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News > March 06      


A Robots' night out


Welcome to this the first edition of the happenings with the RoboNz group.


Friday night was a great night for all bots and beer (humans optional), Mikael brought along his hexapod and Brody helped to make sure its wires didn't get tangled up with it legs.
The hexapod runs off a tethered power supply and laptop.

It was a treat to see it walk about, and to see how it can change direction without turning first.

The humans that were sober, Mhex2 obliged by bringing a cold beer and with good ground clearance, so in theory, it could bring a cold beverage to you in the park.

And each leg is driven by two servos giving 2 DOF per leg.

It also did well in a mini robot war.

And with all the discusions floating about, Keith managed to fix his balancing bot, back to the way he had it months ago.

It utilizes a Signal processor, two second hand Faulhaber motors, the same motors Keith used on his pathfinder, for the RoboOlympics and as such the PWM on the motors are very audible.

On the other hand, Curtis brought in a four rotor flier, which was evident that any in-experienced person, within a few seconds could get to grips with it.

The flier uses two mechanical gyroscopes, and is has a tethered power supply at the moment.

Once the pilot was familiar, thoughts go out to turn it into a possible robot.

Adding a LiPo battery and custom circuitry could mean that it could fly itself or maybe with a dual antenna reciever means that if the joystick was pulled towards you, the flier would fly to you, without the need for a compass.

Keith asked a few questions about this particular flier, and then afterwards it was decided to bring a few bots into the picture, Keith with his KBBot, Mikael with his hexapod, and just a little extra, Gary put a Solarbotics kit into the frame.

This what robot wars is suppose to be, automonous fighting bots, not tethered by an R/C set.


It was even more fun seeing this group have a REAL robot battle, of sorts.

Towards the end of the evening, we all took a closer look at all the robots like Mhex2, and even a little solar powered bot.

Damon, Keith, Paul, Brody, Mikael, Gary, also talked with Curtis who brought the flier in to show us, and how with an invention of his, we could rejuvenate and extend the life of old rechargeable batteries (there are limitations).

See videos here in the gallery

   
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