Robotics by TK

  I tried my hand at making a Quadruped Robot; an 8-DOF one as opposed to the typical 12-DOF ones. It is still very much a WIP, but I just couldn’t wait to make a post about it. In the top most photo you can see how it is taking serial inputs from a GUI application. The application itself was made using Processing. The GIF below shows how I send the servo values using the interactive knobs and pressing the respective servo buttons. For instance, HLF would mean Hip Left Front and KLB would be Knee Left Back. So if I set the HLF knob to be of a certain value, and then press the HLF button, it will send a command to move the front left servo connected to the hip, to the desired position. The GUI establishes Serial communication with the Arduino.  Spent so many hours 3D Printing the body. (The STL files were obtained from this Instructables page ). To provide sufficient current to all my servos, I al...

  Guess what these are ? And what they're made from. (Hint: Check the post's tags!) I can't share the details yet, but if you are curious you'll have to come down to our company in Multan to figure it out! 

I started off this project wanting to dig deeper into using Serial Communication to control an Arduino-connected actuator. Previously, I had seen certain projects switching LED’s on and off using WinForms. Although WinForms is great, I wanted to go a step above that. My goal was to create an interactive UI, which was a little more intuitive to use. In this case, creating a dial-like interface that the user could move would help them visualize clearly what direction they want their motor to point to. As opposed to typing in an angular value in a text box, which is decidedly less intuitive. Since WinForms is limited, I knew I had to use WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation). I’ve seen people build amazing WPF apps on Youtube, and thought it would fit this project. Also, it would serve as hands-on practice with XAML and C#. (Since I will be needing to use them in a later project). Required Components: 28BYJ-48 Stepper Motor ULN2003 Motor Driver Board Arduino UNO (or an...