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EDIT: More info on my projects check out my new website: narobo.comI also do consulting for robotics , mechatronics, and special effects projects/prod...
Here is the final bill of materials. I divided it up into sections and included prices. So break open your piggy bank and collect the money , you'll b...
The first step to building a butler robot is to construct a chassis.The chassis is probably the most important part of the robot. If this fails than t...
The material we need for the chassis needs to be strong and able to support massive pounds. I went along with wood , though plexiglass will be okay. ...
You then mount each wheelchair motor to a piece of wood or plexiglas using the mounting holes as shown in the picture. Use washers and the appropriate...
Get a caster that can support 250 pounds . I purchased one from Home Depot, but any caster that can support 250 lbs. is good. Attach the caster to...
After the chassis is complete we have to make an interface to the motors so that we can control it from a laptop.The two best methods to control a mot...
The motors will be powered by either one or two 12V lead acid battery(ies) OR buy two 6V batteries. The battery(ies) that you buy must be able to prov...
Step 1: Know what everything does - the relays ,Phidgets interface, and the batteries Before we actually start making the relay motor controller circ...
Step 2: Wiring the relays for Motor AYou should have 8 relays and 4 dual sockets. Put each relay in its designated socket.The following steps are onl...
STEP 3: Wiring the Relays for Motor B Now we have finished the motor control for one of the motors. One motor down, one more to go. The other motor w...
After you are done wiring both motors , locate the white wires. From each wire joint ( point where the white wires were soldered together) you need t...
I put both my relay circuits in a nice plastic box and closed it up. This protects the relays and also looks nice as well. Notice how neat it looks! I...
If you haven't done so already , mount the batteries. Use L brackets to hold the batteries in place. L brackets are 90 degree brackets of metal that c...
Remember the four wires you have from the wire joint from the relay? Now its time to connect them to the Phidgets. Connect the wires to the Phidgets o...
Wheelchair robots are very powerful machines, if something goes wrong and it doesn't stop or something it WILL DO DAMAGE. This is why we need to insta...
When we ended off in the motor control section , the robot had no enclosure and was entirely open and prone to damage.To make a box for the phidgets a...
Take the the wood enclosure off the chassis and lay it on the floor in a well ventilated area. Now get a canister of silver spray paint or just a buc...
Fasten the (now silver and hopefully dry paint) wood enclosure to the chassis using L brackets.Now it should look like this after you fasten it down w...
Now take a handful. 1/4" plastic spacers Nail two or three spacers to each side of the top of the enclosure as show in the picture below: Take tha...
After the bottom is completely assembled and the robot is actually starting to like like a robot, we have to build the upper body , which is the part ...
Spray paint the wood pieces black and also spray paint the mini-fridge if its not black. Wear latex gloves so your hands don't get dirty and also be...
Attach the 5.5" x 9" piece to one of the 10" x 21" pieces as shown in the picture below. Grab the other 10" x 21" piece and attach it to the other en...
Now attach the 5" x 9" piece to the other end of the wood and stand up the wood so that the 5.5" x 9" piece is on the lower end. Then take the 11.5" ...
Take two L brackets and connect it so that the top of the bracket is 5" above the floor. Take that mini-fridge and lay it down on top of the L bracke...
To secure the mini-fridge in place use a hot glue gun to glue the sides of the minifridge to the wood. It should be secured and shouldn't wobble in t...
The laptop that I dedicated to Chives(my butler robot) was an old one I had and had a 17" screen. Lay the laptop that you have vertically on the space...
Unscrew the plexiglas cover that we put on the motor enclosure place it on the floor . Now put the wooden box we just built on top of it ( aligning ...
The robot head for your butler robot can be whatever you want . I decided to make a dome shaped head with one eye. Here are the instructions for the r...
Now find a soldering iron that you don't mind destroying. ( you can actually just clean it up afterwards it doesn;t really destroy it)Plug in the sold...
Hot glue that white PVC piece to the silver dome in the place where you want the eye. Now the soldering iron is nice and hot you need to slowly melt a...
After you melted that hole in the last step , wet the soldering iron with a sponge and unplug it , letting it cool. Take some PVC pipe ( I used a 7...
Find that webcam that you will dedicate for this butler robot ( I used Quickcam Pro 4000 ) and glue it so that the lens of the camera is looking throu...
Now the glue the other end of the PVC pipe to the center of the top piece of the wood platform we made. Cool head isn't it?
The gripper that will be used was taken from one of those robot arm extender toys. Make sure the gripper is motorized.
You will also need the following PVC parts , I believe one is called a threaded PVC connector and the other is a 2" length pipe with a piece of plasti...
Now take any piece of PVC pipe that is threaded on the end and cut the pipe around three inches from where the threaded part begins. Hotglue that pi...
Now take both pieces outside and spray paint them black. Use the same spray paint color you used on the body After its dry you can attach the gripper...
Now take one of the two Power Wheels motors and mount the long PVC pipe of the robot arm to it , using some small L brackets.Use hot glue if you want ...
Mount the motor to the body using two screws and to secure it further hot glue the back to the wooden body.
If you followed everything correctly you should have a robot body that resembles the one below.Just make sure you got this done and then we will go on...
Take another piece of the 17" PVC pipe and attach a threaded connector.
Spray paint that black and mount it to a motor with two small L brackets(one on top and one on bottom) as we did before to the other arm. Use hotglue ...
Your robot's body from the front should look like the pictures attached. A back view picture is also attached.
There should be two wires coming from each motors. Connect the red wires from each of the motors and connect those red wires to the positive terminal ...
Connect the Negative terminal of that 6V battery to the negative of the 12V battery ( which is common ground) then connect the black wire of the left ...
Solder on wires to the existing wires connected to the gripper and connect the red wire to the positive terminal of the 6V battery and the black wire ...
Open up the servo for pouring and solder on longer wires to the motor terminals. ( the red and black wires pictured)
Attach the connector ( which is a rim of a toy wheel) to the axle of the motor using
Attach the servo connector to the pipe connector and tighten them together.Then mount the servo the PVC pipe arm of the right arm using screws or hotg...
Hotglue the motorized wheel to the bottle holder on an angle so that the wheel brushes against the cap of the bottle. Picture isnt showing for some ...
Solder on longer wires to the motorized wheel . Connect the red wires of both the servo motor and the motorized wheel to the positive terminal of the ...
Fasten everything down to the body and double check to make everything is in order . Now look at your butler robot, pretty cool isn't it? In the nex...
The software that Chives runs off was created in Visual Basic 6 and makes heavy use of Microsoft Vista's Speech Recognition Tool.The minimum laptop re...
After installing everything verify that the Phidgets Interface Kit Outputs are connected to their appropriate components. If something is wrong then j...
The code can be downloaded from this page . Just download it , unzip it , and run the self installer . Be sure to read the description in the self ins...
I have included in the code a lot of subroutines and functions to make the code easier to use and easier to understand . Here is a list of the major s...
Here are a bunch of videos demonstrating the butler robot's abilities.
For updates on my butler robot project check out my blog eRobots.BlogSpot.comeRobots.BlogSpot.com Warning:This project can b...
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