Tutorials

Assembling the Arm3 palletizing robot

2016-12-14 Dan

Marginally Clever has made a lot of different robots, including the Arm3 palletizing robot. Robot arms hold great fascination here. We’d love to build a really great low cost robot arm. One of our early prototypes was even available online for sale, and as an open source model. Here now are the assembly instructions for that arm prototype. You can still get all the Arm3 parts on Thingiverse. Please give back by sharing your creation, mods, etc in the forums. (more…)

Jigsolve

Jigsolve: iterating on gantry design

2016-11-05 Dan

The suction is tested; the up/down is tested; the rotation is tested. Now the working head has to be mounted on the gantry, which is forcing @lethic to redesign the side carriages:

and then make the corner mounts of the gantry change to match as well. Both have to be changed before we can test. It’s not a one-at-a-time kind of deal. Boo!

So! We have progress, which is nice. I have to resurrect the IRC bot and check all that software that was ready a year ago is still working. I’m also trying to make a new jigsaw puzzle that won’t have the tight fitting pieces, as well as organize a collaboration with an art gallery or science museum to host our robot while the “game” is running. (I lost the game.)

Somehow I’ve gone from being a person who makes robots to a person who talks about the awesome robots he is paying other people to make. Is that a step up? Only if I can find a way to do it even more.

Jigsolve

Jigsolve: testing piece separation

2016-10-18 Dan

Yesterday eve LZ and I printed springs made from ABS and cobbled together a springing ring. Ideally the spring holds the jigsaw down while the target piece is being added/removed.

So far it looks like the suction power of the air pump fails before the springs or the jigsaw separates. Back to the drawing board!

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News

Jigsolve: tested rotation, picking, and placing

2016-10-17 Dan

Controlled rotation, picking, and placing demonstrated. I’ve built a Z axis with a linear actuator and have not tested it yet.

I’m now building and testing a spring loaded mechanism that keeps neighbor pieces on the table when the current piece is inserted or removed.

If you’re enjoying this robot coming together please tell instagram to put me on their robots channel so I can bring this kind of cool stuff to more eyeballs.

“Hi @Instagram! Please put @i-make-robots on your #robots channel. Thank you!”

Thank you in advance for sharing with your friends and following along. Your support keeps me strong!