arduino
gregladen | September 8, 2017Tenergy is a company that you know well even if you don't know them. They make a lot of the replacement batteries for everything, external power supplies, other electronic items. But recently they've added a few items to their line of products that reach out in an entirely different direction.
Tenergy Odev Tomo 2-in-1 Transformable DIY STEM Education Programmable Robot Kit is a robot kit that can be configured as a tricycle with two large wheels, or as a two-wheeled "bicycle" which operates like a Segway. Which is pretty amazing.
So far Tomo is my favorite out of the box Robot Build, and I…
gregladen | July 15, 2017First, a word about Arduino and why you should care. An Arduino is what is called a "prototyping micro-controller" aka "really fun electronic gizmo toy."
Micro-controllers are everywhere. When you "turn on" a machine in your house, chances are there was already a micro-controller sitting there, running on a minute bit of juice from a built in battery, waiting for you to push a button. Then, you turned a dial or selected an option on your dishwasher, or changed the setting on your thermostat, or picked some alternative mode on your coffee pot, or shifted into a different gear using a "gear…
gregladen | August 24, 2016Want to make your own robot? You can do this the easy way, or you can do this the hard way. Or, both, if you like.
The basic home made robot is a robot because it moves around, and the way that is usually achieved is with two independently powered wheels, a third wheel (or something) to balance the thing, an energy source, some logic circuitry, some sensors, and some sort of remote control.
You can learn how all these technologies work, buy the various parts, put them together, program it, and have your own robot.
Or, you can just get one of these guys, and you're nearly done.
The robot…
gregladen | July 13, 2016Huxley and I like to make Arduino projects. If you know what that means, your geek cred is good. If not, I'll explain briefly.
Arduino is an Italian based project that produces circuit boards that are controllers.
A controller is a small highly specialized computer thingie that can be programmed to have various inputs and outputs. You can connect devices (sensors) to the inputs and other devices (actuators of some kind, or lights or whatever) to the outputs. The programming can be fairly sophisticated. If you hook up enough of the right stuff to an Arduino board (of which there are…
rallain | June 30, 2010This is so awesome - an arduino controlled fan cart.
If you are not familiar with the arduino, basically it is just a very simple and cheap programmable chip. I have been meaning to play around with one of these, but really I am afraid. Afraid I will like it just a little too much.
In this fan cart (made by Eric Ayars - who was at NC State when I was there), the arduino tells the fan when to turn on and off by sensing magnets on the track. Who cares? I care. This allows you to do some cool demos and activities with non-constant forces.
Some other things I can think of:
You could make…