PART 5

Robots AND Drones

One of the most fun things you can do in electronics is to build robots. Once your electronics project begins to move around in the physical world, you’re going to attract lots of attention! Along the way, you’ll also learn a lot about how electronic and mechanical devices work together.

Jérôme Demers shows you how to get started quickly with a simple little robot he calls “Beetlebot.” Despite the fact that it is so simple and inexpensive, and requires no programming, the Beetlebot can feel its way around rooms and avoid obstacles. It’s a great project to do with kids.

Kris Magri developed her robot Makey when she was working as an intern at Make: magazine. The design you see here was her sixth. As of this writing, Kris is a Mechatronic Engineer working at Disneyland. Her recent animatronics projects for Disney include two of the seven dwarfs. And she gave Jack Sparrow a hand—literally!

You never know where an interest in hobby robotics will take you. It took Judy Aime’ Castro to China. CoffeeBots started as an interactive project for an art show. Judy wrote up the project for Make: magazine, which led to her being invited to Maker Faire Shenzhen. There her robots won a blue ribbon, and one of them (CoffeeBot Zombie) was added to the permanent collection at Inno Park. You can learn how to build your own CoffeeBot and give it some personality by working through Judy’s project, which was specially updated for this volume.

What could possibly be more fun than building robots? How about building and flying robots! That’s one way to think of drones. They scale from simple toys up to sophisticated, programmable robots that can fly themselves, with applications ranging from consumer to professional to military. The editors of Make: introduce you to the anatomy of a drone with some sophisticated graphics that reveal all the details. Intel engineer Mikal Hart—inventor of the Reverse Geocache Puzzle—explains how to integrate GPS into your drone so it can find its way home.

Chad Kapper will get you off the ground with “The Handycopter UAV,” a basic quadrotor that you can build mostly from parts found at your local hardware store. Chad is a video producer who is also passionate about r/c flight. You’ll find great videos on his website FliteTest.com.

For a wealth of additional information about building and piloting a variety of r/c aircraft, be sure to check out the archive of Lucas Weakley’s “Maker Hangar” video series on the makezine.com website. Lucas’ project, which is reprinted here, introduces you to a different kind of multirotor drone—the tricopter. Read on to discover why the three-rotor configuration has some distinct advantages over the more common quad setup.