The Military Reinvented the Wheel, They’re Triangles Now
A new wheel that Carnegie Mellon scientists developed for DARPA adapts to its environment. Continue reading The Military Reinvented the Wheel, They’re Triangles Now
Tag Archives: Wheel
It’s a Spider! It’s a Droideka! It’s Both!
Beware, arachnophobes, the robots are coming for you!
What else would you be expected to think if you watched a hexapod robot display its best Transformers impression by turning into a wheel and pushing itself in your direction? The BionicWheelBot — developed by [Festo] — should rightly remind you of the cartwheeling Flic-Flac spider, the main inspiration for the robot. Of course, Star Wars fans might justifiably see a Droideka.
The BionicWheelBot can — almost — seamlessly transition between crawling around on six legs, to literally rolling away. To do so, its three pairs of legs sequentially fold up into …read more
Arduino + Geometry + Bicycle = Speedometer
It is pretty easy to go to a big box store and get a digital speedometer for your bike. Not only is that no fun, but the little digital display isn’t going to win you any hacker cred. [AlexGyver] has the answer. Using an Arduino and a servo he built a classic needle speedometer for his bike. It also has a digital display and uses a hall effect sensor to pick up the wheel speed. You can see a video of the project below.
[Alex] talks about the geometry involved, in case your high school math is well into your …read more
Parametric 3D Printable Wheels And Treads
When it comes to robotic platforms, there is one constant problem: wheels. Wheels have infinite variety for every purpose imaginable, but if you buy a wheeled robotic chassis you have exactly one choice. Even if you go down to the local Horror Freight, there’s only about five or six different wheels available, all of which will quickly disintegrate.
To solve this problem, [Audrey] created OpenWheel, a system of parametric, 3D-printable wheels, tweels, tires, and tracks for robotics and more.
Like all good parametric 3D-printable designs, OpenWheel is written in OpenSCAD. These aren’t 3D designs; they’re code that compiles into printable …read more
Liddiard Omnidirectional Wheels
Omnidirectional wheels are one of the hardy perennials of the world of invention. There seems to be something about the prospect of effortless parallel parking that sets the creative juices of backyard inventors flowing, and the result over the years have been a succession of impressively engineered ways to move a car sideways.
The latest one to come our way is courtesy of Canadian inventor [William Liddiard], and it is worthy of a second look because it does not come with some of the mechanical complexity associated with other omnidirectional wheel designs. [Liddiard]’s design uses a one-piece tyre in the …read more
Ourobot: What Happens When a Snake Bot Swallows Its Own Tail
For all their joking about “reinventing the wheel”, the team behind Ourobot made a very cool robot (German, automatic translation here). The team, at the University of Applied Sciences in “Bielefeld, Germany“, built their wheel out of twelve segments, each with its own servo motor, a 3D-printed case, and a pressure sensor mounted on the outside of the wheel. The latter, plus some clever programming, allows the robot wheel to vary its circular gate and climb up over obstacles automatically.
There are a bunch of interesting constraints in designing the control for this bot. The tracks on the ground, …read more
Continue reading Ourobot: What Happens When a Snake Bot Swallows Its Own Tail
Cheap and Effective Dune Buggy Wheel Chair
[masterfoo]’s mother-in-law suffers from a bad hip which would have sidelined her participation in the Fourth of July festivities. As a testament to the power of family and ingenuity, [masterfoo] built her a beach-capable wheel chair to give her some off-roading capability.
The frame is built out of 1.5″ PVC piping and the tires are 20×8-8″ inner tubes for ride-on lawnmowers. The lawnmower wheel inner tubes were cost-effective and fit the purpose, saving the need for the more expensive purpose-built-for-the-beach Wheeleez tires. They also have a fluid inside that plugs small punctures which will come in handy against he beach’s …read more
