Category Archives: Robots

Hello Kuka!

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Kuka KR 30

We recently got an email from a guy who runs a manufacturing company in the Milwaukee area. He said he had some extra equipment he was looking to donate, including a welder, and some wire, and some scrap steel, and oh yeah, a Kuka KR 30 Industrial Robot!!!

We said, sure, we’ll come and pick it up. ;)

To be fair, he did mention it “needs work” but we’ve already assembled a team of members interested in getting this thing up and running. We’re hoping that with the varied experience our members possess, from electronics to industrial controls to robotics and general hacking and tinkering, we’ll get this thing swinging around in no time.

And what will we do with it? Well, besides the silly suggestions of arm wresting, can crushing, and free high-fives at the next Art Jamboree, there’s been talk of multi-axis milling, 3D printing, and hey, just being awesome with a giant industrial robot arm!

Before we even think of firing it up we’ll be mounting it securely to the floor and building a safety cage. The last thing we want to do is reduce our membership due to an “accident” with the giant industrial robot arm!

Of course, until it’s up and running, it’s available for amusing photo opportunities. ;)

robot002

Baltimore Hackerspace Visit

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl


Baltimore Hackerspace

During a recent trip to Baltimore I got to visit Baltimore Hackerspace, take a quick tour, and talk to two of their members.

Our story actually starts back in 2011, when I was passing through Baltimore and tried to connect with Baltimore Node (another hackerspace in Baltimore) and when I mentioned on their mailing list I’d be passing through town, I got an invite to stop by Baltimore Hackerspace, which at the time was called “Harford Hackerspace” and was located in one of the member’s garage. Well, I never made it to either space last year, so I thought I’d try again this year… sadly, Baltimore Node does not currently have a space due to some issues with Load of Fun, the building they are located in. (Side note: I snapped a photo of Load of Fun back in 2009, before I was even a Milwaukee Makerspace member.)

Confused yet? Good! Anyway, Mike from Baltimore Hackerspace was kind enough to meet me there on a Wednesday afternoon for a tour. We talked about Power Wheels, Make Magazine, The Red Bull Challenge, how Baltimore Hackerspace operates, how Milwaukee Makerspace operates, and general making and hacking activities.

I snapped a few photos as well… enjoy!

Baltimore Hackerspace
Baltimore Hackerspace was not easy to find! It’s in an industrial unit (which looks a little like a storage unit) with no sign on the door. I think some signage is in their future, as it’ll really help new visitors find the place.

Power Wheels
Here’s their Power Wheels car. It looks unlike any other Power Wheels car I’ve seen. Like most Power Wheels cars, it occasionally starts on fire. :)

Telepresence Zen Garden
Here’s the “Telepresence Zen Garden” they built for the 2012 RedBull Creation Competition.

Robot Game
They had a robot game thingy, which was a little like Operation, but you had to guide a wand over the wire and not touch it, or the robot freaked out.

Recycle Robot
OK, this thing was impressive, and confusing. When I first saw this robot I assumed it was some commercially available unit, but it turned it was build using mostly scrap! Mark (the guy working on it) finds interesting pieces from children’s toys, household appliances, etc. and puts it all together. And, that weird thing to the right is indeed a walker, modified to assist the robot in walking, at least until it can walk on its own, without the help of a balancing mechanism. Great project!

Baltimore Hackerspace
There was also art to be found… I don’t know if this was done by a member, but it definitely added color to the space and let you know where you were. ;)

Space Invaders
Some Space Invaders were descending down the wall… I hope they fill the whole wall with them, it would definitely look cool.

Whiteboard
They had a small office for meetings, with a big table and chairs for hacking and what-not. The office also had this whiteboard, which may contain the secrets of the universe… or something.

MakerBot Thing-O-Matic
What’s a hackerspace without a 3D printer? Here’s their MakerBot Thing-O-Matic ready to melt some plastic.

Keyboard
Looks like they’ve also got some music fans (and maybe video nerds?) as members. I love the color bars!

Well, that concludes our tour of Baltimore Hackerspace… if you’re ever in Charm City, check ‘em out!

Roomba-Bot!

Posted on by BenN

Today, I stopped in at the Makerspace with the plan to work on a small project for a Halloween party this Saturday.

The plan was to take a “Roomba” robot vacuum cleaner that I got for $1.00 at a rummage sale, and covert it into the robot base for a giant spider or some other scary creature that could wander around at a Halloween party.

I started pulling screws out of the bottom to figure out how to remove the brushes and vacuum blower. It took some tinkering to figure out what I could and couldn’t remove and not cause a fault. In the end, it didn’t look like I could remove the blower motor and still have the thing run, so I simply removed the fan blades from the blower.

By that time, I was now thinking about video cameras and how easy it would be to run a 1/4-20 bolt right through the plastic. A bolt and two nuts quickly made a camera mount.

In the other room were some ping-pong balls, and I had a black sharpie. A little hot glue and Roomba-cam has some personality.

Look for Roomba-cam running around the Milwaukee Makerspace and please treat Roomba-cam nice – he is watching you and WILL upload to YouTube!

-Ben Nelson

Robotics @ UWM

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Robot

We’ve got a number of robot builders at Milwaukee Makerspace, but we’re not the only robot-lovers in town… via Frankie’s blog, check out this video about Tom Consi and the robotics work he’s doing at UWM.

(We’ve seen some renewed interest in the Milwaukee Robotics Club recently, so we’ll probably start up regular meetings again in the next few months… that way everyone can show off what they’ve been working on.)

Makers at DrawCamp?

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Drawbot
Photo by Tracy Apps

I attended DrawCamp today, and though I did miss out on CNC Day at the Makerspace, I talked to a few folks who might just be makers.

While at the Camp, I didn’t actually draw anything myself, but I had the Egg-Bot and my Friday Night Drawbot on hand both doing a bit drawing. (Oh, I also rebuilt the Drawbot for the 3rd time, this time making things much more solid, switching to a Diavolino, and adding a shield for easy/solid connections to the servos.)

I also had the Make-A-Sketch (my Arduino/Processing-powered take on an Etch-A-Sketch) there, and invited people to make some sketches, which get uploaded to sketch.rasterweb.net

Many of the people on-hand weren’t familiar with electronics or robotics at all, but thought the art robots were “totally cool” and a few people knew about Arduinos or motion control. My favorite moment was when an illustrator looked at the Egg-Bot and then told me she was really interested in CNC Routers. (Hey, what do you know? We have one of those at the Makerspace!)

You never know where you might meet some makers at. :)

Project Roundup 5/12

Posted on by BrantH

It’s been one month since our Grand Opening.  We’ve added a few new members and some new equipment!  Here’s a quick trip around the shop to see what’s going on:

Brent and Jackie are building a vacuum forming machine to mold plastic.
David has a quad copter kit he’s building that when done will be able to lift 1.1 kilograms! 


Richard used the jig saw to cut out wood blocks for a Daft Punk helmet prop he’s making.

Kevin and friends spent time welding metal to a bicycle wheel as part of an joke gift sculpture.


 

 

 

 

2D Laser Range Finder

Posted on by Royce

Ever since I read Ken Maxon’s article: ‘A Real-time Laser Range Finding Vision System’, I’ve wanted to experiment with a similar system. This past Sunday afternoon, I finally got around to it. I don’t have any CLPD chops, so I used a regular computer. Above you can see my initial rough results. The line laser registers lower in the image field for the block than for the background. The software properly converted that lower registration to a distance of about 26.5 inches.
 

The idea behind the concept is fairly straight forward. By angling and elevating the camera relative to the laser we can establish a trigonometric relationship between the vertical location of the laser and the distance to the object that the laser is striking. Since the laser is a line on the screen, each pixel column in the image field becomes it’s own independent laser range finder.

In the picture above four possible angles are shown to demonstrate that each angle corresponds to a different obstruction distance.

Each possible height in the image field corresponds to a specific angle of light into the camera’s roughly conical field of view. The line from the laser’s point of impact to the camera, the vertical line from the camera to the laser generator and the horizontal laser line itself form a right triangle that allows us to compute distance. By dividing the angular field of vision by the number of rows in the the camera we come up with a formula to compute the angle of entry for the reflected laser light for each of the rows in the camera. We also know the distance from the camera to the laser generator. (Its fixed). Pluging the angle and the vertical distance in the trigonmetry equation: tangent of theta equals the opposite leg length divided by the adjacent leg length, and re-arranging, we compute the opposite leg length and determine how far away the object is.

You can see my software doing just that in the first picture. The software doesn’t compensate for the fact that the horizontal pixels are each their own angle as well, but in this first rough pass I felt it wasn’t necessary. You’ll note the the software makes no attempt to measure the left/right distances.

With a sub 5mW power level and a popular frequency (red), something like is probably restricted to a small indoor bot with somewhat short range needs. Still in complement to other scanning systems like a spinning ultra sonic range finder, I can see this adding mechanism to the reliability of local environment mapping system. If I ever build my home security patrol bot, I’ll definitely think about this technique.

Below you can see the rig I used to test this idea out. It’s pretty basic but it got the job done. To the left you see the paper back drop and the paper obstruction. To the right you can see the line laser generator sitting at the bottom of the dremel drill press with the webcam perched on top.