Uncategorized
Maker tip: five golden rules for laser cutting
When setting up parts for laser cutting, I’ve developed a few golden rules. Part labels is only the newest. (more…)
Uncategorized
How to Add Your Own Style to the Makelangelo
This post is about how to modify the open source code for the Makelangelo and bend it to your will. I hope to teach you how to create new styles of drawing for the Makelangelo so that you can make it more artsy or more funny or … well, whatever you want to do with it, right? Right.
Warning! This post… this post is for the ambitious among you. It’s not easy, but like they say: nothing worth doing is easy. (more…)
News Tutorials
Maker Tip: Labels on all your Custom Pieces
I’m a big fan of Kaizen, the process of continual refinement. Opportunity is everywhere if you’re looking for it. Sometimes it’s obvious like “hey man, I think you should put a link to X on page Y of your tutorial!” …Ok! Sometimes it’s more subtle, like when a customer on the phone tries to describe a part for which they have no name.
On the good suggestion of Sarah Petkus of RobotArmy I’ve started putting part numbers right on all my laser cut pieces. Now I realize it was a hole in my inventory control system. I had a separate inventory number for every item in the store, but the laser cut parts were clumped together as “laser cut parts for kit X”. Now that I have separate part numbers I can… (more…)
Miscellaneous
How to code the Inverse Kinematics for a SpiderCam or SkyCam
Büşra wrote in through the live chat to ask “I’m a student of Mechatronical Engineering in Kocaeli University, in Turkey. My senior project is ‘Skycam’. I’ve been trying to find this equations for a few months but I couldn’t reach any result. Can you help?”
Yes! Yes.
News
Yale’s Open Hand Project
If you know me, you know I’ve been obsessed with robot arms for a long time. People ask me “what will you put for a hand?” and I used to say “Who cares? It could be any tool you like.” Well, now I have a better answer.
Yale’s Open Hand Project aims to make an open source robot hand that anyone can download and build. It even comes with adapters for several popular robots already on the market.
I think my favorite part is their Hybrid Deposition Manufacturing (HDM) technique: The finger bones come out of the printer with built in pockets into which you pour a urethane solution. When the urethane hardens to a rubber consistency, the pockets break open and you’re left with a 2-material, super flexible shape. Genius!
