So when you think Toyota what comes to mind? Cars? Well after watching these videos your outlook may change… Seems like Toyota is spending lots of time and effort in the robotics area. The results are spectacular! Another video after the jump. “Toyota Motor on Thursday unveiled a robot that can play the violin as part of its efforts to develop futuristic machines capable of assisting humans in Japan’s greying
In the past year or so cellphone jamming has become an increasingly more popular subject. Everyone has been plagued by obnoxious cellphone users in malls, buses, school, work, movie theaters, and in spite of being highly illegal, cellphone jammers are popping up in more and more places. Green Bay Professional Packet Radio has a great writeup on how it works and even a how-to for building your own
Robotics is an ever expanding career field and also now and ever expanding hobby. Numerous organizations have been put into place for the facilitation of robotic education and study. One such program called “Botball” is popular among students that range from junior high to high school. Their programs help develop and make the fascination that people seem to have naturally with robots, grow. It is something to look into if
Seems like almost anything can be done with a oscilloscope and some determination! Video after the jump. “Star Wars on mame, hacked to render on an oscilloscope driven from the sound card. The dots in the corners of the image compensate for any DC offset, to stop it drifting around the screen.” Via: TechEBlog
Here is a project that you can build to show you some instant stats on almost anything you may want, emails, number of Diggs an article has, CPU usage of your computer, etc. There is a great build log for the project and the creator has released the entire project so you can build your own. You will find source code, schematic diagrams and even the PCB file on his
“A stepper motor is a brushless, synchronous electric motor that can divide a full rotation into a large number of steps. When commutated electronically, the motor’s position can be controlled precisely, without any feedback mechanism” (citation from Wikipedia) Any DIY Maker should understand the workings of stepper motors, Ask any Robot maker, just about any motion control a robot makes is done with stepper motors. Here are a few links
This Flexible-Jointed Robot has amazing stability. I could see this thing walking down a battle field or working in a construction site stepping over piles of debris. “If robots are going to work alongside humans, then they will need to stand up to accidental bumps and shoves, not to mention the occasional deliberate kick. That is why researchers in Japan have developed software that allows a life-size humanoid robot
