2015 Albuquerque Mini Maker Faire "Badge 'Bot"
Every year at Albuquerque Mini Maker Faire we produce approximately 200-350 custom lasercut badges for our makers and crew. They are generally a combo of cut acrylic and wood, with a mechanical mechanism of some kind (no electronics). They are highly sought after and are not issued or sold -- you have to participate to get one.
This year, Ken Gracey at Parallax was kind enough to sponsor our "badge bot" -- a robot version of the 2015 badge. The badge this year was a simple, three petal iris mechanism. The 'bot is essentially the badge scaled up, with a lower deck & chassis for sensors, electronics, drive motors, etc.
The motors were surplus from Quelab, our HQ and local makerspace. The chassis is lasercut plywood and scrap acrylic from the badge run itself. The wheels are 3-D printed with o-rings tires. Everything else -- Propeller protoboard, servos, sensors, keyfob remote, etc. -- were kindly donated by Parallax.
We let visitors to the Faire operate the 'bot with a keyfob remote. They were able to change colors on the RGB led strip that illuminates the acrylic ring, open and close the iris, drive it around (while the Pings and IR rangers prevented collisions automatically). Every few minutes the onboard Emic would announce various activities at the Faire and their locations. We spent about half the time with the robot on a table (a motor kill switch prevented it from moving) as visitors could cause all kinds of light and iris and sound effects by waving their hands in front of the sonar units. This also gave our volunteers a break from wrangling a moving robot on a busy event floor.
Some photos from the event are attached, along with build photos and Spin files. The development time on this was very short -- an hour or two of design, an hour of lasercutting, a few evenings of build time, and maybe one or two afternoons of coding. The code in particular could use lots of polishing, but the goal was to have an awesome build at the Faire, not show off coding chops.
I can't thank Parallax and Ken enough for their support. The robot was a huge hit at our event.
This year, Ken Gracey at Parallax was kind enough to sponsor our "badge bot" -- a robot version of the 2015 badge. The badge this year was a simple, three petal iris mechanism. The 'bot is essentially the badge scaled up, with a lower deck & chassis for sensors, electronics, drive motors, etc.
The motors were surplus from Quelab, our HQ and local makerspace. The chassis is lasercut plywood and scrap acrylic from the badge run itself. The wheels are 3-D printed with o-rings tires. Everything else -- Propeller protoboard, servos, sensors, keyfob remote, etc. -- were kindly donated by Parallax.
We let visitors to the Faire operate the 'bot with a keyfob remote. They were able to change colors on the RGB led strip that illuminates the acrylic ring, open and close the iris, drive it around (while the Pings and IR rangers prevented collisions automatically). Every few minutes the onboard Emic would announce various activities at the Faire and their locations. We spent about half the time with the robot on a table (a motor kill switch prevented it from moving) as visitors could cause all kinds of light and iris and sound effects by waving their hands in front of the sonar units. This also gave our volunteers a break from wrangling a moving robot on a busy event floor.
Some photos from the event are attached, along with build photos and Spin files. The development time on this was very short -- an hour or two of design, an hour of lasercutting, a few evenings of build time, and maybe one or two afternoons of coding. The code in particular could use lots of polishing, but the goal was to have an awesome build at the Faire, not show off coding chops.
I can't thank Parallax and Ken enough for their support. The robot was a huge hit at our event.
851 x 1280 - 369K
1280 x 851 - 474K
1280 x 960 - 357K
1280 x 960 - 310K
960 x 1280 - 425K
960 x 1280 - 421K
1280 x 960 - 348K
1280 x 960 - 373K
1280 x 960 - 330K
1280 x 960 - 360K
1280 x 960 - 323K
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