As usual, the publication of the week section is manned by Rodrigo.
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Spaceship Scara Arm
I have a lot of envy for this project because I wanted to build something like this but never got past the early design stage. In this Instructable, the author is very thorough and makes a solid arm that should be able to draw things in the sand using a magnet and a metal ball bearing.
Let’s Build a Low Cost Drone using ESP32
Since we are discussing DIY tutorials, how about building your ESP32-based micro-multirotor? According to the author, the build cost around 1000 Rupees (13 US Dollars). Inside the article, you will find a link to the repository that contains the firmware and schematics.
LimX Dynamics’ Biped Robot P1 Conquers the Wild Based on Reinforcement Learning
Check out this demo from LimX Dynamics, in which their bipedal shows remarkable stability in a mountain environment and seems to be able to take a beating as well. What I can’t unsee about this build is that the robot looks like the front piece of a quadruped robot.
Coordinate Transformations - How robots move through space
Josh from Articulated Robotics created a fantastic introduction video to Transformation Frames in Robotics. I highly recommend checking it out, especially if you are using ROS.
A 2-Axis, Multihead Light Positioner
This is the last post by Bunnie on the mechanical design of his device for non-destructive inspection of chips that we first covered in the previous issue (A Kinematically Coupled, Nanometer-Resolution Piezo Focus Stage). The author needs to be able to position a light source in two axes to be able to expose different things on the chip. Surprisingly, the direction of light matters a lot in this build, as you can observe in the videos towards the end of this article.
We Call It Imagineering | Audio-Animatronics®
Walt Disney Imagineering started a mini-documentary series on the people who work on Disney Experiences. Of course, you can expect a fair bit of animatronics. The software for controlling the motors (11:15 timestamp) is something I would love to test one day! I’m officially inspired. Are you?
Publication of the Week - Design of Stickbug: a Six-Armed Precision Pollination Robot
Bees are among the best pollinators, but unfortunately, their population is dwindling. This paper presents Stickbug, a six-armed pollination robot with some nice tech, ranging from a Velodine LiDAR to Realsense and Zed D-RGB cameras. The robot base is a Kiwi drive with two vertical masts where all six arms are distributed, totaling 51 degrees of freedom. You can check the robot in action in this video.
Business
Viam brings in $45M to accelerate enterprise partnerships
“Viam, which offers a software platform for smart machines, yesterday announced that it has raised $45 million in Series B funding. This latest round brings the company’s total funding to date to $87 million”.
Events
- RoboSoft 2024: Apr 14 - Apr 17, 2024. San Diego, United States of America
- Xponential: Apr 22 - Apr 25, 2024. San Diego, United States of America
- Robotics Summit & Expo: May 01 - May 02, 2024. Boston, United States of America
- Open Hardware Summit 2024: May 03 - May 04, 2024. Montreal, Canada
- Automate: May 06 - May 09, 2024. Chicago, United States of America
- Eurobot Open 2024: May 08 - May 11, 2024. La Roche-sur-Yon, France
- ICCRE 2024: May 10 - May 12, 2024. Osaka, Japan
- ICRA 2024: May 13 - May 17, 2024. Yokohama, Japan
- ISMR (Medical Robotics) 2024: Jun 03 - Jun 05, 2024. Atlanta, Georgia, United States
- ICUAS (UAVs) 2024: Jun 04 - Jun 07, 2024. Chania, Crete, Greece
For more robotic events, check out our event page.