Mr. Runner

Alex Martin is creating a four legged robot with a running bound gait:

9754291472923566463.png

Mr. Runner

The aim of this project is to lower the barrier of entry into dynamic robotics. After seeing Boston Dynamic’s Wildcat I became interested in working on something similar, but was disappointed with what the hobbiest scene had to offer. They all used static locomotion. I wanted it to feel alive!

I hope that if people can see that this style of robotics is reproducible with basic development skills, it will attract a wider range of people to legged robots than just those who want to see a vaguely spider looking device re-implement the same kinematic equations over and over again.

371011500859268418.jpg

The approach is based on the work of Fumiya Iida and Rolf Pfiefer at the University of Zurich in the mid 2000’s. Dr. Pfeifer is well known in the field of embodied cognitive science, and these experiments were an attempt to generate movement in quadruped robots based on those principles.

Mr. Runner

3D Printing A Synthesizer


From Brian Benchoff on Hackaday:

3D Printing A Synthesizer

Before there were samplers, romplers, Skrillex, FM synths, and all the other sounds that don’t fit into the trailer for the new Blade Runner movie, electronic music was simple. Voltage controlled oscillators, voltage controlled filters, and CV keyboards ruled the roost. We’ve gone over a lot of voltage controlled synths, but [Tommy] took it to the next level. He designed a small, minimum viable synth based around the VCO in an old 4046 PLL chip

The circuit for this synth is built in two halves. The biggest, and what probably took the most time designing, is the key bed. This is a one-octave keyboard that’s completely 3D printed. We’ve seen something like this before in one of the projects from the SupplyFrame Design Lab residents, though while that keyboard worked it was necessary for [Tim], the creator of that project, to find a company that could make custom key beds for him.

Read more on the F0 on Tommy’s blog:

Hello, F0

Say hello to the F0: a minimalist, analog, square wave synthesizer.

3D Printing A Synthesizer

Robotic Arts: Noodle is Gettin’ Bean Feet

Sarah Petkus posts an update on her Robotic Arts blog about her NoodleFeet robot:

Noodle is Gettin’ Bean Feet!

This summer, I am once again diving into designing mechanical personality quirks. I’ll be investigating new and exciting ways for my robot, NoodleFeet to interact with the world. This time, my focus is the wet, tingly and preferential aspect of TASTE.

moduledrawings

From now until the end of August, my goal is to produce four different tasting modules that each demonstrate some aspect of sampling or preference. You could think of them as the “four tasters of the apocalypse”

If you’re unfamiliar with Sarah and NoodleFeet, then check out here great talk from Hackaday Super Con:

Robotic Arts: Noodle is Gettin’ Bean Feet

3D Printed USB Connector

chmod775 on Hackaday.io designed this simple 3D Printed USB Connector compatible with PCBs from OSH Park:

unnamed

3D Printed USB Connector

I’ve made this 3D USB Connector because I want to remove the chunky and complex standard metal USB Connector from my new upcoming project.
The design it’s made to be simple and with the height reference from the OSHP ark PCB’s.

 Screenshot from 2017-04-12 21-44-59
3D Printed USB Connector

Midwest RepRap Fest in 2 weeks

Every year, sometime in March, the world’s preeminent 3D printing enthusiasts gather in the middle of nowhere This is MRRF, the Midwest RepRap Festival. It’s only two weeks away. You need to come. Get your (free) tickets here. I’ll be there, and Hackaday is proud to once again sponsor the festival. I need to backtrack a…

via Two Weeks Until The Greatest 3D Printer Meetup On The Planet — Hackaday

Midwest RepRap Fest in 2 weeks

Parallel port interface for FPGA board

Screenshot_2016-11-29_00-53-14.png

Machinekit is a platform for machine control applications.  It is based on LinuxCNC and can drive mills, lathes, 3D printers, laser cutters and more.

Machinekit can run on an Altera SoC which combines a hard silicon ARM core with a FPGA.  Charles Steinkuehler has been working with the DE0-Nano development board from Terasic.  MachineKit runs on the ARM core with the FPGA configured as a MesaNet card:

DE0-Nano_Soc and the DB25 interface board

image_76_thumb.jpg

Charles designed a DB25 connected interface board, with pin-outs matching the P2 and P3 headers on a 5i25

cdsteinkuehler has shared the board on OSH Park:

DE0-Nano_DB25 V1.0

cd91a50264fe58446c1dec4cd26c7259.png

Mesanet DB25 daughter-card adapter for Terasic DE0-Nano development board

Order from OSH Park

Parallel port interface for FPGA board

Simula Robotic Organisms

screenshot-at-2016-11-16-19-45-13

Chicago Robotics Corp is exploring 3D Printed Robotics with Simula:

simulated life-forms for use in research and entertainment

The robot is programmed with Arduino IDE:

Programming Simula

You might choose to program Simula by yourself from scratch, modify our existing software, or just keep up with our latest simulations.

Arduino Library for the Simula Boards and Modules is on GitHub:

images1 ChicagoRobotics/CRC_Simula_Library

 

Video of two Simula units cruising around:

 

 

Simula Robotic Organisms

Chronio: Arduino-based, low-power smartwatch

Max.K designed this low-power,  Arduino-based smartwatch:

5353341473017041105

Chronio

Arduino-based 3D-printed Watch. By not including fancy Wifi and BLE connectivity, it gets several months of run time out of a 160mAh button cell. The display is an always-on 96×96 pixel Sharp Memory LCD.

Hardware

  • Microcontroller: Atmega328p with Arduino bootloader
  • Real Time Clock: Maxim DS3231 (<2min per year deviation)
  • Display: 96×96 pixel Sharp Memory LCD (LS013B4DN04)
  • Battery: CR2025 160mAh coin cell

 

Chronio: Arduino-based, low-power smartwatch