Looking at the AdaFruit
1) 3D Printer creates Light-Weight Titanium Horse Shoes
The article highlights the power of 3D printing. Researchers from CSIRO created custom made titanium horse shoes from 3D printing as a means to explore new ways to use 3D printing. Printing a set of four horse shoes take less than 24 hours to create and costs a total of 600 dollars. Usually made from aluminum and weighing up to one kilogram, horse shoes can weigh the horse down. 3D printed shoes weigh half the weight of regular horse shoes so the horse can reach new speeds.
I’m not sure if the cost is worth the decrease in weight. Perhaps there is a better substitute. Although, the 3D printed shoes can be made faster and the 3D scanner is able to create custom shoes for every horse hoof it scans in, I don’t think such a benefit is necessary for every horse. Maybe if the enhanced shoes would boost a horse’s chance of winning a race, then owners should invest in them. But other than that, I don’t think it’s worth the cost of 3D printing.
2 .) PI-Bot –B (mobile robots with Raspberry Pi)
The PiBot-B is a small mobile robot that controlled by a Raspberry Pi. He moves on caterpillar tracks so that it can run on slightly uneven flooring. An image from a webcam video is transferred wirelessly to an IPhone with an application that controls the robot. If the robot is on autonomous mode, it can move by itself and uses sensors to detect obstacles. On the application, the top half shows the video stream while the bottom resembles a numpad, each controlling a different motion for the robot.
I think this is very cute and interesting project. Although it does seem like a common project involving an arduino and a webcam, it still fascinates me how a chip can be programmed to complete so many different tasks. The application numpad not only allows the robot to move forward and turn, but also rotate on the spot, which produces smooth curves. Having it move by itself when users aren’t in control produces an artificial intelligence effect.
3) Robot Nail Art
Robot Nail Art by Charles Aweida involves the collaboration of several different programs, Kangaroo physics, Grasshopper3d, Rhino3d, fed into HAL(robotic control sweet) to fabricate the effects of wind on a piece of cloth frozen at a specific frame. The result of the capture results in a series of vector fields that simulate the representation of wind. The robot that receives these points is combined with an inverse kinematics solver with converts the planes into joint angles that serve as the instructions for the robot. The robot will then place these nails at these specific angles onto high density foam.
I found this project to be especially unique and interesting. Fabric simulation creates beautiful planes in the computer, once modeled out. To bring reality into the digital world and then back into reality describes the process of the project. It introduces a new way of capturing moment in time. The robotic arm plays a huge part in this project because it is able to accurately pinpoint each nail at every angle without conflicts or mistake.
A similar project I found that used robotic simulation also involved an ABB robot. It captured images of people in front of it with a camera and the robot would turn that captured image into a drawing using a black felt tip pen.
http://www.ensci.com/actualites/une-actualite/article/17574/
http://cka.co/projects/representing_wind/
nail art test 1 from charles aweida on Vimeo.