On Monday, Colin McGinn launched a Kickstarter in order to create a 3D short film using Tru.D 3D, which is a volumetric display system that he designed and patented. The system quickly feeds 3D volumetric objects into a specific viewing area, and each 3D piece forms a frame of an animation to tell a story that can be viewed from any angle.

Included among the Kickstarter rewards is a mini Tru.D 3D machine, which uses our micro metal gearmotors and magnetic encoders to perform a short, two-second animation. The machine is small enough to hold in your hands, and backers have the option of choosing from one of three different animations.

You can find more information on Colin’s project, including the full digital version of the short film, on his Kickstarter.

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Magnetic Encoder Pair Kit for Micro Metal Gearmotors, 12 CPR, 2.7-18V

The Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) underwater robotics team has been building remotely operated vehicles (ROV) to compete in underwater ROV competitions for several years. In the past, they have created custom motherboards that our 18v15 Simple Motor Controllers could plug directly into:

Custom Simple Motor Controller motherboard for MSOE underwater ROV.

The team is now using our newer G2 High-Power Motor Driver 18v17, which allowed them to save space in the newest iteration of their motherboard.

Custom G2 High-Power Motor Driver motherboard for MSOE underwater ROV.

For more information and updates, check out the group’s Facebook page.

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	Pololu Simple High-Power Motor Controller 18v15
	Pololu G2 High-Power Motor Driver 18v17

Our customer Robert sent us this spectacular image of NGC 1073 from his backyard observatory after we helped him get a SPDT Relay Carrier working with his Mini-Maestro 18-Channel servo controller. We thought it was pretty cool, so we asked him a bit more about how he captured it and how he is using the Maestro in his observatory. Continued…

This robot, created by theophil on Let’s Make Robots, uses a Rover 5 chassis with encoders, a MinIMU, sonar sensors, and a few expansion plates to do room mapping. Theophil modified the chassis to use Dagu Wild Thumper wheels, and made a custom 3D-printed adapter for connecting the wheels in a compact way. The program for the robot, which is available on GitHub, collects data from the sonar sensors about how far away objects are and creates a grayscale map where the darkness of a pixel corresponds to the robot’s confidence that an obstacle exists in that spot.

Example map made by theophil’s mapping rover.

The program also includes a movement algorithm meant to drive the robot along paths that take it close to many obstacles to increase the accuracy of the sonar sensors. More about theophil’s room mapping robot can be found in his Let’s Make Robots post.

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	Dagu Rover 5 Tracked Chassis with Encoders
	MinIMU-9 v3 Gyro, Accelerometer, and Compass (L3GD20H and LSM303D Carrier)
	Arduino Mega 2560 R3
	Dagu Wild Thumper Wheel 120x60mm Pair with 4mm Shaft Adapters - Chrome
	Pololu RP5/Rover 5 Expansion Plate RRC07B (Wide) Solid Black
	Pololu RP5/Rover 5 Expansion Plate RRC07A (Narrow) Solid Black

One of our forum members, gchristopher, posted about his 3D-printed mecanum wheel rover. The rover uses our D24V10F5 5V regulator and some of our TB6612FNG dual motor drivers.

You can find more information on his blog. Additionally, you can find the CAD files on the Thingiverse page, and his original forum post on our forum.

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	Pololu 5V, 1A Step-Down Voltage Regulator D24V10F5
	TB6612FNG Dual Motor Driver Carrier

Remember my super cool sumo robot? My sumo robot is different from regular sumo robots. It’s like my sumo robot is in the top percentage of mini sumo robots. Continued…

TechBuilder’s life-size phone-controlled BB8 droid uses a Pololu dual VNH5019 motor driver shield to drive two 19:1 37D metal gearmotors.

For step-by-step instructions for building this droid, see his DIY BB8 Instructables page.

This “World’s Fastest” Rubik’s Cube-solving robot uses six DRV8825 stepper motor driver carriers, one for each face.

VertiGo is a novel robot designed with one main goal: the ability to drive on floors and walls, even if the walls aren’t perfectly flat. To accomplish this, it uses tiltable propellers for propulsion rather than motorized wheels. The propeller tilting is controlled by two Pololu Jrk 21v3 USB motor controllers with feedback. Students at ETH Zurich made this robot in collaboration with Disney Research Zürich.

You can visit the VertiGo website for pictures and project news.

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Jrk 21v3 USB Motor Controller with Feedback

For their senior design project in the spring semester of this year, a team of Mechanical Engineering students (the Tuggiteers!) from Purdue made a remotely-controlled plane-towing vehicle that uses one of our step-up/step-down regulators. The team shared with us this video of their final review, which demonstrates the vehicle approaching, connecting to, and towing a single-engine aircraft:

This next video captures their vehicle’s first test. An on-board camera allows you to get a 1st-person view of the latch actuating and gripping the aircraft wheel:

We are always excited to see our parts getting used in cool projects, and we were especially excited to see this because it looks way easier than doing it the usual way:

Ben, pushing a plane (before he started Crossfit).

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Pololu 6V Step-Up/Step-Down Voltage Regulator S18V20F6