Orionrobots Blog
2024
- October 20, 2024 » Phototransistor Sensors for Micromouse UK
My student is making an entry for the UK Micromouse competition. The competition has a recommended reference robot design for entrants to build, the UKMarsBot. She applied, and was sent the Main board along with the Line sensor and Wall sensor boards.
- October 12, 2024 » How to reassign OpenWeb UI chat users
I have always had an interest in AI. I’ve been running a local OpenWebUi with a local Ollama for a while now, hosting my own AI’s so I can use them with my notes. I’m a long term fan of the Zettlekasten method of note taking and linking, a second brain if you will, so tying that to an AI as RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) is a natural fit.
- October 9, 2024 » Robotics at Home with the DIY PicoBot
After reading my book Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico, reader Doug Blanding used the concepts from the book and took it to the next level.
- August 25, 2024 » What is the process I use to make drawings, photos and figures?
- August 17, 2024 » Using 3D print sample filament
- August 13, 2024 » Danny's opinions on ROS
- June 4, 2024 » Raspberry Pi Camera Compatibility RpiCam
- May 2, 2024 » A retrospective on PiWars 2024 - Disaster Zone
- April 29, 2024 » How do you know what all the wires are for?
- April 17, 2024 » Pi Wars 2024 Robot Updates
- April 13, 2024 » How we designed and built the grab and lift mechanism for the PiWars 2024 robot
- April 9, 2024 » Technical and Artistic presentation video for PiWars 2024
- April 7, 2024 » Piwars 2024 Disaster Zone Update - Nerf Turret
- March 30, 2024 » Connecting a Bluetooth Headset to a Raspberry Pi Running OS Lite
- March 28, 2024 » Opening the Pico Bricks Kit
- March 19, 2024 » Learn Robotics Programming - Navigating Power and Connection Challenges with the Inventor Hat Mini
- March 11, 2024 » Tips for the spreadsheets in FreeCAD
- March 6, 2024 » Why Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico uses PIO
- February 28, 2024 » The Pi Wars robot attachment plate comes together
- February 25, 2024 » Pi Wars update - updating the attachment plate
- February 24, 2024 » Debugging electronic circuits
- February 20, 2024 » Learn Robotics Programming 2nd Edition - update for installing OpenCV and Numpy
- February 19, 2024 » A handy guide for crimping Dupont connectors
- February 18, 2024 » Progress update for PiWars 2024
- January 29, 2024 » Piwars 2024 progress - a right angled USB cable
- January 28, 2024 » Amusing vL53L5cx sensor issue
- January 27, 2024 » Piwars Robot battery charging issues
- January 22, 2024 » Phone apps, React Native, Expo and Kivy for robotics
- January 21, 2024 » Debugging Yukon
- January 21, 2024 » About the MPRemote command
- January 14, 2024 » More planning for 2024 PiWars Robot
- January 9, 2024 » Strange Yukon power behaviour on Big Ole Yellow
- January 4, 2024 » Dialling in my 3D printer for better prints
- January 3, 2024 » Robot building fun this week
2023
- December 26, 2023 » Unboxing and reviewing the Elecfreaks Smart Cutebot Pro
This week I found time to unbox, review and play with the Elecfreaks Smart Cutebot Pro. This is a robot kit based around the BBC micro:bit, and is a great way to get started with robotics.
- December 11, 2023 » A change of my viewpoint on wiring
This weekend, while doing some research for an upcoming book project, and other robots, I had an interesting challenge.
- December 8, 2023 » Having fun with the Pimoroni Yukon Board
For the last few months, I had the privilege of being a beta tester for the Pimoroni Yukon board. This meant I got to play with a robotics board with a tonne of features before it was released!
- November 30, 2023 » Robotics building - A month of learning the hard way
- November 28, 2023 » 3D Printing a replacement part for the Sparkfun Shadow Chassis
- November 21, 2023 » Robotics touch sensors mimicking fingerprints
- November 21, 2023 » Open Source Python Robotics Algorithms on GitHub
- November 20, 2023 » Managing a Raspberry Pi with PyInfra
- November 19, 2023 » MQTT Mosquitto Password Issues
- November 12, 2023 » Coder Dojo Robot Wall Avoiding
- November 7, 2023 » Verifying that Asyncio is working on CircuitPython
- October 22, 2023 » TMF882x Distance Sensors
- October 22, 2023 » Making a shim for the Pimoroni Explorer Hat Pro
- October 18, 2023 » Adapting different Raspberry Pi motor drivers for Piwars 2024
- October 14, 2023 » Choosing parts for the coder dojo robots
- October 6, 2023 » A weekend of robotics celebration for Orionrobots
- October 2, 2023 » Are my robot recommendations expensive?
- September 29, 2023 » Say Hello to the Raspberry Pi 5!
- September 9, 2023 » PID experiments with an Arduino Nano and encoders
- September 7, 2023 » How to drive robot motors with MicroPython
- September 4, 2023 » How to get i2s playback with Raspberry Pi Pico
- August 29, 2023 » Troubleshooting sensor positioning on a mobile robot
- August 15, 2023 » How To Make Robot Building Reference Cards using Pinout.xyz
- August 5, 2023 » How to add line following to a robot with Raspberry Pi Pico and Python
- August 1, 2023 » Making a robotic foam dart turret with sound effects
- July 14, 2023 » 20% Discount on my Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico Book
- July 4, 2023 » Me and MeArm in The MagPi
- June 26, 2023 » Fixing the Piwars robot batteries
- June 25, 2023 » Testing the PiWars robot
- June 24, 2023 » Block Diagrams of Electronics for the Piwars 2024 Robot
- June 23, 2023 » Piwars 2024 Robot Arduino Electronics
- June 22, 2023 » What electronics did I use in the PiWars 2019 Metal Chassis Robot
- June 21, 2023 » Current state of the 2024 PiWars robot
- June 14, 2023 » Specification card for my PiWars 2024 entry
- June 13, 2023 » Making a PiWars 2024 Entry - The Entry Form
- June 7, 2023 » Two MeArm Robot Arms Play Pass-the-parcel
- June 5, 2023 » MeArm Robot Arm with Pico - Record and Playback
- May 2, 2023 » Talk about my robots at Raspberry Pint
- April 7, 2023 » AliExpress shopping list for Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico
- April 4, 2023 » UK Shopping lists for Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico
- March 17, 2023 » Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico Book Launched
- March 14, 2023 » Pi Day: Raspberry Pi on Pico Bot
- March 10, 2023 » More Robotics at Home Chassis
- March 5, 2023 » Using a Raspberry Pi to inspect code on Raspberry Pi Pico
- March 1, 2023 » New robot building parts in the lab!
- February 28, 2023 » Interview with Packt Publishing on my upcoming book
- January 28, 2023 » CircuitPython Ulab arrays and data transmission size
- January 26, 2023 » Using multiple VL53L type sensors
- January 25, 2023 » What I've been working on - tracebacks in CircuitPython
- January 19, 2023 » Smell detecting robot in the news
- January 16, 2023 » Getting support for my robotics content
2022
- December 27, 2022 » Motion tracking workbench accessories
Maker Rue Mohr recently suggested building a motion tracking workbench lamp. This is a great idea, as if you are moving around on the bench, and you need light focusing on where you are working, you could have the device adjust the focus for you.
- December 27, 2022 » Cheeky focus stacking
When taking photos of robots, nearly everything is Macro - that is, every shot is fairly close up. What this often means is that I get focus issues.
- December 27, 2022 » MaixSense A010 Day 2 - Sipeed Support
In yesterday’s Maixsense A010 post I had reached a block, and it hadn’t worked either standalone, or via the serial port.
- December 26, 2022 » Maixsense A010 first impressions
- December 23, 2022 » Debugging motion data
- December 18, 2022 » Geometry and Trigonometry mix ups
- December 18, 2022 » The best way to get things done
- December 11, 2022 » Tip for debugging ulab or Numpy
- November 20, 2022 » 2022 battery choices update
- November 19, 2022 » Battery Storage - simple divider
- November 2, 2022 » FreeCAD annotations issue
- November 2, 2022 » Foam board joint experiments
- October 30, 2022 » FreeCAD topological renaming issues
- October 24, 2022 » Euro boxes - idea for storage
- October 23, 2022 » How to Sample from a Gaussian distribution on Raspberry Pi Pico
- September 28, 2022 » Inkscape Path Manipulation Menu
- August 7, 2022 » Bluefruit graphing - beware auto scaling
- July 27, 2022 » Machine bolts supplied with parts
- July 25, 2022 » Tiny Toolkit Drill bit tray
- July 24, 2022 » Tiny Drill Bit Holder For Tiny Toolkit
- July 10, 2022 » Day two of Piwars Raspberry Pi Robotics Competition 2022
- July 9, 2022 » Copilot and Jupyter are an awesome combination
- July 9, 2022 » PiWars 2022 - Old MacDoofus Had a Farm - Raspberry Pi Robotics
- July 9, 2022 » Putting together a tiny toolkit
- July 8, 2022 » Moving Orionrobots back to github
- June 14, 2022 » FreeCAD Topological Naming
- May 20, 2022 » Adafruit Airlift ESP32 NINA Firmware
- May 19, 2022 » Learn Robotics Programming Second Edition errata - PuTTY
- April 8, 2022 » Raspberry Pi Pico Wifi and Wireless
- February 8, 2022 » Raspberry Pi Pico USB tip
2021
- July 24, 2021 » Freecad Assembly4 File Link
When using FreeCAD’s assembly4 workbench, have you seen broken object links after moving a file? Here’s how I came across the issue, diagnosed it and a fix for it.
- June 15, 2021 » Raspberry Pi Pico Wireless pack and Motors
Pimoroni have a wireless pack for Raspberry Pi Pico. This adds wifi capability with an ESP32 (and possibly bluetooth, more on that later). Wifi capability is great because it means I can teleoperate (remote drive) my robots, even if it’s just starting behaviors. In Learn Robotics Programming I have a chapter showing how to crate a nice web interface and remote camera/driving app to take advantage of Raspberry Pi 3a+ wifi. It’s something I’ve taken to adding to most of my robots. But what about Pico robots?
- May 23, 2021 » Foam Core Drawer Dividers
To get better access to tools in my closest drawer, I make dividers with foam core and hot glue.
- April 28, 2021 » Raspberry Pi Pico with the VL53L0x Distance sensor
- April 7, 2021 » Motor Mash - N20 to TT Motor Adaptor - Learn Robotics Programming Help
- March 7, 2021 » How to keep home build project wires tidy with Spiral Wire Wrap
- March 6, 2021 » Raspberry Pi Pico Session with Mini Orionrobots - LED flashing and speaker tones.
- February 19, 2021 » Learn Robotics Programming 2nd Edition - Hardware Shopping List
- February 11, 2021 » Learn Robotics Programming Second Edition Video Announcement
- January 23, 2021 » Controlling a OWI Edge Robot Arm with Bluetooth
- January 16, 2021 » Interview with Danny Staple
- January 15, 2021 » Learn Robotics Programming second edition
2020
- September 16, 2020 » How to use the ReSpeaker 2 mic Hat with Mycroft
Voice Assistants like Mycroft are a cool bit of technology, and running them on the Raspberry Pi seems like a great fit. The Seeed Studio ReSpeaker hat, and it’s clones seem to be an inexpensive way to get this running, however, none of the instructions I found on the web got this to work. So here I document how I made this device work.
- August 24, 2020 » Parts for Learn Robotics Programming Chapter 6
I have been asked by some readers of my book, Learn Robotics Programming (first edition), what parts I’ve specifically used for chapter 6.
- April 21, 2020 » Piwars 2020 Robot design - The Roof Rack
The State of The Piwars 2020 Robot
- March 1, 2020 » Piwars 2020: Kicad Part For the Pimoroni Explorer Hat Pro
2019
- December 8, 2019 » Piwars 2020 Designs
Piwars Acceptance
- November 5, 2019 » Raspberry Pi Magazine Robotics
Build A Low-Cost Wheeled Robot
- September 10, 2019 » About The Eevblog
The EevBlog, aka the Electronics engineering video blog is a Video blog about electronics engineering. That is, a Youtube channel with original content that is intended for people who like to dabble with all thinks electronics.
- August 31, 2019 » Connecting a MeArm to the Raspberry Pi
- April 23, 2019 » Use OWI Edge Maplin USB robot arm with the Raspberry Pi
- April 16, 2019 » Learn Robotics Programming 1st Edition Electronics Fix
- February 15, 2019 » Using The Picon Zero with Learn Robotics Programming - Part 1
- February 15, 2019 » 3D Printed Holder For The PiWars USB Battery
- February 13, 2019 » Fusion 360 CAD Files For My Piwars Robot
- February 9, 2019 » New addressable RGB LED's, perfect for a robot
- February 1, 2019 » Learn Robotics Programming On The Raspberry Pi 3a+
- January 9, 2019 » Info from robotics talk at Richmond New Tech
- January 9, 2019 » My Book - Learn Robotics Programming on Sale Today
2018
- December 25, 2018 » Merry Christmas 2018 - Flashforge Finder 3D Printer Unboxing
For many years, I’ve made-do with the kit made Reprappro Ormerod 2 printer. It was a platform for learning about these devices, but has never been that reliable, and never earned my trust enough to confidently leave for long prints. I made small prints and rarely on it.
- December 12, 2018 » What did I make in my lab in the summer?
I was pretty quiet over the summer, however, I made some videos showing what I’ve been up to.
- December 5, 2018 » Announcing My Book - Learn Robotics Programming
Tonight I am proud to announce that available to buy in most online bookshops is my new book, Learn Robotics Programming.
- May 7, 2018 » What Happened At Piwars 2018
- April 10, 2018 » PiWars 2019 Build Journal - Pi Problems With IP
- April 10, 2018 » PiWars 2018 Build Journal - Choosing the display
- April 8, 2018 » Reviving Sparkfun Microviews With a New Bootloader
- February 26, 2018 » 2018-02-26-piwars-robot-status
- February 16, 2018 » Things we want to 3d print at Orionrobots
- February 16, 2018 » 2018-02-16-helena-learned-to-solder
- February 10, 2018 » 2018-02-10-website-fixes-and-live-solder-video
- January 1, 2018 » Wrap Up Of The Year 2017
2017
- December 29, 2017 » Printed Circuit Board
A Printed Circuit Board is the normal system for holding components together in a circuit.
- November 24, 2017 » Decoding robot messages
There are crazy sales this weekend at some of my favourite places to buy stuff to play with. Pimoroni, The PiHut and Cool Components are all having fun.
- August 9, 2017 » Building an esp8266 based hexapod robot - SpiderBot Part 1
This week, I’ve started building an esp8266 based hexapod, which I’ve nicknamed “SpiderBot”.
- May 28, 2017 » Attaching a Joystick or 2 Analog Sensors to a Nodemcu
- April 25, 2017 » Pi Bakery and Scroll Phat
- January 3, 2017 » Building a Microbit Robot with the Kitronic v2 Motor Board
2016
- December 23, 2016 » 2016 Christmas Outtakes
First I have some goodies for the lab - for Helena, the Explorer Hat Pro Parts Kit and a Kitronic Motor Board for her to use with her microbit.
- December 16, 2016 » Microbit Merry Christmas!
I found today, on Christmas jumper day, I was caught short and couldn’t find a good jumper.
- December 12, 2016 » Programming the UnoTron using ArduBlockly
I’ve published a video where my son and Lab Helper Jon and I use the tool
- November 24, 2016 » Building a 4tronix UnoTron Robot
- November 19, 2016 » Beware - Fake Lego on eBay
- April 26, 2016 » Lab Gear - a Crimping Tool
- February 4, 2016 » Bounce! An Esp8266/nodemcu blocks coding system
2015
- December 7, 2015 » Esp8266 nodemcu simple robot
This week I built a simple robot base using a NodeMCU V3 dev board - an ESP8266 based board broken out for use with a breadboard,
- December 3, 2015 » Getting a quick ESP8266 build environment
The ESp8266 is currently my favourite toy right now. I’ve mostly been using NodeMCU, but also experimented with Micropython.
- October 2, 2015 » Truth Table
A table showing the operation of a Boolean logic gate, or combination of them.
- September 3, 2015 » Analog to Digital Converter
- September 3, 2015 » Adapting Lego RCX Stud Style Connectors
- June 10, 2015 » Making a wifi controlled Light with the ESP8266
- April 29, 2015 » Powering the esp8266 Wifi Microcontroller
- April 4, 2015 » Powering An Arduino Uno and Servo from 4xAA 6v Batteries
- March 9, 2015 » Lego
- March 1, 2015 » Making A lego Technic Bike
- January 15, 2015 » Teaching Angles With Turtle
2014
- December 6, 2014 » Github's awesome stl view
So first some great news.
- November 6, 2014 » HC SR04 Distance Sensor
The HC-SR04 is a simple but capable distance sensor. It is able to sense a 30 degree range, using 2 IO pins on your microcontroller. They are sensitive from 4cm’s to around 3 meters, with sub-centimeter measuring accuracy.
- November 2, 2014 » Designing a second enclosure for my CNC machine
My first attempt at an enclosure was wrong in a number of ways.
- September 24, 2014 » Armbot Follow Up
- September 1, 2014 » Tekno Robot Dog
- July 7, 2014 » 8x8 Red LED Dot Matrix Module Assembled
- July 7, 2014 » Arduino Leonardo Board
- June 11, 2014 » Idea - a directional distance sensor board
- June 1, 2014 » Robot Stores
- May 27, 2014 » About the Arduino
- May 16, 2014 » Using Heeks CAD to Mill an STL file
- May 9, 2014 » Choosing A CAM program for my CNC Mill
- May 7, 2014 » Understanding the CNC Power Board
- April 23, 2014 » More About The Orion Explorer 1 Chassis
- April 13, 2014 » Diagnosing the Cause of the blown CNC components
- April 9, 2014 » The reality of electronics repair
- March 27, 2014 » Why 3d printing robots wont take over the world
- February 9, 2014 » Close Up Of CNC Disaster
- February 7, 2014 » CNC - Some new ideas, a plan, disaster!
- February 6, 2014 » CNC Mill Unboxing Pictures - img 3023
- February 6, 2014 » CNC Mill Unboxing Pictures - img 3020
- February 6, 2014 » CNC Mill Unboxing Pictures - img 3019
- February 6, 2014 » CNC Mill Unboxing Pictures - img 3018
- February 6, 2014 » CNC Mill Unboxing Pictures - img 3017
- February 6, 2014 » CNC Mill Unboxing Pictures - Spindle above the border
- February 6, 2014 » CNC Mill Unboxing Pictures
- February 6, 2014 » The CNC Milling Machine Moves
- February 5, 2014 » Inside CNC mill control box - Closer view of stepper board
- February 5, 2014 » Inside CNC mill control box - Closer view of stepper board
- February 5, 2014 » Inside CNC mill control box - Closer view of stepper board
- February 5, 2014 » Inside CNC mill control box - Closer view of stepper board
- February 5, 2014 » Inside CNC mill control box - DC/DC converters, Optocouplers and schmitt trigger buffers
- February 5, 2014 » Inside CNC mill control box - Caps, connectors and flyback diodes
- February 5, 2014 » Inside CNC mill control box - The Stepper Motor Board - With Toshiba Stepper Controllers
- February 5, 2014 » Inside CNC mill control box - Close up showing IC numbers
- February 5, 2014 » Inside CNC mill control box - Closer view of stepper board
- February 5, 2014 » Inside CNC mill control box - Close up showing discretes and connectors
- February 5, 2014 » Inside CNC mill control box - The Power and Spindle Board
- February 5, 2014 » Inside The Control Box
- February 5, 2014 » Taking apart the control box
- February 3, 2014 » CNC Mill Unboxing and Setup
- January 30, 2014 » The CNC Mill Plan
- January 14, 2014 » Getting Started
- January 13, 2014 » Orion Explorer 1 Robot | Explorer Arrow Control
- January 13, 2014 » Orion Explorer 1 Construction Guide
- January 12, 2014 » New Voice Control Modules
2013
- December 28, 2013 » Stuff in the Orionrobots lab - Experimenting using a servo + single sonar
I bought a robot kit with pan servo sensor mechanism - I built it, and started playing with it in my lab to see what I make of it.
- December 23, 2013 » All Our Robots are User Serviceable!
Orionrobots has always been about self learning and building your own stuff. Our robot kits are designed for you to build which has the knock on effect that you already know how some repairs can be made. Too many products have “no user serviceable parts inside” - something which makes you feel like this device is not really yours and you just have it on loan until it breaks - where you may be able to pay someone to fix it, or worse still, have to dispose of it and get a new one. This is both wasteful and disempowering.
- December 13, 2013 » How does the Explorer 1 Robot Deal with Obstacles?
A customer recently asked if the robot would be able to drive over obstacles - like door plinths, and if it could cross gaps. The only good way to answer this was to try it out - so I did.
- December 8, 2013 » Last Orders For Christmas 2013 - Tuesday 17th
- December 4, 2013 » Google To Start Making Robots?
- November 30, 2013 » Bluetooth with the Orionrobots Orion Explorer 1 Robot
- November 28, 2013 » Interesting new robots to play with
- November 14, 2013 » The Explorer Wall Avoider Kit Now On the Shop
- September 29, 2013 » Youtube find - The Evolution of Robotics Movement
- May 23, 2013 » Building a Bump Sensor For The Orion Explorer 1 Kits
- May 18, 2013 » Automaton
- May 18, 2013 » iRobot
- May 18, 2013 » Friday Mailbag - Pi Camera, Pi expansion boards
- May 11, 2013 » Leonardo Da Vinci
- May 2, 2013 » Maplin
- May 2, 2013 » breadboard
- May 2, 2013 » Electronics
- May 2, 2013 » Robot Building Tips
- May 2, 2013 » RoboSapien
- May 2, 2013 » Modding Robots
- May 2, 2013 » Tutorial Projects
- May 2, 2013 » Robot Kits
- April 14, 2013 » AAAI
- April 2, 2013 » The Orion Explorer 1 Robot with Distance Sensors
- March 28, 2013 » Why are we using AA batteries?
- March 17, 2013 » 3d printers in space
- March 10, 2013 » The Sonar Rangers are coming
- February 28, 2013 » Coming Products
- February 27, 2013 » Robot Combat League - Oh Wow...
- February 6, 2013 » Great Ball Contraption
- January 5, 2013 » The era of the Robot music band is upon us
- January 1, 2013 » Why in 2013 Lego is still the best toy company
2012
- December 28, 2012 » Craig Charles
Craig Charles hosted Robot Wars as well as playing David Lister in the British sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf.
- July 14, 2012 » Terms And Conditions
Definition of terms
- July 14, 2012 » DK Robot Warrior Kit
This kit comes with a number of press out cardboard bits, a small two direction remote chassis and a small book.
- May 22, 2012 » Arduino Lego Enclosure
- March 26, 2012 » Amazing Walking Robot on Instructables
2011
- March 21, 2011 » A cute little Robot that finds beats
I love this video - it brings together two of my favourite things - homebrew hacked robots and music/rhythm experimentation. It uses the Picaxe controller board, caterpillar tracks, and a sonar distance sensor.
- March 12, 2011 » Lego SpyBotics
These were designed for children to learn about STEM and robotics with Lego, in the disguise of secret agent games.
- March 12, 2011 » Awesome Lego Walker - pneumatic based!
A Lego maker has built a Lego walker based only on pneumatics. This build contains no electronics or programmable bricks at all. Granted, there is likely a non-Lego air compressor for the build.
- March 12, 2011 » Robot Kits - Gifts For Kids Guide 2011
- January 22, 2011 » Arduino tinkerings
2010
- November 15, 2010 » More amazing lego innovation
The arrival of Lego Mindstorms kicked off a wave of Lego innovation, but not all of that used official Lego Mindstorms kits. Some creations were just motors strapped onto curious contraptions, the most interesting being the Rube Goldberg devices, kinetic sculptures, rolling ball machines and similar.
- November 14, 2010 » Building RAM memory cells yourself
Computer memory was once built by hand. Building your own like this memory will help to understand the principles of the system, and experiment with it.
- November 11, 2010 » Lego RCX
- November 11, 2010 » NXT
- November 11, 2010 » Factories Built With Lego
- October 26, 2010 » Helicopter
- October 26, 2010 » Robots with real uses around people
- October 23, 2010 » Chicken Walker Robot Halloween Costumes
- October 20, 2010 » Robots in unmanned warfare
- October 4, 2010 » 3d Printers proliferate
- October 3, 2010 » Absolutely brilliant storage concept
- January 19, 2010 » The Lego RCX, Inside and Out
- January 17, 2010 » NQC
2009
- December 24, 2009 » EEE PC Robot build
The ASUS Eee PC is a small netbook laptop, which seemed about the right size to balance on a medium robot. The Aurorans, a London based gathering of robot builders, suggested that the participants start building a robot. I thought this was a great opportunity to try this out in practice.
- November 10, 2009 » William Grey Walter - Machina Speculatrix
These robots were built as learning platform by the late William Grey Walter in the 1940s.
- April 25, 2009 » Lego Manas
The Lego Bionicle 8539 Manas set contained two IR remote controlled Crab like battle bots. The remote control units at the centre of the set each take three AA batteries, and have two fixed motors. The remote control units each also take 3 AA batteries.
- April 25, 2009 » Using External Power Sources With The RCX
- April 24, 2009 » MindStorms
- January 27, 2009 » Sci Fi Robots
- January 2, 2009 » Happy New Year!
2008
- December 18, 2008 » East Finchley Robotics Club
The East Finchley Robotics Club ran from 2004-05.
- December 3, 2008 » More Lathe Info
I have still been at work on my Lego Lathe. This is the first in a series of automatic construction/fabrication/workshop robots that I want to build. It has been photographed during it’s construction, and I will be putting those, along with it’s plans, onto OrionRobots.
- November 28, 2008 » Making Custom Clocks
It seems that a lot of people are trying to customise the idea of clocks recently. I’ve recently seen a screen scraping train clock, an incredible motorised moving clock and you only need to look around to see many people are building variants on clocks.
- November 28, 2008 » Lego Pinhole cameras, alarm clocks and moving walls
- November 16, 2008 » Communications Between Cybot And RCX
- November 3, 2008 » quantisation
- November 3, 2008 » Oscilloscope
- October 26, 2008 » Halloween Animatronics
- September 13, 2008 » Lego Discussion | Mindstorms Stormrunner Game
- July 14, 2008 » Chloe and Shannon
- July 7, 2008 » Storage Systems
- July 6, 2008 » UK Micromouse 2008
- July 2, 2008 » Micromouse 2008 Photos
- May 25, 2008 » New Great Ball Contraption Videos
- May 4, 2008 » Broken Cybot Repairs
- March 18, 2008 » Choosing A Glue
- March 9, 2008 » SolidWorks
- March 9, 2008 » Get Your Hands On a VEXplorer kit with Robot Design and Building Contest!
- February 24, 2008 » The McRobot is coming
- February 6, 2008 » Nano Bots
- February 6, 2008 » Magnetically Linking Robots
- February 3, 2008 » Homebuild Electric Vehicles
- February 2, 2008 » IJCAI
- January 28, 2008 » Happy Birthday Lego!
- January 27, 2008 » Awesome Robot Hacked Together With Chumby and Gaffa Tape
- January 13, 2008 » NXT Gumball Sorter
- January 4, 2008 » Rack And Pinion
- January 4, 2008 » A Happy New Year to all readers
2007
- December 30, 2007 » Robot Building Safety
Contents
- December 29, 2007 » Open Source
The concept is meant to be Free as in speech, not free as in beer - although most projects account for both. This means that you have the right to modify and redistribute packages with certain license obligations(such as keeping the open source license when redistributing).
- November 30, 2007 » Walking Bots and Investment in power
The Landwalker
- November 26, 2007 » GA Simulation now supports IE
- November 25, 2007 » Genetic Algorithm Simulation
- November 20, 2007 » DARPA Urban Challenge
- October 14, 2007 » Pino
- October 9, 2007 » Amazing giant robot arm to be scrapped
- September 8, 2007 » Engadget Underwater ROV Kit
- August 26, 2007 » Robot searches for trapped miners
- July 21, 2007 » Lego Mechanical Gear Multiplexer
- July 21, 2007 » The NXT-A-Sketch
- April 14, 2007 » Robot Locomotion
- April 9, 2007 » Interesting rodent behaviour
- April 8, 2007 » NXT - Building the Arm
- April 8, 2007 » Lego NXT Photo gallery
- March 21, 2007 » A Grand Challenge comes to the UK!
- March 17, 2007 » Byte
- March 17, 2007 » Degrees Of Freedom
- March 9, 2007 » Small robots to be used for medical procedures
- March 3, 2007 » Tri Star Wheels
- February 20, 2007 » Are manned air fighters soon to be obsolete?
- February 4, 2007 » Robot Tools
- January 28, 2007 » DC Motor
- January 28, 2007 » Lego CyberMaster
- January 28, 2007 » Cog
- January 28, 2007 » Bleex
- January 28, 2007 » The Honda Asimo robot
- January 28, 2007 » soldering
- January 28, 2007 » Mark Tilden
- January 28, 2007 » Salvage Tips
- January 28, 2007 » Identifying Electronic Components
- January 28, 2007 » Electronic Valves
- January 28, 2007 » Electronic Relay
- January 28, 2007 » Stepper Motors
- January 28, 2007 » Universal Serial Bus
- January 28, 2007 » SMT - Surface Mount Technology
- January 27, 2007 » Interesting Register Article - Will Robots Ever Be Like Humans?
- January 26, 2007 » Prosopagnosia
- January 23, 2007 » Lego Mindstorms NXT - The Ultrasonic Sensor Tutorial
- January 18, 2007 » Lego mindstorms NXT - Extending Tribot with a grabber
- January 13, 2007 » Getting Stuck into the Lego Mindstorms NXT
- January 10, 2007 » OSX, NXT, BlueTooth and Ruby - A match made in byte heaven?
- January 10, 2007 » OrionRobots gets our first NXT
- January 7, 2007 » Lego Assembly Line Machine
- January 4, 2007 » Welcome to 2007 and Robotic Lego lathe Plans
- January 3, 2007 » FIRST Robotic Competition
- January 3, 2007 » Lego Technic Four Jaw Chuck
- January 1, 2007 » CMU - Carnegie Mellon University
- January 1, 2007 » Smalltalk programming language
- January 1, 2007 » C Language
2006
- December 30, 2006 » roomba
The Roomba is a disk shaped robotic vacuum cleaner or “Robotic Floorvac”, designed by iRobot and released in 2002. It has also become a robot development platform for some.
- December 15, 2006 » Lego machines group on YouTube
I recently came across a Lego Machines group on YouTube, which has a number of excellent creations with moving parts and all kinds of functions.
- December 12, 2006 » More Rubiks cube
I have stumbled upon more Rubiks cube solving robot footage on YouTube, and thought it work sharing.
- December 12, 2006 » The Sony Aibo
- December 12, 2006 » Robot Wars
- December 12, 2006 » Infra Red
- December 12, 2006 » sonar
- December 12, 2006 » LDraw System
- December 12, 2006 » General Lego Tips
- December 10, 2006 » Rubot II
- December 3, 2006 » Servicing The Lego Mindstorms RCX 1.0
- September 15, 2006 » Budget Robotics
- September 12, 2006 » Lego Clone Brand
- September 5, 2006 » OrionRobots
- September 1, 2006 » Airfix model company in troubled waters
- August 31, 2006 » The Pico Cricket - Education Robotics Controller
- August 24, 2006 » Peeron
- August 24, 2006 » Bricklink
- August 24, 2006 » Lugnet
- August 23, 2006 » RS232
- August 23, 2006 » PDA Suitable for use with Phidgets
- August 22, 2006 » compile
- August 17, 2006 » Sounds great on the NXT
- August 16, 2006 » IDETool
- July 30, 2006 » VEX based aerial photographs
- July 25, 2006 » Science Museum Fuel cell car toy with potential for robot building
- July 23, 2006 » The NXT has been opened up
- July 22, 2006 » firmware
- July 22, 2006 » MicroProcessor
- July 22, 2006 » MRAM Now Viable
- July 12, 2006 » Interfacing an LED to an RCX Port
- July 10, 2006 » odometry
- July 10, 2006 » Building A Battle Robot
- July 9, 2006 » Pneumatic
- July 9, 2006 » FischerTechnik
- July 9, 2006 » Pneumatic Engine Repost
- July 9, 2006 » telepresence
- July 9, 2006 » Lugnet NXT Newsgroup established
- July 9, 2006 » Ants found to use odometry
- July 9, 2006 » RCX Switches can be used as analogue actuators
- July 8, 2006 » Would you sell your creations if there was no choice?
- July 3, 2006 » Speech Processing
- June 30, 2006 » Multitasking in Robots
- June 30, 2006 » NXT's have started shipping and arriving
- June 28, 2006 » OCR - Optical Character Recognition
- June 28, 2006 » CCD
- June 28, 2006 » Text Reading for the Blind
- June 28, 2006 » 2nd International LEGO MINDSTORMS Competition
- June 23, 2006 » Microsoft Robotics Studio cool, but not quite there yet
- June 18, 2006 » Beta C Programming Solution for NXT Announced
- June 17, 2006 » Mecha
- June 13, 2006 » MegaBloks
- June 13, 2006 » Construction Toys Useful For Robotics
- June 13, 2006 » Brickfest 2006 Just Around the corner
- May 30, 2006 » API - Application Programming Interface
- May 30, 2006 » Lejos
- May 30, 2006 » BrickOS
- May 28, 2006 » Engadget on current OLED Advances
- May 27, 2006 » DorkbotLondon Camping Event Dates and Venue Announced
- May 26, 2006 » Adder Subtractor Drive
- May 21, 2006 » Building an External Power Supply for the NXT
- May 11, 2006 » BrickShelf
- May 11, 2006 » A New Great Ball Contraption website
- May 11, 2006 » Vex to be acquired by original creator
- May 10, 2006 » LEGO Factory
- May 10, 2006 » Dorkbot London Summer Camp - aka DorkCamp Proposed
- April 23, 2006 » George Boole
- April 23, 2006 » NOT Gate
- April 23, 2006 » XOR Logic Gate
- April 23, 2006 » NAND Gate
- April 23, 2006 » OR Gate
- April 19, 2006 » Binary
- April 19, 2006 » IO- Input and Output
- April 11, 2006 » logic gate
- April 8, 2006 » Amazing Robot video
- March 31, 2006 » Comparing the NXT Educational with the NXT retail packs
- March 25, 2006 » Make Blog - Cutting a phone holder with a water Jet
- March 24, 2006 » Vexed with the Radio Shack VEX kits
- March 21, 2006 » MicroController
- March 21, 2006 » MEGAbitty microcontroller
- March 20, 2006 » Micromouse contest at APEC 2006
- March 16, 2006 » More NXT Obsession
- March 14, 2006 » The Mindstorms Developer Panel (MDP)
- March 6, 2006 » animatronic
- March 6, 2006 » I2C
- March 6, 2006 » Steven King Animatronics prop on Ebay
- March 4, 2006 » p1010017_2.jpg
- March 4, 2006 » p1010016_2.jpg
- March 4, 2006 » p1010011_2.jpg
- March 4, 2006 » p1010010_2.jpg
- March 4, 2006 » p1010009_2.jpg
- March 4, 2006 » p1010007_2.jpg
- March 4, 2006 » p1010006_1.jpg
- March 4, 2006 » p1010005_1.jpg
- March 4, 2006 » Lego Great Ball Contraption Stirrer Basket
- March 3, 2006 » FLL - First lego League
- March 3, 2006 » Lego announces MPD selection process complete
- March 3, 2006 » Lego announce US educational prices for range of NXT products
- February 24, 2006 » RIS - Robotic Invention System
- February 19, 2006 » Wired January 2006 - 50 Best Robots Ever
- February 17, 2006 » Who would have thought you could use mould in a robot?
- February 16, 2006 » Wave Goodbye to The Sony Robots
- February 13, 2006 » WR-07 A real transformer
- February 11, 2006 » Happy New Year (2006)!
- February 10, 2006 » OpenGL
- February 10, 2006 » LeoCad
- January 30, 2006 » Gung Hei Fat Choi and Lego NXT developments!
- January 16, 2006 » BEAM Robots
- January 15, 2006 » Robo Cup
- January 15, 2006 » exoskeleton
- January 15, 2006 » Cyborg
- January 15, 2006 » Leonardo Da Vincis Robot
- January 15, 2006 » PLD - Programmable Logic Devices
- January 11, 2006 » More NXT Information
- January 6, 2006 » AFOL - Adult Fan Of Lego
- January 6, 2006 » Lego unveils the next generation Mindstorms system
- January 4, 2006 » OOPic
- January 1, 2006 » Charmed Labs XPort 2
2005
- December 19, 2005 » About Danny Staple, AKA Orionr
I am Danny Staple, otherwise known as Orion.
- December 10, 2005 » Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence is a very broad description. It applies to anything from simple bots with some autonomy, to fully learning growing systems.
- December 10, 2005 » Interesting discoveries
Facial Recognition and Prosopagnosia
- December 8, 2005 » A supercap used as a 9v rechargeable battery
- December 3, 2005 » Tokyo International Robot Exhibition 2005
- December 2, 2005 » Diode
- December 1, 2005 » Horse And Rider
- November 30, 2005 » Headbots
- October 12, 2005 » Impeller
- October 11, 2005 » Pino Toy
- October 11, 2005 » Modular Robot Design
- October 11, 2005 » Leonardo Zide
- October 11, 2005 » Hydraulic
- October 9, 2005 » Double Acting Cylinder
- October 9, 2005 » Single Acting Cylinder
- October 8, 2005 » DARPA Grand Challenge
- October 8, 2005 » More info on the Darpa Grand Challenge Result
- October 8, 2005 » Darpa Grand Challenge - And its all over
- October 8, 2005 » Genetic
- October 8, 2005 » Darpa Grand Challenge - they're all set
- October 6, 2005 » Mr Psycho
- October 6, 2005 » Qrio
- October 6, 2005 » FPGA
- October 6, 2005 » Deferred design
- October 6, 2005 » End Effectors
- October 6, 2005 » Electric Vehicles
- October 6, 2005 » Robot Design
- October 6, 2005 » DARPA
- October 6, 2005 » Robolab
- October 6, 2005 » Lego DACTA
- October 6, 2005 » Android
- October 6, 2005 » Cluster Bots
- October 6, 2005 » Knee deep in Electronics and building
- October 5, 2005 » Capacitor
- October 5, 2005 » AC - Alternating Current
- October 5, 2005 » Eliza
- October 5, 2005 » Anode
- October 5, 2005 » Sony
- October 3, 2005 » Using The RCX With Stepper Motors
- October 3, 2005 » Microcontroller Registers
- September 15, 2005 » Part Reuse
- September 11, 2005 » Sumpthing
- September 11, 2005 » Scrapheap Challenge
- September 10, 2005 » Resistor
- September 10, 2005 » LED - light Emitting Diode
- September 10, 2005 » Diode Bridge
- September 9, 2005 » AND Gate
- September 1, 2005 » Semiconductor
- September 1, 2005 » Transistor
- August 31, 2005 » Feedback
- August 31, 2005 » Cybernetics
- August 28, 2005 » Lego Solar Panel
- August 28, 2005 » Palm Computer
- August 28, 2005 » Pocket PC
- August 28, 2005 » MLCad
- August 27, 2005 » Science Fiction
- August 27, 2005 » RCX MainBoard
- August 25, 2005 » Bluetooth
- August 25, 2005 » James Jessiman
- August 25, 2005 » Chaos2
- August 25, 2005 » PWM - Pulse Width Modulation
- August 25, 2005 » Building A Game Scoreboard
- August 23, 2005 » MultiMeter
- August 22, 2005 » Retrieving Dropped Screws
- August 20, 2005 » Damaged Screw Head
- August 18, 2005 » The Lady Ada
- August 18, 2005 » Charles Babbage
- August 11, 2005 » CAD - Computer Aided Design
- August 5, 2005 » Corporate Robot Projects
- August 5, 2005 » Announcements | One Million Views
- August 5, 2005 » Announcements
- August 3, 2005 » Servo Motor
- August 3, 2005 » Pistons
- August 3, 2005 » Idea for an ooPIC based line follower robot
- August 2, 2005 » Teddie Ruxpin
- August 2, 2005 » Robotic Gadgets And Toys
- July 29, 2005 » Internal Combustion Engine
- July 29, 2005 » MIT
- July 29, 2005 » Holding School Robot Battle Events
- July 29, 2005 » Repliee Q1 - A replicant from Japan
- July 28, 2005 » Cathode
- July 22, 2005 » Images from DorkBotLondon
- July 22, 2005 » DorkBotLondon, New Survey
- July 22, 2005 » DorkBot London 2005
- July 14, 2005 » LCD
- July 14, 2005 » Null-Modem
- July 14, 2005 » Personal Data Assistant
- July 6, 2005 » SIL - Single Inline
- July 1, 2005 » Power Sources
- July 1, 2005 » Recycling Batteries
- June 29, 2005 » Lego Robots
- June 29, 2005 » EEPROM
- June 29, 2005 » PROM - Programmable Read Ony Memory
- June 29, 2005 » EPROM
- June 29, 2005 » PC104
- June 29, 2005 » UV - Ultra violet
- June 24, 2005 » Lego Specifications
- June 6, 2005 » More on the signal generator
- June 5, 2005 » Building an amplified signal generator
- May 30, 2005 » Freeforming a Rectifier Bridge
- May 29, 2005 » Propeller
- May 29, 2005 » ROBOlympics
- May 29, 2005 » Helical
- May 28, 2005 » Infra Red Analyser
- May 28, 2005 » Robot Wars - Firestorm
- May 28, 2005 » PIC
- May 28, 2005 » Integrated Circuit
- May 28, 2005 » Dual In Line
- May 28, 2005 » LAN - Local Area Network
- May 28, 2005 » WiFi
- May 28, 2005 » Wireless
- May 28, 2005 » RC - Remote Control
- May 25, 2005 » Rotundus Ground Bot
- May 25, 2005 » RCX Code
- May 25, 2005 » OS - Operating System
- May 4, 2005 » Variable Resistor
- May 4, 2005 » Pneumatic Lego Gripper
- May 2, 2005 » Some robots from the club
- April 20, 2005 » Mindstorms Stormrunner
- April 10, 2005 » Ball contraption Stirrer Basket
- April 10, 2005 » A Bionacle CD Holder
- April 6, 2005 » Round up of the Challenge on Saturday the 2nd April 2005
- April 1, 2005 » LSynth
- April 1, 2005 » Genetic Algorithm
- April 1, 2005 » Legs
- April 1, 2005 » Last Meeting in East Finchley
- March 21, 2005 » Meeting Log, and movies
- March 21, 2005 » Reviewing Disney's Robots Movie
- March 18, 2005 » Dyson Robot Vacuum
- March 17, 2005 » Hitachi
- March 17, 2005 » This weeks meeting
- March 17, 2005 » New faster wheeled robot from Hitachi
- March 16, 2005 » Parallel Port
- March 16, 2005 » AI - Artificial Intelligence
- March 13, 2005 » Flash Memory
- March 13, 2005 » RAM - Random Access Memory
- March 13, 2005 » bit - Binary Digit
- March 13, 2005 » DAC - Digital to Analog Converter
- March 13, 2005 » ROM - Read Only Memory
- March 13, 2005 » SSC - Serial Servo Controller
- March 4, 2005 » Differential Gear
- March 1, 2005 » Robot Wars - DeadMetal
- March 1, 2005 » Robot Wars - Matilda
- March 1, 2005 » Lego Capacitor
- March 1, 2005 » Sir Killalot
- February 25, 2005 » Furby
- February 25, 2005 » PPRK - Palm Pilot Robot Kit
- February 25, 2005 » Mike and Jarvis - Ukulele Playing Robot
- February 24, 2005 » Robotic
- February 24, 2005 » Real Robots Magazine
- February 23, 2005 » Robots in the news:Spam Filters may hold the key to Aids
- February 23, 2005 » East Finchley Group Stopping, Plans for next sessions, and more on Ball Contraption
- February 14, 2005 » Skid Steering
- February 8, 2005 » Making a Pancake Flipping Robot
- February 4, 2005 » Tennis Robots
- February 4, 2005 » Sports Robots
- February 1, 2005 » Security Robots
- January 31, 2005 » Leonardo Da Vincis Tank
- January 27, 2005 » DK Ultimate Robot Kit
- January 27, 2005 » Free-forming, Ball Contraptions and CAD Software
- January 26, 2005 » Professor Kevin Warwick
- January 25, 2005 » FreeForm
- January 25, 2005 » Diode Bridge And Signal Generator Experiments
- January 18, 2005 » Lego Pneumatic Specifications
- January 17, 2005 » Nano Technology
- January 14, 2005 » P-Brick - Programmable Lego Brick
- January 14, 2005 » Happy New Year all!
- January 12, 2005 » UAV - Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
- January 10, 2005 » Rodney Brooks
- January 10, 2005 » Kismet
- January 10, 2005 » Genghis - iRobot
- January 10, 2005 » William Grey Walter
- January 3, 2005 » Battle Robot Weapons
- January 2, 2005 » Hypno-Disc
2004
- December 31, 2004 » RoboBrix
RoboBrix were modular robot building components - with Wheel Bases, Grippers, Servos, MicroControllers, amd Sensors. In addition - they are mechanically compatible with the Lego system.
- December 20, 2004 » Converting AC To DC
AC (alternating current) can be converted to DC (direct current) by using what is known as a rectifier. WARNING - do not ever attempt to convert mains power - buy a safe and suitable adaptor if this is needed!!
- December 17, 2004 » Leonardo Da Vincis Submarine
Leonardo Da Vinci was known to have designed a SubMarine.
- December 3, 2004 » AGV - Automated Guided Vehicle
- December 1, 2004 » Solenoid
- November 30, 2004 » Using An Old PC To Flash Roms
- November 30, 2004 » Holonomic Drive
- November 30, 2004 » Honda
- November 30, 2004 » Building An Experimenting Parallel Cable
- November 20, 2004 » Parallel Data Stream
- November 20, 2004 » Serial Data Stream
- November 19, 2004 » Python
- November 16, 2004 » Creating Custom Sensors For The Lego RCX
- November 16, 2004 » The Three Laws Of Robotics
- November 16, 2004 » Cardbot Challenge Details
- November 16, 2004 » Centronics Parallel Port
- November 16, 2004 » CAM
- November 16, 2004 » CNC
- November 16, 2004 » Fuel Cell
- November 16, 2004 » Direct Current
- November 16, 2004 » Generating AC From DC
- November 16, 2004 » Gruschtelling
- November 16, 2004 » Hot Pluggable
- November 16, 2004 » The Cybot Infra Red Protocol
- November 15, 2004 » Lego Vision Command
- November 15, 2004 » Lego Technic
- November 15, 2004 » MicroSwitches
- November 15, 2004 » BattleBot
- November 15, 2004 » Object Oriented Programming
- November 15, 2004 » Pro Engineer
- November 15, 2004 » Medical Bots
- November 15, 2004 » Robotic Traffic Cones
- November 15, 2004 » Repair Bots
- November 14, 2004 » SubMarine
- November 14, 2004 » ROV
- November 14, 2004 » Autonomous
- November 14, 2004 » Motor
- November 14, 2004 » Solar Panel
- November 14, 2004 » Torque
- November 14, 2004 » Helical Gears
- November 14, 2004 » Component Storage
- November 14, 2004 » Boolean
- November 14, 2004 » Cybot
- November 14, 2004 » Unnamed Trumpet Player
- November 14, 2004 » Thomas Edison
- November 14, 2004 » Techno Games
- November 14, 2004 » Sgt Bash
- November 14, 2004 » Roboteers
- November 14, 2004 » megabyte robot dog
- November 14, 2004 » i Cybie Robot Dog
- November 14, 2004 » Fixing a Broken Wire
- November 14, 2004 » Apache Server Monitor With Python And Led
- November 5, 2004 » Simple Parallel Port LED
- September 25, 2004 » East Finchley Robotics Club - Twin motor with steering challenge
2002
- August 4, 2002 » Lego Hexapod Design Mk1