Once again the guys on the Trossen Robotics Forum have come up with some great robots for the robotics project contest. I can imagine the difficulties in judging this round since all the bots are innovative in many ways.
The winner this round is my favorite, and someone that the geeklets recognized right way. DJSures’ version of the K-9 Robotic Dog is spot on with a lot of details. I’m tempted to build one like this just so I have a friendly robot waiting for me when I come home. K-9 is aware of his surroundings and actually drives around obstacles without bumping into them.
My next favorite only scored 3rd place. It is just a bit too realistic, and about as creepy as robots get. Garry Willett’s Animatronic project definitely freaked out the kids. If you have time and some interest in building your own be sure to check out the videos and links he’s posted to the forum. His process for making the eyeballs is amazing. I’d really love to do something like this, but I won’t fool myself into thinking I have time to even start. I’m also not sure I could sleep in the same house as one of these. I think it’d be wise to keep it at the office just in case it wakes up hungry one night.
The most detailed entry comes from Sunithya. Another animatron, but this time in the form of a Robotic Marionette. The entire thread is worth a read as he goes into great detail about how everything was made. Even if you don’t need a marionette, the techniques he uses can be applied to most build projects.
You can see the runners-up and some more commentary all the robots at Trossen’s blog.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=ca1a084d-7789-4387-bb06-d9376e591276)
