Halloween is upon us, and it looks like everyone is testing out their costumes. For instance, the trees are dressing up (or down?) as Naked Trees, and all the leaves are dressing up as Multicoloured Dead Leaves. It's all very exciting. But we've keeping our heads down and churning out some great stuff to show off.
DragonTail Robot Platform - Starting at $49.00
We're on a roll with another new kit for you this week. Say hello to the DragonTail - a simple robot platform for all your robot platformin' needs. We set you up with a nifty aluminum base, acrylic panels with mounting holes, servos with wheels, a caster/roller, and a battery pack. The rest is up to you - we've worked hard to make this as flexible as possible, so that you can use your choice of microcontroller brains (we recommend a Freeduino SB and GVS Shield) and whatever sensors or accessories you feel like slapping on. This kit is shipping immediately in two flavours, the advanced version (that includes tactile sensors) for $59 and the standard version (not pictured) for $49.
Robbe Sumovore
Youtube user pateycanada just sent us something pretty darn cool. He's taken our Sumovore, combined it with a SOMO Sound Module and a fistful of other components, and made bot with some attitude. It talks, it sings, and it dances. What more could you possibly want? We're really impressed with the hard work and clever application that was put into the project. You can see (and hear) it in action and get some more information from the YouTube page.
Do you have a neat project you'd like us to show off? Let us know!
New Releases
While the DragonTail is our big release for the week, we still have a handful of other items that we're releasing, as well as a few more clearance items. Check out the selection below:
BrutusBot Armor Enhancement Kit - $9.85 USD
We've made another modification for the Brutusbot - it's just too fun for us to put down, and we keep coming up with cool things to do with it. Such as the BrutusBot Armor Enhancement Kit that reworks the top of the Brutusbot to accommodate a built-on SAFE. It makes it super-easy to use on an Arduino and shield.
Bulbdial Clocks w/ Case - $85.00 USD The Bulbdial Clock from Evil Mad Science is a wonderful and elegant kit. It uses a circular array of LEDs to cast shadows that are used as hands for an analog-style clock. There's no two ways about it - it's a very classy timepiece, in a techno kind of way. We've just completed a bit of work to make it available with black, tortoiseshell and granite acrylic cases.
Make Solar Pendulum Bundle - $13.40 USD Owen Tanner created a project featured in Make Magazine Volume 28, which details building your own Solar Pendulum. This bundle has the parts you'll need to construct your own solar-powered, self-activating pendulum, at a 20% saving over buying the parts individually.
Clearance Shield and Shield PCBs Well, it appears that we have two different shield PCBs and one lonely motor shield bundle that's looking for a home. These PCBs in particular can be useful for experimenting, especially when you don't need to get them as part of a kit that has a bunch of other parts you might not want.
Make Solar Pendulum Bundle
If you want to be all sneaky about it, you can get both the Motor Shield Parts Bundle and PCB, which works out to a full motor kit at 18% off (while quanitities last).
If we keep going at this rate, it looks like we'll be dressing up as the Brutusbots for Halloween. It'll be wildly hilarious to us, and utterly confusing to everyone else. Oh well - we have to at least try to show up those stupid trees and leaves. Those guys win the costume contests every year.
A little while ago we received an email from an observant Mr. Pavel Ryabinkov, the site-admin of www.myROBOT.ru, who was asking us to relay a question to Mark Tilden: Could you answer, can it be considered the official date of birth BEAM-robotics November 10, 1989?I was basing this question on the message Brian O. Bush: […]
The following instructions detail how to build a simple pummer using a BC2 (Bicore) BEP (Bicore Experimenter PCB). A pummer is a solar powered self activating LED flasher. The difference between a pummer and a BLFNAR (blinky light for no apparent reason) is that a pummer has a soft turn off, which means that it turns on fast, but slowly fades away.
We were pleased to see the Kickstarter for Ringo, the Photopopper-ish but much smarter version of our own ~17 year old design robot kit. The video showcases some pretty cool behaviors, and is easily one of those projects where we think "Jee, why didn't we do that?"
So as we mentioned last week, our contest to name our upcoming GVS Ardweeny Backpack had come to a close. We've had a chance to sift through all the submissions, and the results are IN. This would be the part where someone hands someone else a secret-lookin' envelope, but because I can't spot any envelopes […]
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Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018.