Friday, 30 April 2021

April 2021 Top 10 most read post on Robots and Physical Computing blog

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Thursday, 15 April 2021

Eggbot 2- the drawing crumble junkbot.

figure 1

An earlier post   https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2021/04/junkbots-2-eggbot2.html discussed the start of the development of a two motored Crumble (from Redfern Electronics) based 'junk-bot'; based around controlling vibrating motors  (https://amzn.to/3mtxEy9) to move the bot.


This post focuses on addressing some of the issues raised in the earlier post. The motors are now glued, via a glue gun, onto the plastic egg (figure 2) and four felt-tip pens are also glued on (see figure 1 above) so there is a firm connection to the egg. Setting the pens in the right positions is the trickest part of the process and you are probably best to experiment with tape / sticky tack before finally gluing them in place.

figure 2

figure 3


I like the Crumble for this task because it is designed to control two motors using a simple graphical programming language, without any extra hardware.

figure 4



The program shown in figure 4 is trying out a lot of the possible combinations of direction for the motors. When the program is run it moves in (and draws squiggly lines) mostly, in arcs. There is still some work to be done on controlling it. It is sensitive to wires being touched, perhaps thinner wires connect the Crumble (figure 3) and the motors? The motors are perhaps not strong enough - though it does move, so perhaps stronger motors, upping the percentage power to the motors or upping the voltage (currently 4.5 to 6v and still within the capacities of the motors)?


It is good fun; there is a lot that can be experimented with,  placement and direction of the motors just being one area.





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Friday, 9 April 2021

Junkbots 2 - eggbot2


A new iteration of the junkbots project or more accurately the Crumble-based eggbot sub-project (https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2017/10/crumble-based-junk-eggbot.html) is underway. 

Previously it has been built around a single vibrating motor, 'controlled' in the loose sense by a Crumble Controller. (https://amzn.to/3dNl09e).The new development is to use smaller vibrating motors but two of them, controlled by the Crumble. This post looks at the early stage of the development and suggests where to go next. 

Currently, two vibrating motors (https://amzn.to/3mtxEy9) have been attached horizontally to half a plastic egg (figure 1), the kind you can find in dispensing machine with plastic toys, but Kinder Egg ones can also be used. A Crumble is used to control the motors separately (figure 2) by changing the motor's direction. Health warning: It is never going to accurate control but that is part of the charm.



Figure 1

Figure 2




The Crumble code (https://redfernelectronics.co.uk/crumble-software/) used to test the system is shown below.




It moves and changing the direction of the motors does seem to have an effect.


What needs to be done?
  • There is a need for the motors more securely and the same with the wires to the motors. At the moment the motors falling off and wires disconnecting are the biggest problems. 
  • Trying out the new model with pens to get it to draw is part of the next iteration. 
  • Investigating the effect of directions and speed of the motors also needs to be investigated.






All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon
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Friday, 2 April 2021

Most read posts on the Robots and Physical computing Blog - March 2021


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All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon
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Remote Data Logging with V1 Microbit

In an earlier post  https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2024/08/microbit-v1-datalogging.html  a single microbit was used to log ...