual implementation. It feels like Too Much Code. But again, I'm speaking from non-experience actually using ROS.