Tuesday, February 12th, 2013

Our 3D Printer is here! We went with the Makerbot Replicator 1, check it out with the RoboBrrds!

It was really exciting to make it print things! A huge THANK YOU to all the RoboBrrd Indiegogo backers for helping make this happen!

For the first five days, we took lots of video footage of it. These videos are kind of vlogging / long winded style (heads up). Let’s check it out!

The first RoboBrrd Body 3D print was interesting. The first try failed after having the extruder not extruding anything. The second try was better.

Here it is with the bottom face done, and starting the wing frame with an infill:

The beak frames used supports, and it ended up being quite strong:

However, a cracking issue became evident as more was builded on to it:

The cascade of extruded filament happened because one of the supports flaked off. It didn’t end up effecting it in the end, because the fillets were gradual enough.

The lift on this corner kept getting worse and worse…

Here it is, done, but not a very good result:

Using a level (or a level app), the lift on that corner was quite crazy:

The cracking was so bad you could bend the back face over:

At least the fillets came out really nice:

Worked really hard on the fillets!

It came out as a big failure for a first try. The print time was 7h 36m. It was spread out over a few days, and I had to do some cold pauses. There are definitely many ways to increase the speed of the print that I’ll experiment with later on.

As for the quality, there are two main issues:
- Temperature inside of the bot
- Levelling of the build plate

Lots of people were kind enough to give me some hints and advice on how to fix this problem (thanks CtC, Kris, et al on Twitter!). One of the ways is to insulate it or cover it up, like @drandolph has with his hood enclosure.

There is also a nice video by Jamie describing how he fixed the same issue, check it out here.

So we set out to insulate the machine better! Here is one of the sides. The opening is covered using white foam material.

Also note the amount of electrical tape used. We covered up all the tabs and screw areas. It looks like a hodge-podge of cardboard, foam, and tape. Definitely deserving of the name: THE RED^GREEN MACHINE! (Instead of duct-tape, think electrical tape!)

“If you don’t find your 3D printer handsome, you can at least find it handy.”

Tried out a 50m print of the MAKE robot:

The print came out nice, the raft stuck well to the build plate. It was nice and warm inside of the bot, and the side panels (with the foam), were also heating up. After the print finished, it took a while for the build plate to reach back to 23C. We haven’t measured any timing or temperature inside of the bot quantitatively yet, but working on getting a TMP36 in there tomorrow.

It’s going to be interesting to try out some taller prints and see what will happen. Really excited to start making some more robots as well

Tuesday, January 29th, 2013

Over the holidays I spent some of my braincation learning more about Blender. The part that I’m most interested in is making things textured, so that they feel really cool. Autodesk Inventor is good for dimensional models, but not so much the artistic detail side.

Here’s the first attempt at making something, it’s a dinosaur head!

It’s on Thingiverse too, check it out.

One of the tricky parts that I was trying to figure out was how many polys would be necessary to create a nice model?

Here are many polys:

Here are not so many polys:

@drandolph was able to take the model and spruce it up a bit, like make it have a flat bottom to be printed, and also lower the poly count. He printed it on his awesome modified Replicator.

I didn’t know he was going to print it that big, the dinosaur head is giant! Can you imagine that sitting on a shelf somewhere? Pretty funny!

I’m not sure how long it took for him to print it, but thanks again for printing it David!

Also, @i_bioloid took a look at it too, this is how long it would have taken him to print it.

Playing around in Blender was fun. This time, I wanted to see if I could take a model from Inventor (like the RoboBrrd models), and then sculpt something onto it. The long-term idea here is that I would be able to eventually have sculpted ‘feathers’ on RoboBrrd’s pieces.

Here is the Tiny Box with a Sculpted Tree on it:

Here’s how I made it:
- Used Autodesk Inventor Fusion for the model of the tiny box (with some nice fillets on the edges too)
- Exported it as stl
- Imported stl into Blender
- Rotated the object around so that it is sitting with the flat part on the bottom
- Turned into Edit mode, selected the faces on one of the sides
- Subdivided the faces all the way to 10, then subdivided some more to around 3
- Went into Sculpt mode and sculpted on the tree

It’s a pretty cool way to add some customization to a model. I just really hope that it will turn out well when printed! It is also on Thingiverse, check it out.

Really looking forward to 3D Printing! Ordered a Makerbot Replicator 1 last week thanks to all of the RoboBrrd Indiegogo Backers!

Will get a laser cutter eventually, there would have been some pretty serious problems with ventilation and exhaust if we did get it right now. (If you’re wondering, no: there are no windows, vents, outside facing walls, etc. Yes: it is weird.) There is the option of an air purifier, but then I have to get a smaller laser cutter because it would cost so much. Also, they are out of stock until end of February, which is a really long time.

Might as well get started on something now, otherwise I would be running around in circles. This is the whole beauty of rapid prototyping. Hopefully none of the backers will be too upset. I think the 3D Printer will be good for making robots!

The Indiegogo pressies are nearing complete. There’s still some more things to do, and I don’t want to jinx it with an incomplete post! More news later!

Sunday, December 30th, 2012

Have you seen this book: Make: Lego and Arduino Projects? It’s all about adding in Arduinos to your Lego robot projects! This is really helpful if you find you want to do more with Lego robots, but find the NXT too restrictive.

It’s written by John Baichtal (@johnbaichtal), Matthew Beckler (@mbeckler) & Adam Wolf (@adamwwolf)! I’ve met these people at Maker Faire before, they are really cool. They asked me to write the foreword for their book, what a great honour!

This book goes along with the Bricktronics shield for Arduino. It’s how you can connect the NXT motors and sensors to the Arduino. They sent me one, cause even though I don’t have some Lego anymore, I’ll probably use the L293D for something (can never have enough of those chips eh!)

Here is a closeup of the board, not a lot of empty space and the TIP120′s will be standing up:

Here is the board when it is assembled. When following their kit instructions, the steps aren’t ordered from shortest components to tallest, so you may want to jump around a bit.

Look at this, the plastic connector things make it look like a giant compared to the Arduino / Diavolino!

CONNECTOR THINGS ARE STARING AT YOU!

Back in the day of RCX’s, the ‘connectors’ were much simpler and didn’t cost as much, they were just a few wires attached to a custom Lego brick. It was a lot easier back then to wire up your own lights or whatever.

I’m looking forward to using the L293D in some project at some point in time. As for the rest of the board, perhaps use it as robot artwork or something. Or if I find someone that is in to Arduinos and Legos, give it to them

Thanks again to the authours for the invite to write the Foreword. I hope it will get the readers motivated and ready to build (and read)!

More to come later about the latest and greatest RoboBrrd news!

Thursday, December 27th, 2012

If you didn’t catch the little snippet of RoboBrrd on TV because of the rush of the holidays, no worries- here is the recording! RoboBrrd starts at the 0:58 mark.

Mega thanks to Christine Long (@CTVChristine) for the interview snippet, and SpikenzieLabs (@SpikenzieLabs) for letting us set up there and use their laser cutter

It’s great to see DIY robots on TV and spreading the word to even more people. Perhaps people who never thought about building robots will now be inspired to do so now!

RoboBrrd loves chirping on TV

Check out the recording!

Monday, December 24th, 2012

Thursday, December 6th, 2012

Last night was the final countdown for the RoboBrrd Indiegogo campaign, we surpassed our stretch goal!

Big thanks to all the new and old friends of RoboBrrd, for backing the project and/or spreading the word!

We will be keeping everyone in the loop as to what is happening, and we will be posting pics and vids of the behind the scenes action on twitter/facebook/g+, so you can follow RoboBrrd!

If you have any questions about RoboBrrd feel free to ask them!

It is extremely exciting to be able to get RoboBrrd in the hands of even more people now. I can’t wait to see what people will be making with them!

YIPEE WOOT WOOT CHIRP CHIRP BEEP BLOOP WHIRR SQUAWK!

Thanks again!

Wednesday, December 5th, 2012

It’s getting close to the final time, so exciting! Still trying to meet our stretch goal ($15,494), hope we can make it!

Thanks everyone for the support so far, it has been a blast! Time to spend the last few hours in crazy anticipation