After his great initial experience with the Robonova-1, Matt Bauer just couldn't leave well enough alone or sit back to rest on his laurels. He just had to hack his brand new robot, and what better hack than to give it the gift of sight? And, if you hack your robot to add vision, then it has to have an appropriate 'target'. . .
Matt seems to be getting pretty comfortable with programming the Robonova's moves with RoboBasic, as we saw in his great karate/kung fu style video of the robot showing off what it is capable of.
But that wasn't enough. Matt told us that above and beyond the Robonova being a strong humanoid robot design, it's also a great platform to add onto and hack. It provides lots of opportunities to add features and functions of your own design - ways to express your personal creativity and inspiration.
His first hardware hack to the new Robonova involved removing the robot's head and replacing it with a pinhole video camera - like this:
Front view
Back view
Then, to test the hack, Matt needed a 'target' for the robot to 'acquire', and he just happened to have a great target right there in his workshop - the original Robosapien.
So that we could all share in the fun, he put together a really creative video (included below). The beginning starts off a little like the opening scenes of "Outer Limits", the SF television series, as the camera transmission syncs up and locks in. After that, it switches back and forth, alternating between views of what you (the human) see, and what the Robonova sees.
What you see. . .
What the Robonova robot sees. . .
Here's the video showing the robot and camera in action:
We were pleasantly surprised at the stability and overall quality of the video feed. With a little more tweeking of the light levels and balance it will be very impressive. It was also surprising to see how repeatable the Robonova's moves are. When it did the cartwheel to its left, and then did a cartwheel back, it seems to have returned to almost exactly the same position.
We're really looking forward to Matt's next hack.
Related links:
Matt's New Website - good resource for Robonova information, especially the use of RoboBasic
Robot Builder Profile- Matt Bauer and his Robonova-1 - includes details on Matt, his experience building the Robonova-1, and a great martial arts style Robonova video
Awesome. Do you have any other attachments; such as grippers?
Posted by: Alex Nicholas | June 21, 2006 at 04:38 PM
As a matter of fact, yes I do have grippers... check out http://www.bauerindependents.com to see all the mods.
Posted by: Matt | June 23, 2006 at 07:05 AM
hey, whats up?
man, im really amezed ... its beautiful.
im a second year mechatronics engineering student.
im really interested in robotics, but i have no idea where to start from ... i mean i just studied some materials but it has nothing to do with practical life.
i really want to start learning about robots.
so can you plz give me any clues? where to start from? cuz im really lost.
and thank you
Posted by: Ali | February 21, 2007 at 11:27 PM