rapman-education's posterous http://rapman-education.posterous.com Most recent posts at rapman-education's posterous posterous.com Wed, 12 Dec 2012 09:22:47 -0800 Poo, dead flies, rat whiskers, broken bones and creepy faces http://rapman-education.posterous.com/poo-dead-flies-rat-whiskers-broken-bones-and http://rapman-education.posterous.com/poo-dead-flies-rat-whiskers-broken-bones-and

P675

It is a bit of a strange combination but the list of nasty stuff in the title are just some of the things that I came across at the new Bristol Robotics Lab (BRL) run by Bristol University and the University of the West of England.
So where does this list of nasties fit in? Well, they are all involved in the research they are doing there. The poo and dead flies are used to generate electricity to drive an Eco robot, the rat whiskers are sensors that can "feel" shapes and textures of objects, the broken bones were in a surgical "robot" that manipulates the bones to be repaired and the creepy face was able to move with realistic expressions.... And that was not all! ... Helicopters, quad copters, 3D optical sensors, air muscles, etc, etc.
Getting my head around all of this has been pretty mind blowing and I must thank Dr Martin Pearson from BRL for showing me around and Iain from 3D Systems (Bits from Bytes) for inviting me to accompany him on the visit.
But where does this all fit in with 3D printing? ... As the robots are experimental research machines they usually involve mechanical parts that are unique and are therefore produced by RP or 3D Prints. (I spotted a RapMan on one of the students workstations!) And here is where it all links to what we are doing at my school... Our VEX robotics group have 3D printed a claw for their robot (see some of the previous posts on this blog). I'm pretty certain they will be green with envy about my visit when they see my photos! I expect I'll have to see if one of the guys from BRL can visit us when we meet after school.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1324605/me.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5emrVdsQknst Dave White rapman-education Dave White
Sat, 01 Dec 2012 11:22:57 -0800 VEX claw http://rapman-education.posterous.com/vex-claw http://rapman-education.posterous.com/vex-claw

File

In an earlier post you may have seen that our VEX robotics group at my school made a bit of a mistake by starting to build a robot when we didn't have all the parts... Oops!

So we 3D printed some parts instead using our Bits from Bytes machines.

Here is a picture of the first trial... Just to see if the parts fit together. A bit more "tuning" to make sure they move properly is needed, as the bolts are a bit oversize, before we try it out with a motor.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1324605/me.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5emrVdsQknst Dave White rapman-education Dave White
Sun, 25 Nov 2012 14:09:29 -0800 VEX robotics and 3D printing ... And new goodies! http://rapman-education.posterous.com/vex-robotics-and-3d-printing-and-new-goodies http://rapman-education.posterous.com/vex-robotics-and-3d-printing-and-new-goodies

File

At my school I have a group of year 9 students building a VEX robot... An extra curricular after school club.

In a fit of madness we decided to not build the standard "protobot" and do a hybrid "clawbot/protobot". All very well but part way into the build someone noticed that we don't have the claw in our kit... Beginners mistake!

So, being a bit brave about it I said to the students that I would search the web and see if I can download the 3D CAD files so that we could print the necessary files.... And I found them!

Talk about a steep learning curve... I fired up Autodesk Inventor (I usually use Creo!) opened the .step file and exported the parts as .stl (then discovered that I could have used Creo anyway!.... Dohh)

So now they were printable files. Most of them are a bit challenging as they need support material, but with Axon 3 (alpha) the support generation looks to be superb, so I was up for the challenge.... And the photos show the results.

Having so much fun I printed most of the parts... I'll have to leave a few for the students to do in school. I don't think the PLA plates will be strong enough, maybe a bit of a redesign for these, but that's an extra project for the students to do :)

There can't be many clawbots out there with printed claws, maybe this is a first ... If it works! I'll post some more photos later (if we are successful of course).

Oh, nearly forgot about the new goodies mentioned in the title of this post.... I have just received (and fitted) a new bed and waste bin (commonly known at BfB as a snot box) and a new wiper (snot flicker?) to my 3D Touch.... Wonderful!.... I'll post some more info about these later.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1324605/me.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5emrVdsQknst Dave White rapman-education Dave White