Ballbot

This is an interesting bot. One of the SERVO writers has been attempting to do something like this.

My only problem is that I want it to climb stairs. :)

-- D. Jay Newman

I sorta gave up on it.

Too much machining...

Mike

--You rang? Machinist here. Lookin' for more work at the moment, heh.

a step backward in locomotion, a step forward in balance...

here's an idea:

skip the tower on top of the ball, and put the robot inside the ball..

like the clear balls you get at petstore that you put pet mice/hamsters in.

put some latex coating on it, so it has grip..

program it to balance.

put it on a piece of plywood, tell it to stay.

tilt the plywood. gyros sense the tilt, counter act the tilt by turning wheels that change the weight distribution in the ball.

at least the thing won't fall over and break your coffee table.

Rich

Strangely enough, that's exactly what I'm working on at the moment. I'm sure it'll take a while :)

I decided to start with a coffee can, because it's much easier to balance than a sphere.

Once I get the coffee can working as you describe the sphere working, I'll upgrade to a sphere :)

I'll post progress here whenever I find time to work on it....

ttyl,

--buddy

that isn't an impossibility, as long as it is free...

You're in Goleta or some such, right?

Mike

--Naa left that dump half a dozen years ago; too much crime and the bribes for protection were more than I could afford. I'm up North of San Fran, in Santa Rosa now. Lotsa room, big shop, no nosy neighbors, lotsa dogs, sweeeet. :-)

I know this has been done before as a hobiest project... and if my memory serves correctly, it was also done in a commercial R/C toy. Sorry, but I can't recall any project names or brands.

Joe Dunfee

I think a big part of the Ballbot design was to make it interoperable with humans, & to do so it needs to "stand" to a height that humans can deal with without bending over. Even a 4' ball isn't going to go down too many residential hallways very easily.

JM