Tag Archives: Robots

PlotterBot.com – a new site dedicated to drawing robots

Posted on by
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.

Default Series Title
  1. Photo courtesy of cmorran123 [↩]

Microcontrollers?

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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?

Posted on by

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?

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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!

Posted on by

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!