Beatty Robotics

Mars Rover 2016

Tuesday, October 11th, 2016

In this video, Camille takes our newest Mars Rover on a quick visit to the Asheville Museum of Science (AMOS) to test it out in a new environment.

6WD Rover

Friday, August 19th, 2016

We have been building a small 6-wheel-drive (6WD) rover for the New York Hall of Science for portable demonstrations. In this video, we are testing its various steering methods. The main plate of this robot is a custom part that we machined. The servos, servo blocks, motors, motor mounts, hubs, and wheels are from our friends at ServoCity.com. The components of the pan-tilt…

Lunar Rover – Work-in-Process

Wednesday, May 11th, 2016

We’ve been working hard on the Lunar Rover. It’s still rough, and there is still a lot of work to do, but it’s starting to take shape. Here are some photos. Some of the photos show the robot in its “Stored Position”. When instructed to do so, the robot folds down its mast and stores it beneath the robot. The solar wings also fold…

Lunar Rover Solar Panels

Friday, April 29th, 2016

Camille and I have been working on the solar top for the Lunar Rover. The rover will use six 15.4V PowerFilm solar panels (PT15-300) to generate a total of 1.2 Amps @ 15.4V, which will be used to charge the 3-cell 12V lithium-ion battery. Each panel is 10.6″ x 12.8″. We selected the PowerFilm panels because they were…

Strategic Alliance with NYC CNC!

Tuesday, April 26th, 2016

We’ve been so busy here at Beatty Robotics that we decided to reach out to our friend John Saunders of “NYC CNC” YouTube fame. We are pleased to announce that we’ve formed a strategic alliance with John and his team at Saunders Machine Works. John’s shop is a self-taught startup like ours,…

We’re building a Lunar Rover !

Monday, March 21st, 2016

SpaceLS, a rocket company in the UK, has asked Beatty Robotics to team up with them to pursue a mission to put a rover on the moon. The first step in the process is for Beatty Robotics to design and construct a prototype for SpaceLS to use for testing, experimentation, and development. We’ve been working hard on the project, but we’ve been so busy we…

Using the SOMO-II MP3 Module with Arduino

Saturday, December 12th, 2015

We often add sound effects and even music to our robots. We’ve used a number of approaches, but our latest method is the SOMO-II MP3 Module. Here are some pictures (from a rover robot we’re working on) and the technical details of how we integrated the SOMO module. First, here is a top view showing…

Electronics for Electric Sports Car

Tuesday, December 1st, 2015

My brother is an emergency room physician by profession. He is also an extremely competent automotive mechanic and DIY engineer. Over the last few years, he’s been building an electric sports car he calls Freedom. He bought the empty shell and chassis of a Rossion. Then he installed and integrated a high-powered electric motor, a…

Machining a Custom Case for GoPro Camera

Saturday, November 28th, 2015

We are in the process of mounting a GoPro camera onto our latest robot. In our previous post we showed how we hacked into the GoPro and wired it up so that we could control it from the robot’s Arduino microcontroller. The next task…

Hacking a GoPro for Wired Remote Control

Friday, November 27th, 2015

Sometimes there are situations where it’s useful to control a GoPro by wired remote control and/or to integrate a GoPro into a DIY electronic project. This seems like it should be straight forward, but it’s not. I searched for a third party cable or module to plug into one of the GoPro’s ports, but…

LIDAR Laser Scanner Turret

Thursday, November 26th, 2015

Recently, we encountered a new type of sensor that we’re hoping will really help our robots sense the world around them. We are avid users of Maxbotix ultrasonic sensors to detect objects, but they point in a single direction and only provide a somewhat fuzzy understanding of possible obstacles. So, instead of using…

Rover Challenge – Work-in-Progress

Sunday, August 2nd, 2015

We’ve been working on the Rover Challenge robot for the New York Hall of Science. Its purpose is to give Science Center visitors a chance to drive a robot through an obstacle course, use ultrasonic and color sensors, record video, take snapshots, play music and sound effects, understand different types of steering, and learn about the various elements of a robot. Having completed the…

Custom-machined Main Plate for our newest rover

Thursday, July 30th, 2015

Today, we completed an important part of our new Rover Challenge robot for the New York Hall of Science. The central focus of this robot’s design is the Main Plate. This is an intricate aluminum part that we designed on the CAD system and machined on the CNC. It’s 8″ x 15″ x .190″. It’s meant to hold all the servos, electronics, camera…

Electronics for a museum exhibit

Saturday, May 30th, 2015

We are working on the electronics for a hands-on museum exhibit that tests reaction time and shows how you can improve their reaction time through practice. The main components of the control unit are a BeagleBone Black, an 8-Channel Relay Board (to control a set of race track staging lights), and a custom-made protoboard with resistors and screw terminals (that take input from the…

Machining a Wheel Hub

Thursday, May 21st, 2015

We need six special hubs to attach some very unusual wheels to the 6mm motor shafts on a new robot we’re building. There was nothing commercially available for what we needed, so we designed the hub on the CAD system and we’ve been machining them on our Tormach CNC Mill. Each of us took a turn fixturing the stock, setting up the job with…

Building a new rover

Saturday, May 2nd, 2015

We have taken on a new project to build a compact rover for the New York Hall of Science, something that visitors can drive around in the corridors of the Science Center and that the staff can easily take to off-site activities such as schools and children’s hospitals. The design and construction is well under way. We are also happy to announce that we…

Centurion Paintball Sentry Gun

Tuesday, April 14th, 2015

The Centurion is an automatic-targeting paintball sentry gun. Its purpose is to guard a doorway, alleyway, or any open space. It watches an area with its camera. If it sees movement, it aims its guns at it and shoots at a high rate of fire until the target leaves the field of view…

Beatty Robotics goes to the Dogs

Wednesday, April 8th, 2015

Recently, we started work on a museum exhibit project that requires reading six sensors, controlling eight relays, and displaying text and graphics to a display monitor. Normally, we like using Arduino, but because of the display requirements of this project, we decided to venture into a small Linux-based single board computer (SBC). We studied the Raspberry Pi and the BeagleBone Black (BBB), both of which…

Camille Rocks the House at the Business Innovation Factory conference

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2014

Recently, Camille was asked to give a robotics presentation at the Business Innovation Factory. The collaborative brainchild of one of the original TED Talk founders, the annual BIF conference’s purpose is for the most innovative thinkers around the country to come together to share their personal stories, to educate and inspire other innovators in all that is possible. These are the crazy-out-of-the-box-thinkers,…

Metalbot – Work-in-Process

Sunday, October 26th, 2014

We’ve been working on a fun new robot we call Metalbot. Our goal was to build an autonomous rover with a unibody design that was machined out of a single block of metal. We started with this 13” x 9” x 1.75” block of 6061 aluminum: When the machining was done, the robot’s body looked like…

Our New Vertical CNC Mill

Tuesday, October 21st, 2014

At Beatty Robotics, we’ve made good use of our gantry-style CNC mill over the last few years. We’ve built all our robots to date with it. Recently we decided to augment our machining capability with a vertical CNC mill. Our current mill has been excellent for machining large flat parts out of sheet aluminum, but now we wanted to be able to machine parts…

Mini CAD System

Saturday, October 18th, 2014

At Beatty Robotics, we love building custom computers. Our latest computer project is a “Mini CAD System” for doing Computer Aided Design. Our goal was to build a small, but very powerful computer for running Solidworks and our CAM software HSMWorks. The computer required a super-fast CPU, a discrete Solidworks-approved graphics processor, plenty of RAM, a SSD hard drive, and the ability to run…

Kuala Lumpur Mini Mars Rovers

Thursday, October 16th, 2014

We have just completed and shipped two new Mini Mars Rover exhibits to Petrosains, The Discovery Centre in Kuala Lumpur City Centre. Although very small in size, these little robots pack some excellent features. They have a simplified, CNC-machined rocker-bogie suspension system, thin film solar panels, LED indicator lights, six small but powerful gear motors, an Arduino Nano microcontroller, front and rear sonars for object…

Alumini

Sunday, August 24th, 2014

We would like to introduce you to our newest robot. Her name is Alumini, which is pronounced Ah-lu-min-ee. She’s a 12-legged walking creature. She’s made out of machined aluminum components designed to be like vertebrae and bones in keeping with the idea that is a creature not just a machine. Our goal was to create a little beastie without any visible wires or electronics…

Laser Tank base – work-in-process

Saturday, August 16th, 2014

We are working on a tank with treads and a laser cannon gun turret. It’s a complex, long-term project with lots of CNC-machined parts as well a a variety of purchased components, but we’ve been making good progress on it. Today’s posting will focus on the base, which holds the electronics, provides mobility, and establishes a sturdy platform for the gun turret (not shown here).

A Miniature Robot Control System Using Sparkfun Components

Thursday, August 14th, 2014

Recently, we encountered a situation where we needed a very small Arduino microcontroller and motor driver. On Alumini, our 12-legged walking robot, there won’t be an electronics box, so we will be integrating the electronics into the bones of the creature. Our goal was for the creature to appear to be all legs. So, we needed the electronics…

The Beatty Ladies Working in the Workshop

Thursday, August 14th, 2014

We’ve been hard at work on several simultaneous on-going projects, including an upgrade to our large Mars Rover, the building of two new Mini Mars Rovers for two science centers in Kuala Lumpur (The National Science Centre and Petrosains, the Discovery Centre), a large tread-based laser tank (which is super-cool, but we haven’t had a chance to post it yet), and Alumini (our 12-legged…

Alumini (Baby Aluminalis)

Monday, July 14th, 2014

We had good success with our 16-legged walking creature Aluminalis, so we decided to use what we learned and build a new walking creature. We plan for this to be a much smaller, faster, and more agile little beastie. We call her Alumini (Ah-lu-min-ee). Instead of 22″ wide, she’ll be just 10″ wide. Instead of using bulky rectangular segments, we’ve designed much finer segments,…

A Counter-rotating Differential

Friday, July 11th, 2014

Back in November of 2011 we posted an article about our first Spirit II Mars Rover. Among other things, that rover included a counter-rotating differential (or universal joint) integrated into its rocker-bogie suspension system. If the front wheel on the left side of the rover went upward over a large obstacle, then the differential would push the three wheels on…

Beatty Robotics at the White House

Thursday, June 19th, 2014

We have exciting news to share! President Obama invited Beatty Robotics to the White House. The President officially proclaimed June 18 as America’s first National Day of Making. The event was attended by the President, cabinet members, senators, CEOs of tech companies, deans of universities, and techno-dignataries from across America. We were deeply honored to be part of this…

Aluminalis article in MAKE Magazine

Friday, May 30th, 2014

It’s Robot Week at MAKE Magazine! I wrote an article about Aluminalis. Check it out… http://makezine.com/2014/05/30/aluminalis-our-16-legged-walking-creature/

Hacking a Vintage Belt Sander

Monday, March 31st, 2014

If you’re in to tools, check out our latest article on MAKE Magazine.

Soldering the Mars Rover Shield

Monday, March 24th, 2014

We are in the process of upgrading the first Mars Rover that we built for the New York Hall of Science. The goal is to upgrade its electronics so that the museum’s two rovers are identical and interchangeable. Here is a very brief video of Julajay soldering the “Mars Rover Shield” that we designed. The shield, which is a complex circuit board that fits…

10 Essential Accessories for your CNC

Tuesday, March 18th, 2014

Make: Magazine recently asked me to write an article for their “CNC Week,” so I wrote a slideshow called “10 Essential Accessories for your CNC.” Camille and I worked together on the photos. If you’re in to CNC mills and machining, check it out on Make’s website using this link: http://makezine.com/2014/03/17/10-essential-accessories-for-your-cnc/

Aluminalis

Wednesday, March 5th, 2014

We are happy to announce the birth of our latest creation, Aluminalis, a sixteen-legged walking creature. Along with her sixteen legs and feet, Aluminalis has a fast and lively brain (an Arduino Nano), strong muscles (gear motors), elegant bones (custom aluminum linkages), two multi-segmented spines (custom crankshafts), ears (Xbee Radio), forward and rear sight (ultrasonic sensors), and a voice (tone buzzer)….

Aluminalis Crankshaft

Thursday, February 27th, 2014

One of the funnest, but most challenging parts of building Aluminalis (our 16-legged walking robot) has been the construction of the two crankshafts. Each side of the robot has a motor that rotates a 10” long, multi-link crankshaft, which drives 4 pairs of legs. The leg pairs need to be kept 90-degrees out of phase from each other in order to…

Zeroing a CNC

Thursday, February 20th, 2014

We enjoy machining custom aluminum robot parts on our CNC Mill. One of the best things about a CNC is that it can cut precise parts by following the geometry of a CAD drawing. We measure the precision and repeatability of our CNC in thousandths of an inch (0.001). But one of the challenges of using a CNC…

Aluminalis Kinetic Test

Tuesday, February 18th, 2014

We have been working on Aluminalis, our mechanical sixteen-legged walking robot. We’ve completed the initial build of the left side, which includes eight of the legs. Aluminalis is made with a complex assembly of custom linkages, segments, and shafts that we have been making in our machine shop. A single motor drives all eight of the legs (on this side) via a crankshaft that…

Mounting the HackHD camera on the Actobot Rover

Wednesday, January 15th, 2014

A little while ago, we discovered a cool new high definition video camera called the Hack HD. Think of it as the internal circuit board and camera lens of a 1080P GoPro camera, but unlike a GoPro, it’s designed to be hacked and tinkered with. It’s small and easy to embed into your own project. They even provide…

A small computer for a robot

Thursday, January 9th, 2014

As you know, we usually use Arduino microcontrollers on our robots. But in some cases, an Arduino doesn’t have enough power to do what we need to do. We are currently working on a new project that requires advanced image processing for target acquisition. This can’t be done on an Arduino, so we had to find an alternative. We researched the idea of using…

Aluminalis In Motion

Wednesday, December 18th, 2013

Aluminalis is a 16-legged walking robot that we are designing and building out of custom aluminum linkages and crankshafts. We will provide much more detail about the design, name, and behavior of this little creature as we go along, but for now, here are some very rough pictures and a short video of our work so far. Let us know what you think. Should we…

Beatty Robotics featured in Popular Science Magazine

Monday, December 2nd, 2013

Exciting news! Beatty Robotics has been featured in the December 2013 print edition of Popular Science magazine. Dave Mosher, who interviewed us when we were in New York, has done a nice write up with lots of good pictures of the Mars Rover, CNC Mill, and Arduino-based Wireless Telegraph. If you don’t subscribe to Popular…

Aluminalis Work-In-Progress

Tuesday, November 19th, 2013

We have begun work on a new robot that we call Aluminalis (more on the robot name and design at a later date). It’s a complex robot that will take us some time, so instead of waiting until we’re done, we’ve decided to keep everyone updated as we go. The project involves over a thousand parts, most of which we designed ourselves. Here we are…

Featured on Fox & Friends

Tuesday, November 12th, 2013

Exciting news! This morning, Beatty Robotics was featured on Fox & Friends, the Fox News Channel’s morning show. We were interviewed by the hosts Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Steve Doocy. It was a great opportunity to highlight the New York Hall of Science and the Mars Rover exhibit. We all had a wonderful time and it was very cool to see how a television network operates…

Beatty Robotics receives Editor’s Choice Award at World MakerFaire 2013

Sunday, October 6th, 2013

The girls and I exhibited the Mars Rover at the 2013 World MakerFaire in New York. There were 650 maker exhibits and more than 85,000 attendees. Beatty Robotics was deeply honored to receive the MAKE Editor’s Choice Award for our Mars Rover project. We also won an Educator’s Choice Award. The girls and I met with the folks from NASA, which was a blast. NASA was…

TinyBot

Monday, September 2nd, 2013

This is Tinybot. About 3″ long and just 1.5″ high, this is one of the smallest robots we’ve ever built. Starting with a Pololu Zumo drivetrain, we set out to see if we could get all the components of the robot INSIDE what was originally its 4 AA battery compartment. We used our CNC to make a cool aluminum top plate. Two tiny gear…

Our new Mars Rover Arduino Shield

Monday, September 2nd, 2013

Recently, we were asked to build a second Mars Rover for the New York Hall of Science. The idea is to have a backup for the first one, and also to have a rover that can be taken off site for demonstrations. The new robot is purposefully very similar to the first one, but we couldn’t help making a few improvements along the way….

Beatty Robotics featured on Good Morning America Live

Wednesday, August 14th, 2013

Well, we’ve had a very exciting weekend in New York. Our Mars Rover was honored in an official dedication ceremony at the permanent Mars exhibit in the New York Hall of Science. There was lots of press coverage, which we’ll be sharing as it comes out, but for now here’s a highlight: On Monday morning Beatty Robotics and the Mars Rover were featured on…

Actobot

Sunday, July 14th, 2013

Over the years, we’ve used a lot of different parts to build robots. Lately we’ve been using more and more parts from the new Actobotics product line, which we buy from sites like ServoCity.com and RobotShop.com and Sparkfun.com. A short time ago, the Actobotics team approached us about…

Mini Mars Rover

Saturday, June 22nd, 2013

Recently we were asked to build a miniature Mars Rover for a new space museum in the Czech Republic. Although the Mini Mars Rover is only about 8″ long, it is a functional robot, including an Arduino Nano microcontroller, a high-resolution wifi camera, an xbee radio for remote control, a Sabertooth motor controller, six motors, a rocker-bogie…

Lunokhod

Friday, June 21st, 2013

Lunokhod, which means “Moon Walker” in Russian, was the first roving remote-controlled robot to operate on another terrestrial body. The Soviet Union landed it on the moon in 1970 equipped with a conical antenna, a large directional antenna, two television cameras (the eyes), and a vast array of sensors. Beatty Robotics was asked to build a functional Lunokhod robot for a new space museum that…

Mars Rover

Tuesday, April 9th, 2013

We have exciting news to share. A short time ago the New York Hall of Science contacted us. They have a large and beautiful Mars exhibit, but their existing robot is outdated and needs to be replaced. After some discussion about their requirements, the girls and I agreed to build them a brand new, state-of-the-art Mars Rover robot for their exhibit. You may have…

Mars Rover – Motion Test Video

Monday, April 8th, 2013

In the video below we have documented our first “basic motion test” on the new Mars Rover. Using our radio-based handheld remote control, we are testing the forward, backward, and rotation of the robot to make sure that it moves smoothly and correctly. We then test the NASA-style rocker-bogie suspension system. The purpose of the rocker-bogie suspension system is to allow the robot to…

Mars Rover – Adding the Targeting Laser and Thermal Array Sensor

Saturday, April 6th, 2013

A few subscribers have asked about laser and the thermal array sensor on the new Mars Rover, so this post is dedicated to that: We needed to add a targeting laser and a thermal array sensor to the Mars Rover robot, so Lunamoth and I experimented with different wavelengths of lasers and types of lenses. After looking at the results of our tests, we decided…

Mars Rover – Mast and Solar Panels

Friday, April 5th, 2013

We’ve been busy working on the new Mars Rover. Over the last few days we’ve been focused on the chassis, the thin-film solar panels for the top, the mast, and aligning the servos for steering. Pics below. Lunamoth uses her new power…

Continued work on the Mars Rover

Sunday, March 24th, 2013

Here are some pictures as we continue work on our new Mars Rover. Apprentice Machinist Lunamoth uses the vertical mill to modify an aluminum part for the Mars Rover. Cutting, drilling, and machining metal is Lunamoth’s favorite area…

Mars Rover – Infrared Detection

Thursday, March 21st, 2013

The Mars Rover needs to detect infrared in its camera so that visitors can identify infrared-emitting rocks that are hidden in various spots in the Mars Exhibit. We have completed a series of experiments to confirm that this part of the Rover is working properly. Pics and explanation below.

Making progress on the Mars Rover

Wednesday, March 20th, 2013

We’ve been making good progress on the Mars Rover. Today, we used our new milling machine to put the finishing touches on the hubs we are using to mount the central chassis shaft to the rover’s main box. By completing the two hubs, we were then able to assemble the two sides of the rocker-bogie suspension chassis with the main box, which in turn…

Mars Rover – Electronics

Wednesday, March 20th, 2013

A number of folks asked to see an updated picture of the Mars Rover electronics. This picture shows the top most electronics plate where most of the components are mounted. There are also electronics beneath the main electronics plate, including the laser, thermopile array sensor, laser relay and voltage regulator, main fuse, batteries, and main power switch. In addition, the camera is mounted on the…

Major milestones reached on the Mars Rover

Tuesday, March 19th, 2013

We’ve been making great progress on our new Mars Rover. We’ve posted some pics below. We have completed the hardware portion of the rocker-bogie suspension system for the new Mars Rover, which is by far the most challenging…

Using CNC to machine the electronics plate for Mars Rover

Thursday, March 14th, 2013

Here we are using our homemade CNC to machine a custom electronics plate for the new Mars Rover we’re building. The robot’s circuit boards and electronic components are mounted onto this plate, which is then mounted inside the robot’s main box. Check out the video and the photos below.

Making Mars Rover parts

Thursday, March 14th, 2013

We are building a new and improved version of our Mars Rover. Here are a few pics of our work-in-progress. The partially finished motor-servo…

Cutting metal for the Mars Rover 2

Tuesday, March 12th, 2013

We are working everyday on the new Mars Rover. The work is going so fast that it’s hard to remember to take pictures, but here are some of the pics we snap along the way. We cut these…

Telegraph

Tuesday, December 4th, 2012

The girls became interested in morse code and began learning how to use it by tapping rocks and writing dot-dash-dot messages, so we decided to build a proper telegraph system. But we didn’t…

A fine new tool in the workshop

Tuesday, December 4th, 2012

Like many people, I love good quality tools. One of the most important tools we have in our workshop is a mini table saw with a 4″-diameter blade. We use it all the time, on pretty much every project we build. Occasionally, we use the full-sized table saw to cut large material, but in general, we prefer the 4″ mini table saw because it’s…

Lunamoth works on glass

Sunday, September 23rd, 2012

After watching a glass worker in the River Arts District in Asheville, Lunamoth decided to try her hand. We already had a torch for heat shrinking wires, and the safety gear, so she bought some glass stock and other supplies and went to work on it. Here’s a picture of her and her sister doing their first experiments.

CNC Mill

Thursday, September 6th, 2012

Here at Beatty Robotics, my daughters and I enjoy making robots. Of course, to make robots, you need good parts. We started out cobbling parts together from old stuff we had laying around, and of course we’ve purchased many components, but more and more, we wanted to make our own metal parts. We started out using hand tools and power tools (and we still…

Machining CNC parts for the telegraph

Friday, August 31st, 2012

Today, Lunamoth and I worked on the wireless telegraph project. We decided to mount the electronics on brass and copper plates, so we designed the parts on the CAD system and then machined the parts on our home made CNC mill (one of our many projects over the last year). Using the CNC to make project parts was a really cool use of what…

Lunamoth and Julajay work on wireless telegraph

Saturday, August 25th, 2012

Here at Beatty Robotics, we have a keen interest in mixing cool, old technology with exciting new technology. Recently, Lunamoth and Julajay became interested in Morse Code and telegraph equipment. The three of us began exchanging written secret messages in Morse Code. And then the girls continued on by learning to tap the codes with rocks and listen to them at some distance. They…

Working on the CNC

Tuesday, April 17th, 2012

Up to this time, we’ve been using hand tools to build our robots. But over the last few months, we’ve been working on building a Computer Numerical Control Machine (CNC) that will allow us to precisely cut, drill, and machine aluminum, brass, plastic, wood, and other materials. Part of this project is to design and build a custom electronics enclosure that will be a combination…

Terrabot

Thursday, April 12th, 2012

Today, we would like to introduce Terrabot, our Terrain Traveling Robot. Based on a modified “rock crawler” chassis, its primary purpose is to traverse rocks, branches, steep slopes, flower beds, boulders, mountain trails, and other extremely rough terrain.

Building Terrabot

Wednesday, April 11th, 2012

We’ve been very busy here at Beatty Robotics, working on all sorts of projects, but it’s been a long time since we slowed down enough to post something to the website, so we decided to send out a few posts to catch you up with some of the things we’ve been working on. We’ve also decided to be more free-flowing in our posts, showing…

A little bit about Arduinos

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

The folks over at Newark.com / Element 14 asked us to take a look at some of the Arduino products they carry and we were happy to do it. There’s nothing we like better than playing around with cool tech stuff. As you probably know, Arduino is an open-source hardware platform for easy-to-use microcontrollers that are ideally suited for controlling, monitoring, and interacting…

Update on Steampunk Necklace

Wednesday, November 9th, 2011

Subscribers: Earlier today we added a post announcing that Lunamoth’s Steampunk Necklace is now for sale. As usual, this posting was automatically emailed to all subscribers just like any other new post, but it was a bit misleading because the “Buy Now” button appeared in the email. Unfortunately, the Buy Now button doesn’t work from within the email page. In order to make a purchase, you…

Our Steampunk Necklace Is Now For Sale!

Wednesday, November 9th, 2011

Wow, this is an exciting day for us. After several requests from our readers, we have decided to make and sell our new Steampunk Necklace. I’m very excited about it. I make the necklaces myself using small copper gears, bronze hobnails, and…

Spirit II Mars Rover

Friday, November 4th, 2011

The girls and I have always loved the Mars Rover robots Spirit and Opportunity, so we decided we would build one of our own. Today we would like to introduce our Spirit II Mars Rover, which we designed and built in honor…

The beginning of KitBot

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

We have had a number of friends and family members ask how they can get started in robotics. They are interested in building a robot, especially a vehicle of some sort, but they don’t know where to begin. So, the girls and I have been working on the design for a small, inexpensive, easy to build, multifunctional, Arduino-based, programmable robot that will require basic…

Spirit II – Mars Rover: INSIDE VIEW

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

Several readers have requested an inside view of our Spirt II – Mars Rover so that they can see what the electronics look like. We have provided an annotated picture below, along with a couple of external shots.

Steampunk Necklace

Sunday, October 30th, 2011

I made this steampunk necklace with my dad. The gears, cogs, machine screw, nut, and chain are made out of copper, bronze, steel, and brass. The main round part with little hobnails on it is bronze plated pewter. The little gears and cogs in the middle actually turn, which I think is pretty cool. I was inspired to make this necklace after reading about…

Black Dragon

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

Today, we would like to introduce Black Dragon, our newest flying robot quadrotor. This newest flyer incorporates everything we’ve learned to date about ease-of-use, modular maintainability, crash resistance, lightness, and safety. While we constructed all our previous full-sized quadrotors with aluminum, we designed and built this new flyer with super-cool carbon fiber material. This particular type of carbon fiber, which carries the brand-name “Dragon…

A miniature power distribution unit (PDU)

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

Over the weekend, Julajay and I built a small Power Distribution Unit for a new robot. We hacked a male Deans connector (which will plug into a high-amp LIPO battery), then soldered it into a marine toggle switch, then screwed it into a device of our own creation. We constructed a miniature power strip with screw terminals to power the various 12 volt electronic…

Mini Quad Upgrade

Tuesday, September 6th, 2011

Today, Julajay and I upgraded our little mini quad rotor flying drone that we call “The Black Hornet.” We replaced his main board, installed new propellers, re-fixtured his motor mounts, and got him in good flying shape. He flew steady and strong in our test flights.

Mechatronic Tank

Monday, August 29th, 2011

We would like to introduce Mechatron, our mechatronic tank. When we designed and built Mechatron we wanted him to be tough looking, industrial, and retro-futuristic, with lots of metal, rivets, and gears. He’s built entirely out of aluminum, brass, and steel, but inside, he’s chock-full of high tech electronics. See pictures and more text below. And be sure to watch the video to see…

Soldering Circuit Boards

Sunday, August 14th, 2011

Julajay is an expert solderer. Her hands are small, steady, and well practiced. Here is a picture of her soldering a voltage regulator for our Spirit II Mars Rover project. Here is a one minute video of Julajay soldering the header pins onto a circuit board. We use this…

Remote Control

Friday, August 12th, 2011

We have been hard at work on our latest project called Mechatron. To control our Mechatron robot as well as our Mars Rover, we designed and built our own remote control box. We developed our own communication protocol for transmitting commands from the remote control to the robot. On other projects we used iPhones and Playstation remote controllers, but in this case we wanted…

Security Robot

Sunday, August 7th, 2011

Security V is a small security robot. It’s equipped with the following capabilities: Automatic electric gun (Airsoft pellet gun) with ammunition cage Pan-Tilt Gun Turret Targeting laser FPV Camera (3) Ping sensors for object avoidance LED Light Strips MP3 Sound Player IR Human Detection Sensor Moto Controller Two motors Two treaded drive wheels and two omni wheels Arduino Mega Microcontroller Xbee Radio for remote control Button panel for selecting the mode We programmed it with five different modes: 1. Roams…

Creepy Crawler Robot

Saturday, August 6th, 2011

Having created several robots that roll on wheels of various kinds, we decided to build a robot that walks, or more accurately, crawls, in a spider-like fashion. We call him Creepy Crawler. We control this robot using a PS/2 remote control. Each leg has three Degrees of Freedom (DOF) so his gate and other movements are very creepy and biological. To create Crawler’s head, we…

All-Terrain GPS Robot

Saturday, August 6th, 2011

After building a number of indoor robots, we decided to build an outdoor robot capable of traveling through rough terrain. We call it “Trekker.” First, we put together a six-wheel independent suspension with a separate motor on each wheel and large…

Blinky Belt

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

My dad was ordering some parts for our Mechatron robot and he discovered a cool strip of LED lights that worked based on “RGB,” which stands for Red-Green-Blue. These are special LED lights that you can program to whatever color you want by combining red, green, and blue together. He asked me if I was interested in making a “Blinky Belt” that I could wear…

Talking Robots!

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

In the office/workshop I was sitting on the couch. My dad flipped on the two switches of our robot named Security. Then a low rumble erupted from somewhere in the room. The song Mr. Roboto began to play and the robot danced, moving back and forth, spinning and turning, playing its lights–all to the music. It was hilarious! That was the first time I heard…

Roam-Bot, A Bot On His Own

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

When I first saw Roam-bot I thought he was pretty cool. He talked (at this time we had no talking robots) and he had a aluminum box that hides all of his wires. He was neat, and could go by himself using ping sonar. When you first turned him on he says “Ready, roger, roger, find best direction” in a deep voice then turns his…

Stirling Engine

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

My dad and I built this cool Stirling Engine from a Japanese kit. The instructions were in Japanese so we had to use the pictures and what made sense. It was so much fun!

Solar Power System

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

We’ve been working on the power system for our Spirit II Mars Rover, which, like the real Spirit robot on Mars, will be solar powered. We plan to use four small solar panels. Each one is about 7″ x 9″ and delivers about 9.5 Volts / 0.65 Amps / 5.2 Watts. We wired two pair of panels into a series circuit to double the voltage of…

Chassis for Mars Rover

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

We have been working hard on the rocker-bogie suspension system for the Spirit II, our Mars Rover. In this picture, the front wheel will be attached on the left side. The two back wheels will be attached on the right side. The two back wheels will be connected together by a tube that pivots on its center. The entire thing pivots on a central…

Differential for Mars Rover

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

We are currently building a rover similar to the Mars Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which we have always loved (but have been way outside our skillset in the past). We have been studying the details of the rovers, their electrical systems, chassis, wheels, and so on. Ours won’t be exact, of course, but hopefully, if all goes well, it will be a nice working model,…

Telepresence Robot

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

This is Telegance. He is a Telepresence Robot, which means he’s a driver-controlled mobile video conferencing system. Imagine I’m out in the world traveling on business. I can use my laptop or any other computer to link into the robot through the Internet. The people around the robot see my face on the robot’s screen, which we mounted…

Mini Flying Drone

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

After building our first Arduino-based flying drone robot, we decided to take what we learned and build a tiny quadrotor that was safe to fly indoors and out. We used the same electronics, but built the frame out of ABS sheet and kite parts. This little robot, which we call the Black Hornet, is about 7″ across between the props. He’s great fun to…

Flying Robot Drone

Friday, July 15th, 2011

We would like to introduce our flying drone robot. We can fly this robot using Remote Control or it can fly itself using sonar, an on-board GPS, and following longitude/latitude waypoints. We have experimented with various frame designs and electronics, so you’ll see some variation in the pictures. Be sure to check out the video of Lunamoth piloting the flying robot.

Our Retro Russian Vacuum Tube Clock

Sunday, July 10th, 2011

Julajay and I decided to take a day out from the robots and build a super-cool “Ice Tube Clock Kit” from Adafruit. The kit came as several hundred little capacitors, transistors, microchips, and other components, which Julajay soldered one by one into a little circuit board. I was “chief supervisor” (which means I did nothing but watch) while Julajay did all the work to…

Our Smallest Robots

Tuesday, June 14th, 2011

Together my dad and I made these tiny-bots from the small, spare parts of their older brothers. Though not as high-tech as the larger ones, these little guys defiantly beat the record of being the smallest by a long shot. Their size makes it easy to put them in boxes and bring them to school to share with my classmates and tell them a…

Our First Robot

Sunday, May 1st, 2011

For the story of our first little robot, I.C. 12, please visit the About Us page. OUR FIRST ROBOT: I.C. 12 A proud roboticist holding her first…