Sep 25, 2013

Danbot, a New Robot Kit for Beginners (Sep 25, 2013)


Danbot, a new robot kit for beginners was put on the market by Asakusa Giken on Sep 25, 2013.  Beginners can move Danbot without using PC, but using just TV remote control and also can make program of the robot by using TV remote control.

The control board can move eight servo motors.  Following video is a 4 axis robot, Roopo type robot.  Danbot seems to be suitable for making a Roopo type robot. Three alkali batteries (1.5 V x 3) were used for the power source.  The control board is also useful for control system using TV remote control.



The specification is as follows:
Power source voltage: 4.5 V
Communication System: Infrared 36~40 kHz
Program making: Infrared romote control
TV remote control: NEC, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, LG, Victor, SANYO, SHARP, SONY, TOSHIBA, Pioneer, HITACH, Funai and other TV remote controls
Servo numbers: 8
Motion numbers: 12 motions
Pose numbers: 8 steps per motion (maximum)

The manual of Danbot 1, 2, 3 are described in the site.

Price
Robot kit including a base board, 4 servo motors, robot parts for walking and Battery case, is 6,000 yen excluding tax.
Option servo motor ASV-15 is 600 yen excluding tax.

Asakusa Giken is well known as hobby robot parts, sensors and kits. Remo Humanoid Kit/P, a new humanoid robot kit, was also put on the market on Dec 15, 2009.

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Sep 21, 2013

ROBO-ONE 23rd Biped Robot Fight Tournamnt (Sep 14-15 , 2013)

ROBO-ONE 23rd sponsored by ROBO-ONE Committee, took place at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan) in Tokyo on Sep 14th and 15th, 2013.    ROBO-ONE Light 7th took place on Sep 14th, 4.5m Footrace took place as the preliminary ROBO-ONE Tournament (Light Class, Under 3kg) on Sep 14th and the main event ROBO-ONE 23rd Tournament (Light Class, Under 3kg) took place on Sep 15th.

Regulations of ROBO-ONE 23rd
The major regulation was the weight of robot, which was 3 kg or under 3 kg.  Details of the body regulation were same as those of the 22nd except for upper sole size of the foot as 14 cm and side punch was prohibited in the robot fight tournament.

ROBO-ONE 23rd  was held as the tournament with 48 robots upper place robots in the preliminary 4.5 m Footrace including winners of the local robot competitions .

4.5 m Footrace
Four meters and 50 cm Footrace was carried out as the preliminary competition to select 48 robots and to decide the tournament order.  One hundred robots joined the preliminary 4.5 m Footrace.

Robots had to walk 4.5 m course with 90 cm width within 1 minute.  In the 23rd,  5 thin rubbers under 1 mm was pasted on the board in the course.   Each robot time record taken 4.5 m walk, or the distance from start point if robot could not walk within 1 minute, or robot fell down from the course was recorded.

Each robot tried just one time Footrace. The 4.5 m course pasted 5 thin rubbers in the course, seemed to be not flat.  Therefore, it was not easy to walk through 4.5 m course for most of robots.    All robots walked the course within 1 minute, passed the preliminary competition.   The result of the preliminary 4.5 m Foot race is here.

The 1st place was Metalic Fighter 11.15 seconds by Team Meta, the 2nd place was Hauser 12.22 seconds by Craftman, the 3rd place was Gargoyle KID 12.92 seconds by Yoshida Familia.

Just 43 robots could reach the goal within 1 minute. Upper 10 robots were under 17 seconds, the 11th to 17th place robots were under 20 seconds, 18th to 30th were under 30 seconds.

Sanzai-san also reported details of 4.5 m Footrace (in Japanese).

4.5 m Footrace Videos
Yamada-san uploaded 4.5 m Footrace videos.  The 1st place was No.28 Metallic Fighter by Team Meta and the record was 11.15 seconds.



Entry No.73~76
No.73:Ryuketsu-kamen (26.02 seconds), No.74:Marika (Time out 2.042 m), No.75:Yokozuna Great Shiranui (Course out 3.002 m) , No.76:Frosty (Course out 3.42 m). Frosty was the 1st place (4.66 sec) of the 22nd ROBO-ONE 4.5 m Footrace.



ROBO-ONE 23rd Tournament (Light Class, 3 kg or Under)
 Side punch was prohibited in the ROBO-ONE 23rd Tournament as a new regulation in the robot fight.

The tournament winner was Laio by Kobe Municipal Science and Technology High School.  The 2nd place was Garoo by Kumama-san.  The 3rd place was Newtrino-Nero by Hida-Kamioka High School and the 4th place was Gattender by Sima-san.   Result of the tournament is here.

Sanzai-san also reported details of the tournament, the 1st stage, the 2nd stage, the 3rd stgeQuarterfinal and Semifinal, for the 3rd place and Final matches (in Japanese).

Video link list of the ROBO-ONE 23rd and ROBO-ONE Light 8th was uploaded by Ningyou-Tsukai-sann.

Interesting videos of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd stage, quarterfinal, semifinal, for 3rd place and final matches were as follows;

Sep 12, 2013

KCB-4WL, New Wireless LAN Board for Hobby Robot from KONDO (Sep 6th, 2013)

KONDO KAGAKU Co. Ltd opened a new wireless LAN board for hobby robot on Sep 6th, 2013. KCB-4WL is a board for remote controlling robot system with KONDO robot controlling board RCB-3HV or RCB-4HV.   It seems to be useful for such as autonomous robot, multi-legged robot game etc.

KONDO KAGAKU Co. Ltd put KCB-3WL,  previous version of KCB-4WL on the market in 2010.  Details of the KCB-3WL were also described in this blog.

The new board, beta version was put on the market and the complete version will be put on the market in the end of this year. The price including all systems is 31,500 yen (including tax).

Specifications are as follows;
CPU: ATMEL 32bit ARM9base 400MHz
OS: glibc base Linux
RAM: 64Mbyte
Flash ROM: 64Mbyte
IEEE802.11a/b/g/n(54Mbps/11Mbps)
UART x2
USB2.0 x2 (A type socket)
Size: 59.5 x 46.5 x 17 mm

Set including
Lantronix PremierWaveEN x1
KCB-4WL Interfaceboard x1
Screws for attaching 1 set
Poleantenna 1 set
ZH closscableB x1
Two-way cable x1
Start link cable x1
SoftwareCD-ROM


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