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Leonardo Da Vinci, The Madrid Codices Now Available Online

 Featured, Hacks, Robotics, Technologies  No Responses »
Dec 182012
 
leonardo 2

For many of us who like to play with mechanics, robotics, prototyping 3D-Printing and other maker/hacker hobbyists, Leonardo Da Vinci is an inspiring figure that you can use for ideas for projects or just like reading and looking at his impressive technical drawings.

The Spanish National Library Published the Madrid Codices from Leonardo Da Vinci on-line in a very nice interactive format.  The topics discussed in these 2 volumes include mechanics, statics, geometry and construction of fortifications among others.

leonardo da vinci

These Manuscripts have been discovered quite recently in 1964 (after being lost for about 150 years), and you can now access them for free on the website of the Spanish National library, http://www.bne.es.

The Interactive format they have used adds some really nice functionality to them. You can mirror the pages (handy because Leonardo Da Vinci used to write mirrored) and adds citations and transcriptions for parts that are unreadable or very hard to read and open animations of some of the designs in action.

Access the codices here: http://leonardo.bne.es/ 

 

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Google Science Fair 2012 Teams Up With Mindstorms

 Featured, Mindstorms, Robotics  No Responses »
Mar 162012
 
legolise it

This year, Google’s science fair teams up with LEGO Mindstorms. The Google Science fair, although limited to the younger among us, always generates a great list of good and innovative ideas.

This year, sponsored by LEGO Mindstorms, we will hopefully see some more applications of Mindstorms in the field of science. Sign up is ending the end of this month (for all you that are, or have kids that are between 14 and 18 years old).

There are some really nice projects and videos with background information from this one and previous Science Fairs, on the Science Fair Youtube channel.

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Analog/Digital Outrun (1986) By Arduino

 Robotics, Technologies  No Responses »
Nov 092011
 

Most of the people who played with computers in the 80′s have played and enjoyed Outrun. Youtube user Amandris published a video of his latest creation. he built a “real world” Outrun game, controlled by Arduino.

Not much more to explain, watch the video and enjoy!

Link: Amandris Via: Microsiervos

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ROMO – The Smartphone Robotics Platform

 Mindstorms, Robotics, Technologies  2 Responses »
Oct 102011
 

The idea is really good. Robotic construction with the use of a cellphone (read: iPhone or Android) as the processing Unit. This is quite a step ahead from the standard available robotics kits, which either come as pre-assembled or one-purpose kit with which you can only make one (or a small set of) robotic inventions, or they come closer to the LEGO mindstorms kit or Fishertechnik that come with their own  controller.

Romotive‘s Idea is to allow people to program and control their robotic kits, The ROMO, with their smartphone, using a combination of apps (a true “app store” for robots) and the Phones SDK, libraries are still in development. This flexibility will also come on the hardware side, where you can by modules for your bots, servo motors, different types of sensors, etc.

As a new start-up at Kickstarter.com Romotive is doing quite well and is almost near the 32.000$ of their financial target to make it a reality. Their starter model is a quite simple base with a phone stand and connector and looks like it will give quite some hours of entertainment. The basic set, as a Kickstarter Project backer will cost you 78$ and you’ll get the first base model. the interesting part is that if you pay a bit more (141$), they send you 2 models, with which you can “play” together in a mario-style augmented reality game.

Kickstarter project Page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/peterseid/romo-the-smartphone-robot

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