FNR: MANOI + Zombie = ZOMBOI

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Friday, October 29th, 2010

Here’s MANOI, celebrating a robotic Hallowe’en!

Its scarf has little pumpkins on it!

Here is a ZOMBIE motion that tries to steal brains from you, telepathically:

I finally figured out what has been happening with the LEDs and not having enough power to power the SSC-32! It turns out that the IR sensor must draw a bunch of current, which takes away from the available current to power the LEDs and the SSC-32 at the same time. The solution is pretty straight forward for now: turn off the LEDs when using the IR, or turn off the IR when using the LEDs.

Happy Halloween!

Posted in: Projects, Robot.

Robo Pumpkin!

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Sunday, November 1st, 2009

Thursday (last week) was a pretty awesome day. I had a good project status for my COSI for credit, I learnt more about LaTeX (and started to typeset my summer research paper) thanks to Zach’s presentation, and there was a pumpkin carving contest for the robotics floor!

Last year I spent a lot of time soldering LEDs and shrink wrapping them, exactly for the purpose of pumpkin decorating!

This year I did one of those ‘etching’ carves of a robot, and used my LEDs to make it more awesome!

It looks pretty cool. Maybe next year I’ll go all out and add a distance sensor and a speaker so that it can sense if something approaches it, then play creepy music/sounds

Here’s a video of the pumpkin in action…

The pumpkin ended up landing itself in COSI for the holiday Hopefully spreading the Halloween joy of computer science to everyone!

Posted in: Art, Projects.

LED Star Pumpkin

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Friday, October 31st, 2008

I did make something for Hallowe’en… it isn’t much, but it’s just LEDs in a pumpkin in the shape of the star. The most time consuming part was cutting the wires and soldering them… plus, I had to solder a 1K Ohm resistor to each of the positive leads too. Then, I had to shrink wrap it so it wouldn’t short out (like some of the LEDs on BubbleBoy short out because I didn’t shrink wrap them).

It was okay- I wasn’t too pleased with the end result because I didn’t place the points on the star right… and I wanted to carve it out. :/

I knew from the start though that I want to re-use these LEDs, so I have them all connected into a small black box. Inside of the box is an Arduino – a RBBB. On the outside of the box held together by tape is the 9V battery and a latching switch.

The program basically cycles the LEDs like a marquee in HTML, then blinks them “seizingly” fast (LOL).

I think I may put the LEDs up in my window… it might look cool!

Posted in: Art, Projects.

Festive Styrobotz

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Monday, October 6th, 2008

Custom Styrobots are really fun to make… and they cost the same price ($20). A friend wanted a yellow Styrobot, with green hair with a comb in it, two combs on the cup, and a poem. It was pretty fun to make! Despite the rotation of the pics being messed up… here are some pictures!

The poem on the back is ‘The Road not Taken’ by Robert Frost. It’s a pretty good poem Here are morrrre pictures!

Great eh! There will be 3 NEW Styrobots appearing in my store very soon They’re all Hallowe’en themed.

In my opinion, Battygoo is really cute ^_^ as are the other ones! Asside from that… MANOI is aliiiive! I’m currently in the middle of making a program to set its home position.

So keep an eye out… the Styrobots will be poppin’ into the shop very soon =D

Posted in: MANOI, News, Projects, Robot, Robot News.

Hallowe’en Themed Thingamaboops!

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Sunday, October 14th, 2007

Bleep Labs has created a special line of their Thingamagoop analog synth critters for Halloween. They have (l-r) a robot, pumpkin, vampire and ghost. The devices sell for $110.

Woo! They are pretty cute. I’m thinking about making something like this, however it would be a lamp, and the switch would control the brightness of the lamp. Don’tcha think that would be cool? ;D

Link.

Posted in: News, Robot News, Tech News.