There have been a lot of developments over at Modkit since its introduction in MAKE Volume 25. The graphical drag-and-drop tool works in your browser now and allows you to program and control an Arduino and similar microcontrollers. You can still give the free tool a spin and test it out, but if you’re wanting to dig deeper and try some of the newer special features (eg. code view, drag n’ drop hardware), you’ll need to sign up for the Alpha Club.
For those new to experimenting and programming with Arduino, especially young makers, Modkit is an outstanding way to learn about microcontroller hardware and how it connects to motors, sensors, and other devices. Novices can also bypass text-based programming by using the intuitive drag-and-drop blocks to create simple programs. Once you’ve got the basics, you’ll find that Modkit also offers access to the behind-the-scenes code for more fine-tuning and greater programming options.
Last year, we ran a project series and contest to design and build CoasterBots, simple autonomous, programmable robots built from dead CD media (aka “coasters”). It was a roaring success. We had a lot of participants and some truly inspired project entries. Jameco Electronics, the sponsor of the campaign, also put together an awesome parts bundle with us. That bundle is still available. This is an awesome robot building starter project. To show you just how easy the basic build of the bundle is, Matt Mets put it together in one hour! Here are his instructions.
Just to give you an idea of how far out the CoasterBot concept was taken, here’s a video of the contest winner, Dan Ray’s Jarton! I have a small piece about Jartron and the CoasterBot project in MAKE Volume 27, our robot issue.
You can find out more about the other winners here.
And here’s the runner up, a staff favorite, Tortellini the Turtle Bot, built by 11 year old Jasmine and her dad.
The Robot Build page has links to all of the tutorial newsletters and all CoasterBot-related blog posts. Unfortunately, the images in the newsletters are broken. I’m currently moving all of this content over to the Make: Projects robotic section and will have that live the first of next week.
From the Pages of MAKE
MAKE Volume 27, Robots! The robots have returned! MAKE Volume 27 features a special package with robotics projects for every age and skill level. They play music; they outwit your pets; they learn from their mistakes! In addition, we’ll show you how to build a special aquarium to keep jellyfish, create pre-Edison incandescent lighting, spy via the internet, and make a go-anywhere digital message board! All this and much, much more, in MAKE Volume 27.
WANT to learn a musical instrument, but can’t find the time to practice? A device now under development can take control of your hand and teach you how to play a tune. No spirits of dead musicians are involved.
PossessedHand, being developed jointly by the University of Tokyo, Japan, and Sony Computer Science Laboratories, also in Tokyo, electrically stimulates the muscles in the forearm that move your fingers. A belt worn around that part of the subject’s arm contains 28 electrode pads, which flex the joints between the three bones of each finger and the two bones of the thumb, and provide two wrist movements. Users were able to sense the movement of their hands that this produced, even with their eyes closed. “The user’s fingers are controlled without the user’s mind,” explains Emi Tamaki of the University of Tokyo, who led the research.
Devices that stimulate people’s fingers have been made before, but they used electrodes embedded in the skin, which are invasive, or glove-like devices that make it hard to manipulate an object. Tamaki claims that her device is far more comfortable. “The electric stimulations are similar to low-frequency massage stimulations that are commonly used,” she says.
The Twitchie Kit from the Maker Shed has been around for a while for a good reason; It’s really cool! The amazing life-like motion generated by the three Arduino powered servos brings an eerie realism to your bots, plushies, and animatronics. Since this kit is light on soldering and does not require programming, we frequently recommend it to young makers and beginners in robotics. Of course, seasoned makers can easily modify the kit and write their own code to do some astonishing things with Twitchie, like make cuddly scorpions! HINT: Want to save $10 on Twitchie? Subscribe to the Deal of the Day or follow us on Twitter!
Japan has always been on the forefront of cutting edge robotics. Its roots can be traced back 200-300 years during the Edo period when skilled craftsmen created automata (self-operating machines). Using nothing more than pulleys and weights they were able to make the Karakuri (Japanese automata) perform amazing tasks.
Japans modern day robots can be traced back to the Karakuri. Today Hideki Higashino is one of the few remaining craftsmen who is determined to keep the history and tradition of Japanese Karakuri alive.
The clouds (actually vortex rings) are generated by ultrasonic and subsonic sounds. The canisters that shoot the clouds into the air are sequenced through an Arduino reading a .txt file of the whole book on MicroSD. With each letter, the clouds are emitted in a sequence similar to a row of LEDs on a ticker-tape display, so the letters are scrolling upwards, and each puff can be considered like a row of pixels.
Photogrammerty has been with us for as long as we’ve had cameras. Autodesk has taken it to its logical next step with Project Photofly. Using a standard point and shoot camera you can take a series of photos of an object, upload them to the cloud, and get a detailed 3D model back that can be manipulated with standard design software. There is other photogrammerty software out there, but this seems to be the most approachable, and the results seem to be of higher quality. You can even try it out for yourself. [Thanks, Daniel!]
There have been a lot of developments over at 
No comments:
Post a Comment
Keep a civil tongue.