Bot Bench I'd Rather Be Building Robots
After weeks of programming, I can finally say that the robot arm is done! it moves quite nicely, albeit a little slow. All in all, I am quite pleased with the final result. The whole thing was programmed in ROBOTC 2.x.
After a weekend of programming and fiddling, it has now become an integral part of the Lego High Bay Storage project.
You can watch the move below. I hope you enjoy it!
A picture and a video of the High Bay Storage System can be found in my previous article.
Now I need to find a new project to work on!
Hi Xander,
Wow, great work! I’m wondering if you could tell more about the movement of the arm? I’m the process of making a pipet-holder that can move and was hoping to find some inspiration on how to create stable movements and what bricks to use.
Best wishes,
Mike
Mike,
If you look at the video on Youtube in HD, you can see how the robot moves its limbs. I use a linear actuator type system which allows very precise movement with great power. One of the biggest challenges with a Lego based robot is the flex in the Lego pieces themselves. You need to build a very good frame that has as little flex as you can get. Try to keep the limbs small, make sure the joints can move freely so that there’s little static friction to overcome.
I can’t really tell you which bricks to use, it totally depends on what the robot should look like in the end 🙂
Xander
Hi again,
Thank you for the quick answer and help! I’m quite new to mindstorm and haven’t heard about linear actuators before, but looks like just the thing I need – crazy how fast I’ve found myself wanting more and more parts 🙂 I found a tutorial on how to create big structures (http://www.texbrick.com/articles/index.html) that’s actually works pretty good for now, since it creates very stable structures.
Hope you keep bloging about your work 🙂
Mike
Mike,
I am not using the grey Lego Linear Actuators. I was talking about the principle of them. If you look closely at the video, you can see there are studded beams on the side with those toothed bricks on them that the cogs can push along. This is also a type of linear actuator. It would be possible to use the normal Lego ones as well, of course, I just never have (yet).
Regards,
Xander
Great work Xander! I only wish there were some close up’s so I could see more of it.
Keep on building and keep on blogging, I look forward to seeing your latest projects.
Later,
Andy
I’ll see if I can get some of those. I’ll keep you posted 🙂
Xander
[…] My husband came home last night after a weekend away with his Lego / Robot buddies. They were working on… god I’m not even going to try to explain it, it’s this, and they did get it working. […]
Very nice, Xander! I love the mechanical movements. PID control in action no doubt. Very impressive ability to handle the weight of the gripper and crate.