The answer? Because after about 15 minutes they're not nearly as good. That minor hiccup aside, the YouTubers at Astonishing Studios have created this to celebrate the glorious food-like item that is the chicken nugget. Built and automated entirely b...
A few years ago we checked out a motion-controlled robot. LEGO designer Daniele Benedettelli also came up with a motion control setup for his Cyclops robot, but instead of using a motion sensor he made a exoskeleton made of LEGO that tracks his movement and relays it to the robot.
Daniele’s current exosuit detects only his arms, which in turn means he can control only the robot’s arms. That said, his setup is accurate and has minimal lag.
I hope Daniele can make the exosuit’s lower half as well. Then all he’d need to do is learn the techniques of Jigen Haoh-Ryu, and he and Cyclops will be unbeatable.
We’ve seen how superhero-themedchildren’sprosthetics can benefit their wearers beyond just giving them a functioning limb. Industrial Design student Carlos Arturo Torres also recognized that artificial limbs can turn a disability into an opportunity for children to play, learn and gain confidence, so he partnered with CIREC and LEGO to create Iko.
Iko is a modular prosthetic arm that’s made partly with LEGO and LEGO Mindstorms parts, allowing the wearer to have fun modifying his or her limb. As you can see the kid above has become part Devastator thanks to a backhoe arm. Mindstorms controllers are used to manipulate Iko’s attachments, but it also has a basic four-fingered hand that the wearer controls by moving the muscles in their upper arm.
Carlos hopes he can turn Iko into a commercially available product. If he succeeds, he wants to partner not just with LEGO but with other kid-friendly entertainment companies as well such as Marvel and Nintendo. Check out Core77’s Design Awards for more on Iko.
Earlier this year, we checked out a primitive LEGO 3D printer that used melted glue as its ink. MOCer Jason aka JK Brickworks has also been working on a specialized LEGO 3D printer. His Bricasso turns pixelated drawings into LEGO mosaics.
The Bricasso uses a Mindstorms EV3 color sensor to analyze illustrations. Jason originally hoped to convert any drawing into a pixel mosaic, but because of the color sensor’s limited precision he had to settle for a setup that required pre-formatted and pixelated illustrations.
After the printer has analyzed an illustration, it will then replicate it by picking and placing 1×1 plates over a baseplate. The 1×1 plates are stored in gravity feeds that can hold a total of 450 plates. There are nine separate feeds, which means Bricasso can print in up to nine colors, or 10 if you count the baseplate’s color.
Jason also uploaded videos of his Bricasso prototypes:
I wonder if it’s possible to incorporate a 3D scanner into Bricasso and have it replicate objects with LEGO. Imagine that – a LEGO enthusiast made of LEGO.
If you build it, he will come – and then build a LEGO version of it. So goes the quote from the classic non-existent drama Brick of Dreams. Today that “he” is Instructables member W1ll14m. The alphanumeric boy wonder recently shared his progress on a 3D printer made of LEGO Technic and Mindstorms EV3 pieces.
Even if he’s already on his second version of his MOC, W1ll14m knows that it isn’t a practical 3D printer. It uses a glue gun and hot glue instead of an extruder and filament, and I’m pretty sure the Mindstorms EV3 program can’t process 3D files on its own. That said, W1ll14m wants to improve on his design. Besides, I’m sure he’s had a lot of fun making his own 3D printer.
Extrude to W1ll14m’s Instructables page to find out how he built the 3D printer.
LEGO enthusiast Diavo Voltaggio won the Best Mindstorms award at this year’s BrickFair Virginia for his sweet robotic hand and arm. Powered by the Mindstorms EV3, it has four buttons – one for each finger – right where Diavo’s hand rests for easy operation. It also has several LEDs and a cradle for his smartphone.
This is the toy’s sixth version and according to Diavo is one of the sturdiest yet. Most of the arm parts are actually there for support; Davio said that his earlier models were flimsy or wobbled in places. It just so happened that the braces and other support structures make the arm look even more menacing. Here’s Beyond the Brick’s interview with Diavo at BrickFair:
Be LEGO Man Diavo! Complete your transformation! You can check out some of the previous versions of Diavo’s robot hand and arm on his YouTube page.
ABB Robotics is one of the leading industrial robot suppliers in the world. The company is concerned that the current workforce don’t have the necessary skills needed for the “robotics and tech heavy world of the future.” In an effort to inspire kids to be more interested in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), ABB Robotics reached out to LEGO builders Brickit.dk. This is the result:
ABB Robotics originally wanted a LEGO static scale model of the IRB 120, one of its small industrial robots. But Brickit.dk’s Kenneth Madsen and Lasse Lauesen told the company that they could actually make the scale model move and work a bit like the IRB 120. After a total of eight months, that’s exactly what they had: a nearly life-size replica with six-axis movement and wireless remote control.
If their past projects are any indication, there’s a good chance that Kenneth and Lasse will share the details of their IRB 120 replica on their website, so keep an eye on Brickit.dk if you want to know more about this mechanical marvel.
YouTuber Hknssn loves to create whimsical industrial robots using LEGO Mindstorms, like the paper airplane maker that we saw last year. His latest creation is a robot that makes towers by stacking prebuilt modules. This will inevitably lead to the Mindstorms speaking in different programming languages.
Hknssn arranged it so the part of the robot that receives and stacks the modules can ride up the tower despite the ever-increasing distance between the base level and the top of the tower.
According to Hknssn’s calculations – assuming there were enough modules – the top of the robot’s tower will reach space in 7,432 years. His next project should be a cryostasis machine.
YouTuber Hknssn loves to create whimsical industrial robots using LEGO Mindstorms, like the paper airplane maker that we saw last year. His latest creation is a robot that makes towers by stacking prebuilt modules. This will inevitably lead to the Mindstorms speaking in different programming languages.
Hknssn arranged it so the part of the robot that receives and stacks the modules can ride up the tower despite the ever-increasing distance between the base level and the top of the tower.
According to Hknssn’s calculations – assuming there were enough modules – the top of the robot’s tower will reach space in 7,432 years. His next project should be a cryostasis machine.
Last year we featured Dexter Industries’ Bookreader, a device mostly made of LEGO and a Raspberry Pi that can read text from a Nexus 7 tablet. It seems like the contraption was a hit, but people kept telling the company to make one that can read actual books on its own. So Dexter Industries made the Bookreader 2.
The Bookreader 2 reads just like its predecessor. A Raspberry Pi Camera capture an image of the page to be read. An OCR program extracts text out of the image. Finally a text-to-speech program reads the extracted text aloud in an impatient and cold tone. In case you need a reminder of how it sounds, here’s the Bookreader at work:
What made the Bookreader 2 challenging is that it had to turn a book’s pages as well. The engineering and the math behind that seemingly simple task are more complicated compared to aiming an arm to push a tablet’s screen. To accomplish this, Dexter Industries used two EV3 Mindstorms motors. One motor powers a wheel to lift a page, and the other motor rotates an arm 360º to turn the page. Check out Dexter Industries’ guide to see how you can build your own Bookreader 2.
The answer? Because after about 15 minutes they're not nearly as good. That minor hiccup aside, the YouTubers at Astonishing Studios have created this to celebrate the glorious food-like item that is the chicken nugget. Built and automated entirely b...
