Robotics design, gadgets, hacks, and DIY technology.

I started learning ROS (the Robot Operating System) some time ago and I have to say it is an awesome system. It makes it very easy to reuse code for robotic projects and to benefit from tons of work done in robotics so far.

ROSCon 2012

When I saw that Willow Garage (and now the OSRF) organized ROSCon, a ROS developer conference, I couldn’t help but assist. Needless to say, it was a blast, I had the chance to learn a lot, and got a bunch of robotic swag.

See the slideshow below for some pictures of the talks , robots and Saint Paul (MN), the city where it took place.

I was invited to a Pride & Prejudice & Zombies themed party and I thought that (although it is not exactly the same era) I could have a steampunk disguise and be a steampunk zombie hunter.

Steampunk Zombie Hunter

I wanted to have a steampunk disguise for a long time and this was the perfect excuse to do it, or actually to have my brother, Alan, do it for me. While I worried about the clothes, he built an awesome steampunk gun based on a cheap Nerf knock-off and some goggles using plumbing parts. See the awesome results below.

I was very lucky to have been interviewed by Nora Young for Spark, a CBC podcast about new technologies. This news is a bit late though because this was for the March 25th edition of the show, but nonetheless, I think it is good to document it here.

You can listen to the full interview here. It is about MyRobots.com and the concept of a social network for robots.

New Scientist - 21/01/2012

This is a bit late so you can skip it if you already know it. I was interviewed and featured in an article about the future of robotics on the New Scientist magazine from January 2012. The article was written by the awesome Celeste Biever.

New Scientist article

Needless to say, I am truly humbled to have been quoted among so many amazing roboticists including Andrew Ng (my dear ML Class professor).

In the last year, I created my first full hardware design, including its custom firmware, for RobotShop. Of course, the design is open source so you can reuse it however you like. The end-result is the MyRobots Connect, a Serial-to-Ethernet gateway.

MyRobots-Connect - Eagle

I used the amazing Eagle and you can find the design files in the MyRobots Github page. If you want to know more about how this device works, see its wiki page. But in short, it translates serial messages received via XBee into HTTP GETs to MyRobots API.

See below some PCB pr0n.