model – Marginally Clever Robots

Tutorials

Robot Overlord: How to load an STL file

2016-08-04 Dan

Thanks for the suggestions, @QuasarAlpha!

Robot Overlord is a program to simulate real robots. It can also steer them. The goal is eventually to make a VR training simulator for robots. After starting the app, select World > Add object

Instead of one of the available robots, choose Model.

A placeholder appears at the origin. The model container is selected. clicking in the blank space next to Filename in the context-sensitive menu gives you a file choose dialog. Locate your STL file and click Open. The placeholder will be replaced with your STL model.

In this case the file is quite large, probably to the wrong scale. In a future update some intrepid young coder is going to add context sensitive dialogs to adjust the scale of a model. By double clicking anywhere on the background in 3D you can unselect the model and get back to camera controls. You can also double click on a model to re-select it.

Art

KUKA KR180 from Thingiverse, fixed

2012-12-13 Dan

I’m slugging my way through the end of a project and I needed something to take my mind off it for a bit so I found my first vanity 3D print – a KUKA KR180 robot arm. This scale model is fully articulated. I used an M3 screw with the head cut off to hold the wrist onto the elbow without sacrificing movement. You can get all the files on thingiverse but I found I needed to fix a number of broken meshes. To save you time, here are all the files for KUKA KR180 including the fixes. A couple more M3s will hold the rest of the parts together and I used some hot glue to hold the two halves of the humerus together. I really find this model inspiring, I hope one day soon to build my own.