Our Projects
A blog of our family’s fun with electronics, metal, and software programming…
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Mars Rover
Built for the New York Hall of Science -
Mechatron Tank
45 pounds of attitude -
Mars Rover - Spirit II
Our first homage to NASA -
Our homemade CNC Mill for making parts
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Trekker
GPS navigation & 6WD Suspension -
Creepy Crawler
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Nautilus
Aluminum quadrotor w/ HD camera & FPV goggles -
The Beatty Robotics Telegraph System
Arduino-enabed wireless telegraph system -
Terrabot
Our rough terrain traveling robot -
Retro-Style Remote Control
We like real switches and knobs! -
Black Dragon
Our carbon fiber quadrotor -
Black Hornet
Our miniature carbon fiber quadrotor -
The Flyer I Quadrotor
Our first flying robot -
Security V Robot
Our roaming, sensing, shooting robot -
RoamerBot
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Kitbot
A kit we designed for our friends to build -
Telepresence Robot
Mobile Video Conferencing -
Our Smallest Robot
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I.C. 12
Our first robot -
Lunamoth's Steampunk Necklace
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Tube Clock Kit
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Sterling Engine Kit
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Blinky Belt
A programmable LED belt
Featured Posts from the Workshop Blog
Mars Rover
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24 Comments
We want to try it as well. How do you suggest we get started?
Hello Mike, Maya & Brooke. I can help you get started.
Take a look at the Tube Clock http://beatty-robotics.com/?p=151 or perhaps the Blinky Belt http://beatty-robotics.com/?p=285
Those projects require soldering (which is fun once you get the hang of it), but they are good little kits with excellent instructions, and don’t take any programming (unless you want to change the default light pattern like we did, in which case, that requires programming). The girls love the Tube Clock and the Blinky Belt. These aren’t robots, but they are good electronic projects to start with. However, these kits will require concentrated effort and attention to detail with Dad leading the way.
I totally agree with your suggestion for the Tube Clock.
I’ve just build myself one
http://trandi.wordpress.com/2011/09/10/vacuum-fluorescent-display-clock-based-on-soviet-iv-18-tube/
and it’s quite straight forward and quick.
However the end result is really pleasing and impressive.
Dan
P.S. the only thing you have to be careful about (and this is well mentioned in the docs) is the relatively high voltage (~50V) that’s require for driving the tube itself…
Dan: I like your in-process and completed pics. That clock is so neat, but it’s hard to photograph and do it justice. Thanks for the comment.
Wow my nieces are famous!!!! How cool, just always remember your favorite Aunt….
You girls are the luckiest kids ever!! I wish I could get my parents to do this kind of thing with me!! you guys rock.
Hi Uncle Robert and Beatty girls!
I totally enjoyed helping to build Mechatron when I was visiting earlier this year. Please keep me posted on your latest and greatest project(s). I am trying to get my folks to visit again soon so I can do more wiring and soldering…
Hello BryceJ from jawja. Be sure to Subscribe using the link at the top of the screen. This way, when we add new posts you’ll be notified. We are working on a new robot that you’re going to love to drive even more than you loved driving Trekker!
thats some cool stuff your doing
if you don’t mind me asking, do you have blue prints or other info on how to make some of this stuff
Thank you. We appreciate it. No, unfortunately, we don’t have blue prints or build instructions for these.
Nice work!–saw your item in Make:
Love the rocker bogie suspension…
Posted on The ancient Greek psoholiphers and the writers of the Old Testament stressed that there is a higher law than human law. In the first century B.C., the Roman philosopher Cicero insisted that this higher natural law is universal and can be discovered through human reasoning. (It is God’s law, which he reveals to all people through their reasoning. It is not learned. It is divinely given) This led to the idea that government power has limits, and that people and governments everywhere are bound by natural law.
sir i have 4 pusher propellor.can u suggest me how can i make two of them as puller prop as u said in ur project that u have tilt the motor to 8 degree???????/
If you have a normal sized quad (bigger than 10″ or 12″ across), I wouldn’t use this method. However, if you have a tiny quad and you need to use this method, then you tilt two of the motors (such as the left and right motors) 8 degrees off vertical in opposite directions. This is a primitive method and doesn’t work great, but it sort of works. Since then, I’ve switched to using two Puller Propllers and two Pusher propellers on all the quads, even the tiny quad.
thankzzzzzzzzzzzz
Robert,
Nice pics. Thanks for the allowing me to take a peek.
Me and my father have been inspired by you guys
curently we are woking on a rather LARGE robotic car we want to use an rc arm, got any suggestions? much apriciatted. :{)
the truck was actually a Huge rc car we just hacked it striped it and replaced the components it’s about 1″ tall by 2 1\2″ long.
curently it is rc we want to add an aurdino to it
it does have an FPV cam we instaled, however it’s only about 1\2 inch tall so it has to be in line of sight with the reciver.
I also was wondering if you use a TURNIGY 9X TRANSMITTER for black Dragon?
We use a Futaba RC transmitter for all the quadrotors. For the land-based robots, we use an arduino + xbee remote controller that we built ourselves, including an ASCII-based command protocol that we developed ourselves.
nice work!
thancks a million
Hi, love the Mechatron Tank!
How does the BB feed work to the Airsoft gun?
regards
Thanks, Geoff. I bought a high capacity electric airsoft magazine, hacked it to pieces, replaced the servo and some of its internal mechanism, and installed it into the base of the robot. Then I ran a long spring (from McMaster-Carr) (with an I.D. a little larger than the 6mm BBs) up to an airsoft aftermarket hop up unit, which in turn feeds the bb into the gun. The spring is inside the flexible metal tubing, which you can see attached to the underside of the gun in the pictures. The other flexible metal tubing is packed with wires that go to the sensor head. The feed machoism I’ve described here was one of the more difficult challenges of the robot.
Robert – thanks for your detailed reply.
I need to do something similar for a airsoft senty I’m building (as shown here http://www.paintballsentry.com/).
Sounds like there was little left of the original hicap magazine – would you bother with this if you had to do one again, or would you build your own from scratch. I’m thinking a sprocket gear might be the right shape to rotate the bbs.
regards
Geoff~
Nice work on your project, Geoff. Regarding your question: I needed to hack into an existing magazine to understand their function and mechanics, so in that regard it was totally necessary. I was not experienced with the internals of Airsoft equipment when I began. I did like being able to use the existing unit. If I had it to do over again, I would probably do something similar again, although crafting it from scratch would work, too. A sprocket gear does indeed work for rotating the BBs.