How to build your own sugru robot, Fixbot

So you saw our video and you've fallen in love with Fixbot, have you? That's okay, it's understandable. We've fallen in love with it too.

We have some great news! You can build your own Fixbot too, provided that you're okay with getting your hands dirty and that you have access to a Makerbot / RepRap / Ultimaker / 3D printer. You don't need to be a code wizard or a da Vinci descendant to get through this instructable, but it will help if you know a bit about how to upload sketches to an Arduino.

Join us on a journey of bearings, nuts, servos, lots of wires and some ABS, and by the end of it, you'll have your own Fixbot to play with!

P.S. we'd like to give a hat tip to David Chatting for his trigonometry skills and to Benedikt Gross for his movement learning code!

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Step 1: What you'll need

Nuts and bolts and bearings

16 x M3, 16mm long bolts and nuts
16 x M4, 12mm long bolts and nuts
28 x M1.6, 10mm long bolts
3 10mm outer diameter x 3mm inner diameter ball bearings

Electronics

4 x Hitec HS-422 servos
1 x SpringRC SM23/33 microservo (also known as sm-s2309s)
1 x Arduino
1 x 7.5V DC power supply

Other

Red, yellow and black solid-core wire
3 cable ties
2 small terminal blocks

Tools

M4 allen key
M3 allen key
Pliers
Needle file
Wire strippers
Small phillips-head screw driver
Small flat-head screw driver

Farid007 says: Dec 30, 2012. 1:48 AM

Funny video

Farid007 says: Dec 30, 2012. 1:48 AM

Funny video

The nerdling says: Dec 19, 2012. 4:59 PM

i want one

zkus says: Sep 6, 2012. 1:22 PM

Awesome. Think Ill make one of these...

How married are you to the servos you have listed (i have a whole box of unused servos some where, and would hate to order more...)

projectsugru (author) in reply to zkusSep 7, 2012. 8:12 AM

Hey zkus,

Most of the chassis is modelled to fit the hitec servo mount. You could see if your servos are going to fit by comparing your servo's datasheet with the hitec hs-422's datasheet.

We've also made the parametric 3D files available to the public, so you could change the designs to fit your servos!

derte84 in reply to projectsugruSep 16, 2012. 1:59 AM

Is there any instructable on how to build a parametric 3d file?

zkus in reply to projectsugruSep 7, 2012. 1:29 PM

Sweet, love it when things are parametric (though in a format i am unfamiliar with... dont happen to have openscad files laying around by chance?) Ill check the datasheets, hopefully they just match. Cheers!

blackwellj says: Sep 8, 2012. 2:43 AM

i think you are confusing parts a and be, it might also be nice to say how many of each parts you need to print off

larystoy says: Sep 6, 2012. 11:47 AM

For those of us that don't have a "cnc printer" are you supplying the frame work for this bot ? If so how can we order the parts ?

Thanks

Larry

jeffconnelly in reply to larystoySep 6, 2012. 8:04 PM

You could cut them out of wood or plastic, or get them 3D printed from one of the many available online services.

dunnos says: Sep 6, 2012. 8:31 AM

Sweet project! Maybe I'll scale it up a bit and give it a claw!

Now that I think about it I think I'll make it a slave to my own arm! Flex sensors or kinect should be a good option...

Wow I am itching to try this now :)

projectsugru (author) in reply to dunnosSep 6, 2012. 10:15 AM

That's a great idea! Keep us posted!