Makerfaire Roma and Rennes

This month was our second Makerfaire in Roma since I started the InMoov project. We got there just in time with the airplane to get ready with the robot for the next day opening. No problems with customs.

We were set along with the French Makerfaire team, Barbot, Bertier Luyt and Jean-Baptiste and 3DprinterX tattoo Machine.
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Alessandro Didonna was already on the set with his girlfriend, along with Bram Geenen of Wevolver. The location we had was perfect, a huge place with a lot of people passing through, not too much noise, which is good when you talk to the robots.
As planned, there was also Leon and Marten, that had a booth. Unfortunatly they were far away from us, and we only saw each at the end of the days when it was time for Pizza!!!
They had brought their DIY  Gimbal camera stand, a very well made Submarine (1m20) and the second version of the InMoov Nervo boards all ready and soldered to be mounted on the Arduino boards. Alessandro also got a kit. They offered me for my birthday an extra Arduino Mega board!!! Thanks guys!
I bet when the builders are going to see those picture, they are going to ask when are they going to be for sale... Sorry for the delays, but I'm not the only one in the loop on this. :)



 








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Finger Printed at last

I was away for a while, and of course when I travel, I don't cary my 3D printer with me. Plus, being away in the desert makes it difficult to comuunicate with internet.
Since I released the finger prosthetic for Bionico, I was impatient to print it. 
Fortunatly Morris, on the other side of the Atlantic had his printer ready for testing. He was the first one to print the finger and got me some feedback. 
You can see his blog here
So I was designing on my computer in the desert and he was printing the parts along, and everytime some thing was not correct in my design, he would notify me and I could check the pictures posted on his blog to modify the design in consequences. This took us a lot of time after all. But we got to move on and thanks a lot to him. The three bellow pictures are from his blog:

                                      
                                         
                                                 
Being back from the desert, I was then able to print the finger. There was still things that were not correct. I also ordered another type of motor which is a 6V planetary gear motor with a ration of 154:1 from Pololu.
So the casing had to be redesigned again. There is a very small worm gear that actuate the finger and I printed it in ABS but it is definitly too fragile, so it either needs to be modified or printed in stainless steel. You can get it by Shapeways here.

I left both versions on Thingiverse because it can be handy for other projects.

With the servo Corona DS238HV use these files:
-FingerWormV1.stl
-ServoHolderV2.stl
-PhalangeV6.stl
-ActuatorsV3.stl
With the planetary gear motor use these files:
-FingerWormV2.stl
-MotorHolderV3mid.stl
-MotorHolderV3top.stl
-PhalangeV6.stl
-ActuatorsV3.stl

The planetary motor:
http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/1109
The dual driver DRV8833
http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/2130 
The Arduino card:
http://learn.adafruit.com/arduino-tips-tricks-and-techniques/arduino-uno-faq
Here is a video of the finger in action. The speed isn't really great, but it is a choice of planetary ratio I made for to get higher torque.

It was pretty hard to make that video, because the small wormgear breaks when the finger reach the end of it's run. Unfortunatly I haven't yet figured out how to set a time delay on my script and a reverse of polarity. Using DC motors and servos is not the same when it comes to create a script in the Arduino.

The big news:


InMoov is selected and invited for the European Makerfaire Edition in Roma. So I will be going to Italy and have the pleasure to meet all the italian and european geeks that attend this event. I hope to get some time to make the robot usable, it's going to be something to put the full InMoov in a suitcase.
Myrobotlab is also selected to attend the Makerfaire, Alessandro will be the Ambassador of MRL. Leonardo who has created a superheroe InMoov will attend the faire as well, hopefully his suitcase is big enough for to bring his robot. Leonardo his also working to make us a real website.

And Bionico, of course, is also selected for the Makerfaire, we are currently getting a hand ready for Nicolas. Hugues is hard at work on all the stage levels.
Here is a french article about us in LE MONDE newspaper.