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.
Dr. Porfiri’s
ichthyological
Pied Piper.
Travel Back in Evolutionary Time
It’s been pretty well documented in these pages that
mixing
robotics and
art is a
precarious
undertaking,
and that has
SiliFulin, the
robotic tail for
evolutionary
reactionaries.
8 SERVO 08.2010