Fish are popular animals to keep as pets, and for good reason. They’re relatively low maintenance, relaxing to watch, and have a high aesthetic appeal. But for all their upsides, they aren’t quite as companionable as a dog or a cat. Although some fish can do limited walking or flying, these aren’t generally kept as […]
[Joshua Clay] recently unveiled his newest RC Nerf Dart Robot and talks through his design choices, pointing out that in his aim to have it launch darts fast and hard he may have somewhat overshot the mark. He found out first hand during testing that it shoots hard enough to leave welts through a sweatshirt […]
Animatronic displays aren’t just for Halloween, and hackers today have incredible access to effective, affordable parts with which to make spectacles of light, sound, and movement. But the hardware is only half the battle. Getting everything synchronized properly can be a daunting task, so get a head start on your next holiday display with the […]
[Matt Denton]’s SpoolBot is a surprisingly agile remote-controlled robot that doesn’t just repurpose filament spool leftovers. It looks exactly like a 2 kg spool of filament; that’s real filament wound around the outside of the drum. In fact, Spoolie the SpoolBot looks so much like the real thing that [Matt] designed a googly-eye add-on, because […]
[Oliver Pett] loves creating automata; pieces of art whose physicality and motion come together to deliver something unique. [Oliver] also has a mission, and that mission is to complete the most complex automata he has ever attempted: The Archer. This automaton is a fully articulated figure designed to draw arrows from a quiver, nock them […]
One of the joys of browsing secondhand shops is the possibility of finding old, perhaps restorable or hackable, electronics at low prices. Admittedly, they usually seem to be old flat-screen TVs, cheap speakers, and Blu-ray players, but sometimes you find something like the Dash, an educational toy robot. When [Jonathan] came across one of these, […]
While it is fun to get toys that look like your favorite science fiction props, it is less fun when the electronics in them don’t measure up to the physical design. [Steve Gibbs] took a Hasbro R2D2 toy robot and decided to give it a brain upgrade along with enhanced sensors. You can see a […]
Pneumatics are a common way to add some motion to soft robotic actuators, but adding it to a robot can be somewhat of a chore. A method demonstrated by [Jackson K. Wilt] et al. (press release, preprint) involves using a 3D printing to extrude two materials: one elastomeric material and a fugitive ink that is […]
Although there are a few robots on the market that can make life a bit easier, plenty of them have closed-source software or smartphone apps required for control that may phone home and send any amount of data from the user’s LAN back to some unknown server. Many people will block off Internet access for […]
It was January 25th of 1979, at an unassuming Michigan Ford Motor Company factory. Productivity over the past years had been skyrocketing due to increased automation, courtesy of Litton Industry’s industrial robots that among other things helped to pick parts from shelves. Unfortunately, on that day there was an issue with the automated inventory system, […]