Kit Recommendations?

[nodebotanist]

Austin is looking for a kit that will be a simple enough project for those new to NodeBots to work through.

It looks like we're looking for something mobile. We can handle some basic 3D printing if necessary, and can look into more fabrication if necessary.

Anyone from other cities have ideas? Also @pierceray am I missing anything?

[pierceray]

Trying to keep costs down as well. Thought about line tracing robot, or soccer bots

[reconbot]

I highly recommend @makenai's soccer/sumo bots. There are a couple versions to play with too.

[makenai]

Hi @reconbot and @kperch and @pierceray! I'm looking into some options to produce the die cut wood bases in bulk so as to spend less time in front of the laser cutter - but you can definitely cut a bunch out at techshop too. Those things were actually made for our first NodeBots day last year. :)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/owlposse/sets/72157634838126566

I'm working on a 3D printed version right now (https://github.com/makenai/sumobot-jr/blob/master/3d_print/sumobot.scad) that will be published soon. It doesn't take less labor than the laser cutter, but more people have access to 3D printers. Will post STL's to thingiverse soon.

http://instagram.com/p/o4On6QmW_L/

[qwo]

Hi we're the organizing group @norfolkjs, are there price range kits? $160 for the Sumo Jr kit seems on the high side

[qwo]

Maybe bracket recommendations for each bracket so we can recommend our sponsors to buy within, Im not a robot expert but much appreciated <$50 <$100 <$150 <$200

[makenai]

Where did the $160 number come from? It’s a free kit you can laser cut or 3D print for yourself.

http://sumobotkit.com/

It’s dollars of wood or filament. Then you just need to add a couple of servos and some sort of microcontroller. If you go with cheap servos and generic arduinos, this will usually put it at <$50.

On Sun, Jun 8, 2014 at 8:27 AM, Stanley Zheng notifications@github.com wrote:

Hi we're the organizing group @norfolkjs https://github.com/norfolkjs, are there price range kits? $160 for the Sumo Jr kit seems on the high side

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/nodebots/nodebotsday/issues/76#issuecomment-45439497.

[qwo]

Hi @makenai you're correct i misread it as the 'premade' materials cost. Perfect thanks!

[lynnaloo]

@makenai @reconbot Do you guys have a cheap source online to buy the microcontrollers?

[ajfisher]

Hi. We have a derivative of the SumoBot we're using in AU which can be made from cardboard if you need it to be - though I wouldn't necessarily use it for basho competitions with one of @makenai 's - it's simple to put together, and has tie points so you can customise it quite a lot (great for kids).

https://github.com/nodebotsau/simplebot

In Australia we can make these via retail channels for about AUD$85 (about $75 USD). The major cost for us is an arduino which if you source from somewhere like China can decrease the price significantly.

A new version of this, which optimises the cuts so it's cheaper to lasercut, will be available this week once I test the design (in AU, laser cutting is quite expensive so cuts eliminated means much cheaper price when you're doing 20 of these).

[makenai]

Also, the 3D print version is up on Thingiverse: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:357369 (along with many other kinds of robots)

@lynnaloo - Sorry for the delay in responding. The cheap arduino @rwaldron recommends and many of us are looking in to is this one: http://www.amazon.com/SainSmart-ATmega328P-CABLE-Included-Arduino/dp/B006GX8IAY or http://www.amazon.com/SainSmart-ATmega328P-Development-Compatible-Arduino/dp/B00E5WJSHK/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1404083138&sr=1-1&keywords=sainsmart+uno

[gorhgorh]

the uk gang an I pulled out https://github.com/tableflip/lasercat-workshop this could also be a sample project to kickstart ppl that have no projects for nodebots day

2014-06-30 0:06 GMT+01:00 Pawel Szymczykowski notifications@github.com:

Also, the 3D print version is up on Thingiverse: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:357369 (along with many other kinds of robots)

@lynnaloo https://github.com/lynnaloo - Sorry for the delay in responding. The cheap arduino @rwaldron https://github.com/rwaldron recommends and many of us are looking in to is this one: http://www.amazon.com/SainSmart-ATmega328P-CABLE-Included-Arduino/dp/B006GX8IAY or http://www.amazon.com/SainSmart-ATmega328P-Development-Compatible-Arduino/dp/B00E5WJSHK/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1404083138&sr=1-1&keywords=sainsmart+uno

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/nodebots/nodebotsday/issues/76#issuecomment-47481749.

[gorhgorh]

on the clone of arduino to reduce costs i have to recommend iteaduino http://imall.iteadstudio.com/im130312001.html since they have a good price and some interesting design differences (built in power rails for servo for ALL the pins, each pin can be or male or female or soldered, and YOU CAN SWITCH PIN TO 5 V !!!) and ... they can be really cheap.

we ordered and used 80 unit for LXJS, none of em had any problem

2014-06-30 9:32 GMT+01:00 Jérome Loï gorhgorh@gmail.com:

the uk gang an I pulled out https://github.com/tableflip/lasercat-workshop this could also be a sample project to kickstart ppl that have no projects for nodebots day

2014-06-30 0:06 GMT+01:00 Pawel Szymczykowski notifications@github.com:

Also, the 3D print version is up on Thingiverse:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:357369 (along with many other kinds of robots)

@lynnaloo https://github.com/lynnaloo - Sorry for the delay in responding. The cheap arduino @rwaldron https://github.com/rwaldron recommends and many of us are looking in to is this one: http://www.amazon.com/SainSmart-ATmega328P-CABLE-Included-Arduino/dp/B006GX8IAY or http://www.amazon.com/SainSmart-ATmega328P-Development-Compatible-Arduino/dp/B00E5WJSHK/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1404083138&sr=1-1&keywords=sainsmart+uno

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/nodebots/nodebotsday/issues/76#issuecomment-47481749 .

[makenai]

Hi all,

I'm working with a local fab company to laser cut a bunch of sumobot kits for our event. I wanted to make them available to you guys as well if you're interested. They're at-cost for $8 and include only the woodcut parts, 3D printed ballcaster w/ bearing, rubber bands and screws. You'll need to get your own microcontroller, servos and battery case. You will also need to pay for shipping.

If you're interested, please let me know here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1nhcVCgEbFGbuZ_VKlYrSMFGG2OxCO1F94mgd7cVwU80/viewform?usp=send_form

There's a slight chance the fab won't be able to get them cut in time for shipping (shooting for the 18th and 3 day shipping) so don't put all your horses in this one basket. If you leave your email above, I'll keep you in the loop on all developments.

Probably USA only because of the tight deadline, but I also love your country.

[gorhgorh]

hello I'm in paris, and have a laser cutter at hand, and I have a funny laser turret that can also make a cool project, and ... an idea spawned in my mind ... let's trade ... designs !!!

as you pointed out the main problem with usa > eu is the distance, internet is blazing fast.

this is raising another point we started to talk at LXJS, I'm sure nodebots day will spawn interesting idea for first time project, we should mutualise them and nodeschool them, shouldn't we ?

2014-07-02 9:09 GMT+02:00 Pawel Szymczykowski notifications@github.com:

Hi all,

I'm working with a local fab company to laser cut a bunch of sumobot kits for our event. I wanted to make them available to you guys as well if you're interested. They're at-cost for $8 and include only the woodcut parts, 3D printed ballcaster w/ bearing, rubber bands and screws. You'll need to get your own microcontroller, servos and battery case. You will also need to pay for shipping.

If you're interested, please let me know here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1nhcVCgEbFGbuZ_VKlYrSMFGG2OxCO1F94mgd7cVwU80/viewform?usp=send_form

There's a slight chance the fab won't be able to get them cut in time for shipping (shooting for the 18th and 3 day shipping) so don't put all your horses in this one basket. If you leave your email above, I'll keep you in the loop on all developments.

Probably USA only because of the tight deadline, but I also love your country.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/nodebots/nodebotsday/issues/76#issuecomment-47743737.

[makenai]

Sure! The laser cut plans are linked from the sumobotkit.com website in the github. You can try the PSVG approach to customize for your material of choice, but I’m currently trying to move toward having both the 3D printed files and laser cut files generated by the same OpenSCAD file. It’s a little hard to use right now, but hoping to have a web form version sooner or later.

On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 12:25 AM, gorhgorh notifications@github.com wrote:

hello I'm in paris, and have a laser cutter at hand, and I have a funny laser turret that can also make a cool project, and ... an idea spawned in my mind ... let's trade ... designs !!!

as you pointed out the main problem with usa > eu is the distance, internet is blazing fast.

this is raising another point we started to talk at LXJS, I'm sure nodebots day will spawn interesting idea for first time project, we should mutualise them and nodeschool them, shouldn't we ?

2014-07-02 9:09 GMT+02:00 Pawel Szymczykowski notifications@github.com:

Hi all,

I'm working with a local fab company to laser cut a bunch of sumobot kits for our event. I wanted to make them available to you guys as well if you're interested. They're at-cost for $8 and include only the woodcut parts, 3D printed ballcaster w/ bearing, rubber bands and screws. You'll need to get your own microcontroller, servos and battery case. You will also need to pay for shipping.

If you're interested, please let me know here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1nhcVCgEbFGbuZ_VKlYrSMFGG2OxCO1F94mgd7cVwU80/viewform?usp=send_form

There's a slight chance the fab won't be able to get them cut in time for shipping (shooting for the 18th and 3 day shipping) so don't put all your horses in this one basket. If you leave your email above, I'll keep you in the loop on all developments.

Probably USA only because of the tight deadline, but I also love your country.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/nodebots/nodebotsday/issues/76#issuecomment-47743737.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/nodebots/nodebotsday/issues/76#issuecomment-47744785.

[haysclark]

+1 for putting this information in a README.md or other doc file that people can keep up to date. Looking for kit myself to start a project with my kids. So many choices make it hard to find a good starting place.

[reconbot]

I'm going to close this issue due to it's age, and I will be opening a new discussion around it shortly.