Control a Positional Servo Motor with an Arduino (Lesson #10)

Plenty of animals, like dogs and horses, can walk and run on four legs, but what about robots? Sometimes legs are better than wheels—try out this project to design and build your own quadruped walking robot! Read more

Does your home have any pet doors or gates for dogs, cats, or other animals? Some automatic pet doors can be set up to allow only certain animals through. These doors can help you control which pets are able to go outside alone or which ones have access to specific food, litter boxes, or toys. But why buy such a door when you can make one? In this project you will build your own automatic pet door that works with a magnetic collar tag. Exactly how you use it is up to you! Read more

How can you get as much power as possible out of a solar panel, even in the morning or evening when the sun is low in the sky? With a solar tracker system! While many solar panels are fixed in place on rooftops or large ground-mounted poles, a solar tracker system is motorized and lets the solar panels track the sun through the sky during the day. Are these systems worth the added complexity? How much more power do they produce? Try this project and find out!  Read more

Imagine that you need to make sure valuable cargo — like a robot or even human astronauts — can land safely on Mars. How would you do it? In this project, you will build your own model planetary lander using an Arduino. It will use a distance sensor and automatically deploy landing gear before impact. Can you avoid a crash landing? Read more

Have you ever seen a waiter balance an entire tray of drinks without spilling any? How do they do it? Do you think you could build a robot waiter that can do the same thing? In this project, you will learn how to build a self-balancing robotic tray. You can incorporate the auto-leveling tray into one of our many other robotics projects, like the Bluebot or robotic arm. Read more

Robots are made to go and do what humans either can not, or do not want to do. They are used in hundreds of ways from exploring Mars, to working tirelessly on a manufacturing line, to providing companionship. Not to mention they make great movie characters! … Read more