Tag Archives: Robots

Prepping for Maker Faire Bay Area 2024

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It’s always a whirlwind heading into Maker Faire.  This year is no exception.  This past weekend we got things mostly ready for the Rocklin Maker Faire.  All of our robots were functional, which was really great.  A quick update to document progress and also act like a to-do list of sorts:

  • MakerKnit’s companion robot
    • My wife has knit her octopus
    • I’ve installed the Adafruit QtPy, NeoPixels, and touch sensors connected via BrownDogGadgets conductive thread through the legs
    • It’s been programmed to “blink” the two LED eyes randomly plus a small number of light shows for the body
    • Designed/3D printed several eyes, settling on a nice design that should make the eye animations look good
  • Kim’dael LightningSlayer’s Pendant
    • The youngest’s project has morphed from an LED arm to a CircuitPlayground in a pendant that just plays some notes when she presses buttons.
    • A long extension for the battery pack, using thicker gauge wire wound through the back of stock CircuitPlayground enclosure, is now the “necklace” portion for this project.
  • Dexter Starfighter’s ED-E
  • MakerBlock
    • My robot wasn’t quite ready for Maker Faire last year, but “ready enough” to share.  Last year the little bot was just sitting in a jar I carried around and not really visible to anyone.
    • This year I’ve added feet (entirely cosmetic), changed the battery pack around so it is removeable, swapped out dome diffusers, and am working on new animations/behaviors.
    • I realized that my old LED goggles were… janky.  This was because I had soldered some buttons to one side and then wired them into the Trinket directly, without any resistors.  While it /worked/, it caused some problems whenever I pressed a button.  I pulled the Trinket out and swapped in my new favorite board, the QtPy.
      • I really prefer programming / updating via CircuitPython over Arduino since there’s no pre-compile time and fussy Arduino connections.
      • Besides the programming/uploading, I love the built in RGB, up to 6 capacitive touch sensor, and easy serial communication
      • As an added plus, I soldered on the 2MB flash chip so the project as a ton of space. 1
      • And at almost the same price as a Triket ($0.50 more than the original, $0.50 less than the M0 Trinkets), it’s just easier to swap them into any project I would have previously put a Trinket into
  •  Soldering
    • I’ve really upgraded my soldering experience and it’s made a world of difference.  We moved about a year ago and there’s a space in the house where I can keep a soldering station out and ready to use.  Just having it available is such an upgrade.  I’ve had several handheld / pen style soldering irons over the years and they’re usually pretty terrible.  In fairness, this is also because I’m kinda terrible at soldering.  I had a basic garbage soldering iron from the local hardware store, upgrade one that had a little temperature control from Adafruit, and then upon the recommendation of a friend upgraded a few weeks ago to an X-TRONIC soldering station.
    • I gave my old soldering iron to my neighbor so he could work on a project for his wife.  As I got to finishing up work on the above projects I realized I couldn’t find my pen soldering iron from Adafruit – and that I didn’t want to find it anyhow.  It was fine.  It worked.  But, my soldering iron holder was cheap and flimsy and easy to tip over and the helping hands I had from Adafruit were “okay” for very small projects, but the joints came loose easily and the helping hands kept falling off.  Rather than spend $20 on another soldering iron I would hate, I dropped $70 on the X-TRONIC station which has built in helping hands and soldering iron holder.  Setting aside that it heats up very quickly, has good temperature control, melts solder quickly, and has great helping hands… it has a way to hold the soldering iron in a way that isn’t constantly anxiety inducing. 2
    • Having the soldering station handy has meant I don’t really mind whipping out a quick battery pack extension cable for our projects.  I just need to strip some wires, fire it up, drop some solder, and turn it off again.
    • I may have ruined the first soldering iron tip kinda quickly.  Again, I have no idea what I’m doing.  I would add solder, dip the tip in flux, wipe on sponge, and then do it all again.  This is a terrible process since all it does it add extra contaminants and gunk to the tip, reducing the ability of it to transfer heat effectively.  Instead, after watching a video, I learned I should run it at the lowest temperature appropriate for the solder/joint, just dab the tip in the brass wool to clean it up a little, then maybe wipe on the slightly damp sponge, and absolutely coat the tip in solder before putting it down.

Things left to do!

  • Things to finish
    • I’d really like to finish up the Fallout themed shirt/vest to go with my project
    • A way to attach my wife’s octopus to a purse strap
    • A better way to wear my robot on my shoulder – may use a similar foam paldron
    • A big chunky seat belt looking thing for the strap wearing my robot
    • I’ve got designs for a new bag to wear/carry around Maker Faire, but haven’t sewn them up yet – maybe this week!?!!?
  • Make sure we have
    • Enough batteries, battery packs, etc for our projects
    • USB chargers for our LiPo batteries in goggles
    • Finish my goggles (install battery, update code, possibly change out diffusers
    • Bring a few Maker Coins to give out (I bought 100 of the 5,000 minted, probably never to be minted again…)
    • Ways to show people links to learn more about our projects – probably via QR codes – though I might also use an RFID tag :)

Okay, back to work on… work… so I can get back to making!

  1. Note to self:  It requires a different version of CircuitPython, Haxpress, to make use of the chip storage [↩]
  2. I used to tape the cord of my soldering iron to the table and then place it on the flimsy stand [↩]

PlotterBot.com – a new site dedicated to drawing robots

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Moving time!

Moving time!

I’ve been working on and blogging about my PlotterBot, through several incarnations, for a little over a year now.1 The posts on this site have always tended to be a mixture of near-incoherent ramblings, frivolity, and the occasional nuggets of information.  However, since showing off my PlotterBot at the Maker Faire Bay Area 2013 it really feels like that project deserves a website of its own.

While I’ll still discuss my PlotterBot and related experiments here, my goal is to make PlotterBot.com a resource for people who are interested in building an awesome drawing robot of their very own.  If you’ve enjoyed reading about my DrawBot adventures here, I hope you’ll sign up for my Plotterbot.com newsletter and stay tuned for some tutorials on how to build and get the most from your own drawing robot.

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  1. Photo courtesy of cmorran123 [↩]

Microcontrollers?

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Recently more than one person has suggested I try my hand at an Arduino.  I’ve got a spare Extruder Controller which happens to include an Arduino.

I rarely bother learning something new if I can help it. 1  And, I’ll actively avoid trying to learn something new if there’s not a need to learn it.

I have no doubt that once I figure out how to use an Arduino I’d enjoy it.  However, I just don’t have any ideas of what I’d want to use a microcontroller for at this time.  And, really, none of the projects I’ve seen is particularly compelling.  And, without an end goal I’m shooting for, this would just be learning something for learning’s sake.

So, here’s the question I pose to you, gentle reader:

What would you design/build if you had access to an Arduino, a Thing-O-Matic, a Cupcake, an Egg-Bot, and lots of plastic?

  1. I remember in high school that it was so much easier for me to derive Tan, Sin, Cos, rather than to actually remember the values around the unit circle.  And really, if you can derive that information quickly, why bother committing it to memory? [↩]

Impecible logic

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A conversation from bedtime:

  • “Did you ever break a toy when you were a little boy?”
  • Yes, honey, sometimes I did.  And my daddy was pretty good at fixing things, but we didn’t have a robot.
  • “I have an idea!”
  • Oh?  What’s that?
  • “We’ll get a big box and a pulley and a rope and tie one end to your house when you were a little boy and pull on it and put the other end in my house and then you’ll have a robot when you’re a little boy!”

Can a MakerBot make a healthy marriage?

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Tony Buser posted this comment over at the MakerBot blog:

My wife bought me my makerbot last year for my birthday and I know someone else whose fiance bought him on too. I’m sensing a trend here – 3D printer operators fall in love with awesome people.

All very “causation or correlation.”  Are 3D printers a sign of a healthy marriage?  Or, instead, do they actually have a health-generating effect on a marriage? 1

  1. Also, can you be a “3D printer operator” without a 3D printer?  I suspect you can.  See, I have a regular 2D printer and I live in 3D, as an operator of said printer I am quite literally a “3D printer operator.” [↩]

Why do I care what you think about awesome robots?

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Actually, it’s pretty simple.  I really enjoy blogging about my MakerBot, stuff I make, how I make it, what I see other people do with their Makerbots, and awesome robots in general.  It helps me get ideas for things to write, things to design, and things to make – and hopefully things you like to read.

Heck, some of my favorite things only came about because someone e-mailed me or commented on one of these posts.  (I mean, a soft-pawed albino stoat of Southern Wales???  WTF?  That was so much fun!)

RepRaps in the wild

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When I hear about Darwins, Mendels, and Makerbots “in the wild,” I always picture these robots as if they were deer roaming about on the plains, carefree, feeding and migrating with the changes in seasons.  Frolicking in the sun, relaxing next to a lagoon, and hunting for roots and grubs.

Then I think about them in a “RepRaps Gone Wild” video – partying on a yacht, heedless to the shame they will heap upon their families and the permanence of digital media. 1

  1. Oh my god…  it’s, it’s, it’s…  replicating… right there in the street…  Ew…  It’s so horrible I can’t look away! [↩]

Open Source Printable Building Blocks FTW!

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A few weeks ago I posted my criteria for an interlocking  building block system:

  1. The interlocking system should allow interconnections in three dimensions.
  2. The pieces should snap/interlock together reasonably well/easily.
  3. The pieces should stay assembled reasonably well.
  4. The pieces should snap apart reasonably well/easily.
  5. The pieces should not require additional tools to be assembled and disassembled.

Well, just yesterday r3becca of Robots and Dinosaurs posted designs for “Beco Blocks” on Thingiverse.  From the looks of things these Beco Blocks fit every criteria!  I can’t wait to print up a bunch!