Gini and Karl's world

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Gini's robot blog

Hello! I am Gini and I am fascinated by all kind of robots. In my blog I will share with you what I am learning about those creatures and write about the ones I am hopefully going to build myself!

October 18, 2008 : lego spider

Second I've built the spider. It also has a stable chassis and wheels on its sides (they are a bit hidden but they are there). In contrast to the crocodile however there are two motors so that each side of the spider can be controlled separately. Again the gears connect the motor with the wheels.

October 13, 2008 : lego crocodile

At the moment I am once again playing around with lego. I really like lego. It's a good way to experiment with new designs, learn about improving your design or just simply try out new things.
One lego box that I particularely like is the one that let's you build a dinosaur, a crocodile and a spider (I think it's box number 4958).
For some reason I cannot explain I like the crocodile best. So let's look at it's design: it is simple but really effective. It is a very solid chassis that can easily hold the battery case and the motor. The two gears of the motor are connected with two other gears which drive the two big front wheels. It's kind of the classic car design.
The two legs (one on each side) are mounted on the front wheels which give them their movement. In the rear the long lego bar holds them in place while allowing the moving to happen. Of course if the right leg is up front the left leg is behind and the other way round. That way it moves smoothly without jumping.
At the rear it has two other wheels that help to keep friction low.
The battery case is a bit covered to give the impression of a crocodile but still the batteries can easily be changed.
As the crocodile has no brain of its own it has a receiver so that it can be controlled via remote control. If you connected the motor strip directly with the battery it would move along more or less randomly.

October 12, 2008 : soccer robot

Now my next project was to build a soccer robot. Building it was a bit more difficult than the other one but still very doable. Only once was I running into problems: one screw was too thick and didn't fit through the hole (easy to fix) and it was also too thick for the corresponding nut. Luckily we have a collection of all kind of screws and nuts at home so I could finally find one that fit.
The soccer robot is a very nice robot. It has two motors that drive the six legs, one motor drives the three legs on each side. The feet have some kind of rubber on the bottom so they are capable to even walk on rather smooth and slippery surfaces as well as on carpets!
The robot is controlled by a control that is connected via a long cable with the robot. If you connect the motor with the control as said in the instruction you need to put one control handle forward and the other backward to make it walk forward and then the other way round for walking backwards. I found this a bit illogical and so connected it now such that if both handles are forth the robot walks forwards and if they are in the back position it walks backwards.

October 05, 2008 : robug and duck robot

Recently I put together the soda can robug (it's a kit from the 4M company). Assembling it was rather quick and easy. The instructions were easily understandable and came with a very good picture. Three holes were a bit too small for the screws and therefore needed careful widening but otherwise everything went very smoothly. The robot bug moves through vibrations and makes a rather loud sound. It's really fun to watch the robug buzzing along even though it is not running very stable and you need a *very* smooth surface otherwise it will fall over but vibrate along.

Sometime ago I've already built another robot, a robot duck. That kit also was easy to build and it is still funny to see the duck waddling along. Here the duck is walking on two feet and it's really cute!

October 03, 2008 : Talking about robots

I really really love robots, those creatures, tiny or big, funny or dull, useful or not that are built artificially by humans.
I am dreaming of a robot that can tidy my room, vacuum the carpet not only on the floor but also on a staircase, prepare delicious meals, play the games with me I want to play as long as and whenever I want to, that can fly me to school every morning so that I can stay in bed until the last minute, that can do my homework for me and knows all the answers when I have any questions for whatever topic while exploring new worlds. But despite all efforts and lots of progress so far we seem to be far off from this goal.
Reason enough to learn and explore!