Category: News

News Tutorials

Building your own solenoid engine

2015-03-20 Dan

I’m leaving for a week in Mexico starting tomorrow morning, so I don’t have a lot of time to write a blog post today.
Instead, here’s a random Internet Find of the Week: How to build your own solenoid engine.

News Tutorials

Maker Tip: Labels on all your Custom Pieces

2015-02-27 Dan

I’m a big fan of Kaizen, the process of continual refinement. Opportunity is everywhere if you’re looking for it. Sometimes it’s obvious like “hey man, I think you should put a link to X on page Y of your tutorial!” …Ok! Sometimes it’s more subtle, like when a customer on the phone tries to describe a part for which they have no name.

On the good suggestion of Sarah Petkus​ of RobotArmy I’ve started putting part numbers right on all my laser cut pieces. Now I realize it was a hole in my inventory control system. I had a separate inventory number for every item in the store, but the laser cut parts were clumped together as “laser cut parts for kit X”. Now that I have separate part numbers I can… (more…)

News

Yale’s Open Hand Project

2015-02-25 Dan

Yale Open Hand Model T

If you know me, you know I’ve been obsessed with robot arms for a long time. People ask me “what will you put for a hand?” and I used to say “Who cares? It could be any tool you like.” Well, now I have a better answer.

Yale’s Open Hand Project aims to make an open source robot hand that anyone can download and build. It even comes with adapters for several popular robots already on the market.

I think my favorite part is their Hybrid Deposition Manufacturing (HDM) technique: The finger bones come out of the printer with built in pockets into which you pour a urethane solution. When the urethane hardens to a rubber consistency, the pockets break open and you’re left with a 2-material, super flexible shape. Genius!

News Tutorials

Little Big Planet Sackboy faces with the Arduino Starter Kit

2015-02-18 Dan

Today, we’re going to build faces using LEDs and a joystick. Previously, we’ve wired up LEDs and learned how to control individual lights, how to draw pictures, and how to use a joystick. Today, we’re gonna put them all together to make a set of emotions based on the direction we push the joystick. Again, we’ve got the debounce, so the emotion will stay on our screen until we push the stick in a new direction.

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News Tutorials

Decoding Morse Code

2015-02-09 Dan

A video posted by Dan Royer (@imakerobots) on

Morse code is an ancient tongue spoken by the hooded figures who worship a terrifying obsidian pillar in the sunken city of – oh, wait. Sorry! Wrong blog.

We’ve briefly looked over producing Morse code and making music. What if we’re receiving Morse code now? Today, we’ll be teaching the Arduino to translate Morse code back into English and use a microphone at the same time.

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