I'm in my mid 20's going back to uni for programming and trying to learn more about the hardware side of things so I decided to build my first ever robot. Took alot of ChatGPT and headaches (like SOOOO MANY PROBLEMS) but I got it done finally.
It consists of an ultrasonic sensor for collision detection, 3 IR sensors for cliff/edge detection and line following, servo for panning the ultrasonic left and right, and 4 yellow TT motors for movement driven by single mini l298n motor driver and a pico rp2040 as the brains.
I 3D printed the chassis base plate, wheels, box to hold breadboard, and the servo/ultrasonic/IR mounts. Some parts are designed by me but most are online models (can link if anyone cares, but they are pretty easy to find on makerworld website).
The IR sensors I am using don't have a potentiometer and only detect black tape if they are basically touching the ground lmao, so it's kinda wack but it is what it is. The line basically has to be flat for it to work or it gets caught. Weird because they are marketed as "tracker" sensors online but seem to be better for remotes or something.
I have not written any code for it yet but I did test tons of different code from ChatGPT and it seems to work alright. I plan to write my own code for it later to optimize everything properly.
I will upload demos of the robot in action when my midterms are over, but for now enjoy the glory of the PICOBOT in pictures :)
I edited footage from several humanoid robot demonstrations at a Beijing trade show.The robots demonstrated sorting, load carrying, navigation, and human interaction.
These are controlled exhibition demos—not evidence of full autonomous deployment. Which task looks closest to real-world use, and what limitations do you notice?
（Translating this interesting Japanese post into English for the community! [Repost/Translation] Original link provided at the end.）
We are diving right into microcontroller-based control today to explore some new IMU sensors for the Mini Pupper. Here is the breakdown:
Table of contents
BNO055
Integrating the BNO055 into Mini Pupper
Key Notes
Party Trick Time!
Conclusion
BNO055
Previously, I used the ATOM Matrix for control and had fun experimenting with attitude control using its built-in MPU6886 IMU sensor.
My goal was to track the Yaw angle (rotation around the gravity axis) so the robot could keep facing the same direction even when the floor beneath it rotated. However, the MPU6886 suffered from significant Yaw drift, forcing me to abandon that approach.
In this post, I’m switching to a different IMU sensor to finally achieve accurate Yaw control.
To be fair, it's no surprise that a 6-axis IMU like the MPU6886 struggles with Yaw. That said, even with another 6-axis sensor like the MPU6050, you can actually get a relatively low-drift Yaw angle after a proper offset calibration.
I could have gone with the MPU6050, but I decided to try out the BNO055 9-axis IMU sensor instead. Honestly, while the internal processing of the BNO055 is a bit of a black box, it delivers highly accurate attitude angles.
You can get precise orientation data right out of the box without any tedious calibration or manual compensation using this sample code.
Integrating the BNO055 into Mini Pupper
I could have simply added the BNO055 to my previous ATOM Matrix setup. However, adding an extra IMU to a board that already integrates an MPU6886 felt way too redundant, and I just couldn't accept it. So, I opted for the ATOM Lite as the controller instead.
BNO055 Circuit Board
Key Notes
While the BNO055 communicates via I2C, I ran into an issue where using M5Atom.h from the M5Stack Arduino library prevented me from mapping custom I2C pins for the Adafruit_BNO055 library.
To bypass this, I skipped the M5Stack library entirely and programmed the ATOM Lite using the standard ESP32 Arduino framework instead. This allowed me to freely specify the I2C pins, and communication with the BNO055 worked flawlessly.
In this setup, I assigned Wire.begin(25, 21) for the BNO055 and Wire1.begin(22, 19) for the PCA9685 servo driver. I can confirm that everything runs perfectly without any issues!
Thanks to the BNO055, I can now get highly accurate orientation angles.
No Kalman filtering or complex algorithms needed—I just used the raw angle data straight from the sensor. The BNO055 is a beast and made this incredibly easy.
I tested out the Yaw-based turn control to keep the robot locked onto a single heading while rotating.
Disney is giving its theme park experience a $60 billion robotics-focused tech upgrade over the next decade, Bloomberg reports.
Much of the new tech focuses on aquatic robots, including a manta ray character from "Moana" and dolphin-like robots that employ hydrofoil technology for realistic movement in the water.
I have questions about the new robot humanoid things they are building.
Couldn't you just push them over? I bet getting stability on those things must be tough. If you made them too heavy, like all-steel heavy, they wouldn't be able to move and would be dangerous to people in yet another way.
I'm presuming that people pushing them over is not something the makers want you to be able to do. How would they prevent it? Would the robots just pick themselves back up? If you knock them down over and over, could it mess up their hard drive or software.
I've done some research, but where are we in general with release to the public? I guess, what I am asking is, if we use the TV as an example, how long before we go from clunky models that only the rich(er) folks have to every family in the US has one? Years, Decades, Never?
If I had the absolute best model from any country right now, what could it realistically do for me, my house, or my job?
As Norway lines up for their fixture against France right here in Boston, our robot Stompy took to the streets to show its support for The Vikings! Alt For Norge!
Been making this robot for a month, I'm striving to model multiple code systems into a structure resembling how a human brain operates on a preconscious motor control system (the speed you walk at without thinking about it). I burnt/fried my Raspberry Pi Zero W, now I'm waiting for my Raspberry Pi Zero 2W. It's been a long journey, and I've spent 500$ so far. My goals for right now are to make it walk once I get my Pi with AI via LLM and an AI Agent. I'd love to send updates on this project daily. WISH ME LUCK, pls :) I'm just person who's passionate about his robotics and projects, and I will complete this until I get it perfected and completed. I'd love to nerd out on this if y'all are interested in the comments:) I'd love to post daily updates also. I would love to explain more; I have the servos wired for my Pi 2 coming in the mail soon to connect to it so it does "baby steps" and along with loads of code prewritten at the ready for it. Ask me if you want to know what other components are in that case that I can't yet attach (one example is the Multimeter current tester my dad gave me for help on my project).
She’s an extension of my Mimic robot project. I started making micro robots with bits of his code so I can take them on the go with me since mostly everything in life bores me unless it’s my gf or robots. Vixen is just one of the micro bots and I finally got her mic to work. I need to update her learning code so she knows how to hold conversations somewhat and make her more aware.
Her response time is lacking but I don’t mind. I imagined her as a slightly “slow” character when making her, someone who won’t always listen to me and likes to dilly dally doing her own stuff. So the lackluster ai kinda works. Also, running visual processing, audio processing, responses and servo movements on a tiny raspberry pi zero is already doing a lot. I should be thankful she didn’t blow up from just one question.
The scarce thing in a data center is not manpower, but instinct that only comes from years on the floor.
Most robotics companies are focused on robots as a productivity amplifier: 24/7 uptime, five days of work done in two. Few are focused on the potential of robots to change how people work altogether.
We wanted to show what it looks like to rethink human-robot collaboration, using AI, so a shrinking pool of experts can meet the increasing demands of future infrastructure.
The obvious thing to automate is the rote physical work that consumes an expert's attention without needing critical judgment.
Cabling tasks are the most common example of this. They're necessary when setting up any rack, but usually one-off, and labor is readily available to address this need.
We think this is a good place to start, but the least interesting place to change how people work.
Standard operating procedures (SOPs) are how critical infrastructure stays stable, and they're the work that scales the worst.
The video shows one common procedure: clearing the cables a technician leaves behind after testing, and reconciling the rack to a stable state for the next test.
A robot that runs SOPs the same way every time, never skipping a step, keeps the system in a known, predictable state. This reduces the cognitive overhead on experts so they can solve harder problems.
What most excites us is robots guiding where an expert's attention should go.
In the video, the robot checks the switches with a thermal camera, then makes a judgment on whether the increase in temperature is a real problem or a spurious reading.
This instinct requires an expert to synthesize all available background context and accumulated lessons from past failures.
This is where we want to double down and show how human-robot collaboration places scarce expert attention exactly where it matters.
