Servo - August 2010

Robytes by Jeff and Jenn Eckert

Build a Bot that Makes Things

In case you haven’t heard about it, there is a process out there known as “3D printing” that is commonly used for prototyping and some other applications. The term is a bit misleading, as the objective is not to put ink or toner on paper. Rather, it is an additive manufacturing process in which successive layers of material are laid on top of each other to produce a solid, 3D object. With 3D The main drawbacks are (1) You have to assemble it yourself (average time 11 hours); ( 2) It can’t make anything larger than about 4 x 4 x 6 inches; and ( 3) It only makes plastic parts. Within those boundaries, you can create pretty much anything you want.

The basic unit sells for $750 and the deluxe for $950. The latter includes a USB2TTL cable and other wiring, a power supply, assembly tools, and other extras. The ABS plastic can cost you as little as $10 per pound, so if you have the urge to operate your own desktop robotic manufacturing facility, check out www.makerbot.com.

MakerBot Industries’ CupCake CNC machine.

Exploring Cybernetic Leadership

We generally think of bots as subservient entities that exist only to provide services or entertainment to their owners. Maurizio Porfiri, of the Polytechnic Institute of New York University ( www.poly.edu), however, is designing some mechanisms that are destined for leadership positions. Specifically, he is working on robotic fish that he

hopes will be able to attract schools of the real thing and lead them around. You might wonder why anyone would want to do that, but Dr. Porfiri’s paper on the subject won the Best Robotics paper award at a

2009 American Society of Mechanical Engineers Conference, so there must be something to it. Apparently, leaders of fish schools tend to “beat their tails faster, mill about and accelerate to gain attention, gather a school, and lead it,” so they somewhat resemble politicians and Hollywood celebrities. The objective is to use such fish — which would power themselves by tapping into the energy in eddies and underwater vibrations — to lead entire schools away from things like power plant turbines and maybe even oil spills. Eventually, the concept might be adapted to lead flocks of birds to better migratory destinations, lemmings back to land, or even shoppers back into K-Mart.