Betascape was this previous weekend and Harford Hackerspace was on hand with robots, lightning bug jars, and general awesomeness. We setup early Saturday morning between Baltimore Node and the First Lego League representatives. The day was spent forging various cardboard blades with crayons and stickers with various children blacksmiths quietly honing their craft. All in all we gave away approximately 50 swords to young lads and lasses who,  no doubt, brought these mighty cardboard weapons to bear against a variety of fiends.

The previously mentioned Baltimore Node was there demonstrating various projects such as air powered rockets and some sort of power tool drag racing. Set up across from us was The Digital Media Center from Johns Hopkins  demonstrating cloth circuitry and teaching others about cloth circuits. The National Electronics Museum was setup in the back with some kind of robot (which I did not see). Various other people included a company demonstrating a 3D picture taking technology, Bryan Dolge with a makerbot, as well of a bunch of gamemakers in the game making section.

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We are currently in the process of revising our CNC design since the Y/Z axis was eating its rails over time due to slight alignment issues.  We decided to upgrade the bearings in general to avoid the problem in the future.  The x-axis seems to be working fine, so we are going to leave it alone for now.   The revision includes CNC cut pieces instead of hand cut pieces (using table saws and drill presses).   We also did a major upgrade to the bearings and went with ACME-type lead screws to minimize backlash and improve accuracy.  We updated the stepper couplings to the lead screws to make future maintenance easier.  The redesign is expected to be complete within the month.

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Me and my wife recently had our first child.  I’ve been trying to come up with some projects I can do for the kid.  Well, around this time of the year the fireflies go crazy around my house, so we came up with the idea to do led fireflies in a jar.  It should be something cool for him to stare at and is easy to build.

Schematics, C source code and hex file are available here on our wiki.  If you want to build one it should only take about an hour.

I’m planning on making a version 2 with some changes, stay tuned for that one.

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Look what the postman brought us today!  Not sure what we’re going to do with it yet, but it could have a cameo in an upcoming project…  If you’re not familiar with Sugru, check it out here.

Robot Fest 2010 has come and gone. Some of the many interesting exhibits this year included the pneumatic rocket experience provided by the Baltimore Node, the many Lego Mindstorms projects, Maker Bot demonstrations, various art demonstrations, and a fashion show.

Make coverage and more pics here.

We’d like to thank everyone that stopped by our exhibit to view the Oobleck demonstration, PIC micro-controller LED arrays, the hand-powered Arduino random movie quote generator, build some cardboard robots, or just hang out and talk electronics. We had a great time and we hope to see everyone next year. Our next event will be at ArtScape in Baltimore. In the meantime, feel free to come by and do some hacking on one of our open hack nights.

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Wednesday was the day we finally got together and started the tedious process of mastering microcontrollers.  What began with just some simple LED illumination evolved and progressed throughout the evening.  In the end we had individually, but collectively, written programs for interpreting analog inputs, displaying binary values, and performing counting and reset operations.  The evening was pretty fulfilling for some less experienced members and refreshing for the remainder.  Another microcontroller experiementation session is being planned for the near future.

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This video is in response to the one posted here, where a Mr. Riley Porter moves a 35 pound dumbbell with his CNC.  We decided to try to trump his CNC’s weight-moving ability by pushing our machine to lift and move first 45, then 55 and finally 65 pounds!  We wanted to continue with the weight increases, but did not have a safe way to attach more weight to the Z-axis assembly.  Our CNC build is turning out to be quite the beast.  Now all it needs is a catchy name…

The CNC machine’s construction has advanced to the point where we can begin to cut items.  Being a bunch of teenagers trapped in adult bodies, someone decided that we should cut a throwing star from sheet aluminum.  One copy of CamBam and 6 minutes later and the star was ready to be cut!  After a few adjustments and a bit snapped in half from being dragged through the metal too fast, the cutting was underway.  The star took about 10 minutes to cut and was an excellent first attempt at metal production.  The next step is to use the CNC to cut more precise parts for itself and help bring about the Robot Armageddon.   Special thanks to our newest sponsor, CamBam, for supplying us with a free copy of their most excellent software.  Note: The soundtrack to this video may change at any time as we are experimenting with YouTube’s AudioSwap feature.

Very quick video documenting our Robonova’s first steps, warts and all…  A bit rough since he has yet to be properly calibrated or balanced and his battery pack is still hanging off of his back.

HaHa member bsom acquired a Robonova-1 bi-ped robot kit for his day job and brought it to the space for us to assemble, configure and generally play with.  So far, the robot is about 85% done, requiring its wires to be properly tucked and its motors to be centered.  Then we can dig in and learn some hardcore RoboBasic.   Videos of the finished bot will be posted once he is up and running.

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