Lana writes "This article walks you through various materials and techniques you can use to physically build a robotic prototype. See how to build a fast and easy prototype that can be disassembled, reconfigured, and reassembled. This article builds on a previous articles, entitled 'How to drive your wireless robot.'" Fast Robot Prototyping Log in/Create an Account | Top | 38 comments | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 38 comments 0: 33 comments 1: 27 comments 2: 15 comments 3: 6 comments 4: 6 comments 5: 2 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. Next article in the series (Score:1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10, @09:58PM (#13761189) "How to make love to your robot" [ Reply to This Robots and cars (Score:5, Insightful) by zegebbers (751020) on Monday October 10, @10:00PM (#13761199) (http://www.boozeplus.com/) are excellent for getting kids interested in science/engineering. These sorts of things can be modified and are fun to learn so they're perfect. The prices are also relatively modest compared to other expenses. [ Reply to ThisRe:Robots and cars by fastgood (Score:2)Monday October 10, @10:10PMRe:Robots and cars by $RANDOMLUSER (Score:2)Monday October 10, @10:41PMYeah, but... by r2tincan (Score:1)Monday October 10, @10:11PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. For knives and stabbing weapons... (Score:2, Funny) by JoshRoss (88988) <josssssssssssssh@gmail.com> on Monday October 10, @10:05PM (#13761231) (Last Journal: Monday May 24, @09:40PM) My rapid prototyping machine is the T-1000. The biggest problem is that it can't form complex machines. Guns and explosives have chemicals, moving parts. It doesn't work that way. [ Reply to ThisYou build one of those... by r2tincan (Score:1)Monday October 10, @10:14PMRe:You build one of those... by RedNovember (Score:1)Monday October 10, @10:17PMRe:For knives and stabbing weapons... by focitrixilous P (Score:2)Monday October 10, @10:19PM Beautiful... (Score:5, Interesting) by RedNovember (887384) on Monday October 10, @10:07PM (#13761236) I have to say, this is one of the most useful things I've seen on Slashdot in a while. For getting kids interested: my old middle school used to participate in a robotics league [usfirst.org], which really got me interested in the whole idea of AI and computer programmming. There was too much demand: we could only send 16 people (8 per team) and every year 50 kids would show up. Let's get some schools to join... [ Reply to ThisRe:Beautiful... by ZachPruckowski (Score:2)Monday October 10, @10:17PM Public Alphas (Score:1, Flamebait) by Doc Ruby (173196) on Monday October 10, @10:10PM (#13761249) (http://slashdot.org/~Doc%20Ruby/journal | Last Journal: Thursday March 31, @02:48PM) That's all we need: new tools that fill the world with robots the quality and quantity of "rapid prototype" websites. Except robots are made of stuff, not closeable popups. [ Reply to ThisRe:Public Alphas by Anonymous Coward (Score:2)Monday October 10, @10:16PM Excellent technique (Score:1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10, @10:15PM (#13761282) While it may look Mickey Mouse, building a prototype with Lego can save a huge amount of time. It is very easy to get a working system using Lego. I've had students build pick and place robots and conveyer systems with Lego. That's step one. At that point you have a working system consisting of mechanical parts, electrical parts, driver circuits and software.Step two is to replace part of the system with the real item. Repeat step two until you have a complete system comprised of 'real' parts. Then, you're done.The beauty of this approach is that you are always dealing with a working system. If you build a part and it doesn't work, then that's what you have to fix. The alternative, where you build all the parts and assemble them and hope it all works, doesn't give you that advantage. If the system doesn't work, you don't know which part to fix first. [ Reply to This Is this a really a robot? (Score:4, Interesting) by rufusdufus (450462) on Monday October 10, @10:16PM (#13761284) I saw my first homemade robot well before the PC ever came out. It was made by a guy with only rudimentary electronics skill; he used a blow torch as a soldering iron. The thing didn't do much, drove around and moved its arm up and down and it had a great gripping arm. But from what I see on this page, it did a lot more than this "robot" from the year 2005 can do.Is this thing anything more than a very expensive remote-control car minus the remote? I don't see any reference to sensors and feedback. Without some sort of sensor/feedback mechanism, some sort of intelligent behavior, I wouldnt call it a robot. [ Reply to ThisRe:Is this a really a robot? by RedNovember (Score:1)Monday October 10, @10:19PMRe:Is this a really a robot? by kfg (Score:1)Monday October 10, @10:59PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Lego Mindstorms (Score:4, Informative) by endlessoul (741131) on Monday October 10, @10:27PM (#13761335) After skimming TFA, this idea seems all well and good. However, this immediately brought to mind Lego Mindstorms [lego.com].Besides, with Legos, you don't have to have power tools. Just your handy dany digits. [ Reply to This most useful thing for physical prototyping (Score:4, Informative) by Mungkie (632052) on Monday October 10, @10:36PM (#13761366) (http://natld.berlios.de/) Some stuff called polymorph (a trade name I think?) it's a thermo plastic that becomes maleable in boiling water and sets tougher than most other plastics. Perfect for making parts for almost anything that is not heated above 50'C.Tools wise a dremmel type drill, lathe, set of files, hacksaw, and a screwdriver. [ Reply to This1 reply beneath your current threshold. Johnny 5 Alive! (Score:4, Funny) by Mr.Progressive (812475) on Monday October 10, @10:38PM (#13761372) (http://dfowler.freeshell.org/) See how to build a fast and easy prototype that can be disassembledNo disassemble! [ Reply to This A new RoR (Score:1) by mios (715734) on Monday October 10, @10:58PM (#13761442) (http://komfo-anokye.info/) I'd like to announce a new RoR framework -- Robots On Rails -- it's a full stack, open source, robotics framework. We model a robot based on a real human sample .. no tricky programming ... no need to bother yourself with the hum-drum responses to sensory inputs ... So bring your buttler down and we'll auto-generate a butler robot based on the human model's attributes instrinsic to their DNA sequence ... all you need to do is extend the base DNActiveRecord Bring some extra 2x4's and I-Beams, and you'll get some quick scaffolding up which you can customize later tailor to your *specific* robot's aesthetic needs ... because at the very core, all robots are the same. Our Motto will always be "No heuristics, no problem!"We're putting together the final touches on our 20min tutorial video as we speak ... keep on the lookout. [ Reply to This How about wife prototyping? (Score:1) by No2Gates (239823) on Monday October 10, @11:02PM (#13761460) They need to do this for spouse prototyping. Would save a fortune on divorces. You would see a lot of lawyers homeless. Is there a downside to this??? [ Reply to This Fast robotic prototypes one day... (Score:1) by cuteseal (794590) on Monday October 10, @11:16PM (#13761623) (http://www.shuttertalk.com/) Yeah yeah, fast robotic prototypes one day, Skynet the next.I for one, welcome our new killer robotic overlords! [ Reply to This OMNI Magazine story on prototype robots in '81 (Score:2) by RancidPickle (160946) on Monday October 10, @11:24PM (#13761696) (http://www.choicenetworksolutions.com/) Back in the early 1980-1981 era, OMNI magazine had a great artical on building prototype robots that thought like insects. The gent in charge of the program at MIT decided that it would be a good idea to begin a robotic life at the insect level, then build (evolve?) from there. He used toy cars from Radio Shack, and they had programmed responses, such as flee when the lights came on, following tail-lights, and setting up a territory.When the robots started doing odd things, they learned quite a lot. One thing that was programmed into the bugs was to defend a territory. The bugs would run a perimeter, and if another robot had tresspassed, they would park and shine their headlights on each other. Theoretically, they should have stayed locked this way, but sometimes one would give up and stake out a new territory.They were using this for prototyping, and I wonder how far they've come since 1981. [ Reply to ThisRe:OMNI Magazine story on prototype robots in '81 by tpearson (Score:2)Monday October 10, @11:41PM Awesome (Score:1) by Kickboy12 (913888) on Tuesday October 11, @12:25AM (#13762122) (http://cacrew.com/) Maybe I should build myself a robot one of these days, would be fun.Too bad that 'battle of the robots' TV-craize died out, even though those shows were dumb and pointless. [ Reply to This Old news... (Score:2) by IronMagnus (777535) on Tuesday October 11, @12:41AM (#13762226) (http://ironmagn.us/) " See how to build a fast and easy prototype that can be disassembled, reconfigured, and reassembled."They're called legos.... [ Reply to This7 replies beneath your current threshold.