Mouse Bot is ready for testing

We have built a Mouse Bot and the Mouse Bot is ready for testing.

Jamie and Howard now have to find a large flat open space in which to test the Mouse Bot ....because this robot moves fast, and we do mean fast! A school hall would be ideal, or a large living area, out of which all furniture is removed. Even that might not be big enough. The Mouse Bot responds to and follows light! So we will need a nice bright torch as well.

Scary Robot Invasion

Jamie Young recently built a ROBOMECH kit. Its a wooden robot, that walks, and, you put it together yourself. It's pretty cool because it has red LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) as eyes. We thought about making a short film of the ROBOMECH, turning the light off and using a touch to create some scary shadows. We think it worked really well. What do you think?

Jitterbugs - Vibrating Moving Robots

Jitterbugs are vibrating robots ... that move. Yes, that's right. They vibrate, don't have wheels, but still manage to get around. How so? Well, the vibration in the body (created by a small motor with off-center weight attached to the rotor) is transmitted to flexible legs which move back and forwards in small ways, yet it all adds up to BIG movements. It's a physical principle which we need to learn more about. Take a look at a Jitterbug in action in this video below. Watch carefully, there is nothing touching the table, yet the movement is surprisingly quick.

Hex Bug demo

While out shopping one day, we noticed a pile of strange bug looking robots. They looked cool, so as bought one home, and tried it out. It responds to touch, and sound, by changing its direction. Hex Bugs come in all shapes and sizes. Go get some and have fun.

Avoider Robots

Avoider robots use sensors to avoid objects. They can navigate around a room, and around objects, without touching or bumping into them. Jamie and Howard used a Microrobot Avoider, to capture some ground level video. In the first video, you see the action of the avoider from our point of view. In the second video, a FlyCamOne (normally used on board radio controlled planes) was attached to the top of the robot.



We attached a FlyCamOne video camera to the top of the robot. This enabled the capture of video from ground level. The quality is not as good as the video above, partly because light levels were too low in the room. Next time we'll do this in day light!

Tabletop Line Tracer Experiments

Jamie and Howard used a Microrobot Line Tracer to follow a track around a large table. Large black felt tip pens were used to draw the track, which was about 2cm wide.

After some adjustments to the left and right wheel speeds, and the sensors, it worked perfectly. Watch the video below.

Maker Faire 2011

Maker Faire 2011 returns 12-13 March 2011.  The world-famous Maker Faire returns to the UK to headline Newcastle ScienceFest. Expect a weekend of cool robots, garden-shed inventions, knitted wonders, the occasional fireball and oodles of opportunities to make your own creations. Perfect for creative people of all ages!

Welcome

This is a blog that will document Howard Smith and Jamie Young's adventures in robotics. We picked up some robot kits from Active Robots to get us started.

We now have a line tracer robot and avoider robot from MicroRobots. We also have a light-seeking mouse from Solarbotics. As our experiments progress, we'll share what happened in this blog.