A co-worker brought in his Segway yesterday, so I had to take the opportunity for a photoshoot with my balancing robot Gizmo and his bigger cousin.

I took my inverted pendulum balancing robot, added a camera and wireless transmitter, and let everyone around the office take a spin. The event was not without mishap, but it’s a lot of fun to watch people interact with the robot, and not so much fun when they try to block it’s view, or just don’t get out of it’s way. Or they kick volleyballs at it. That’s just mean.

I added feedback from the motor encoders this week, which allows the robot to know that it is moving. Previously it only knew it was tilted, so it wanted to run away if it was only tilted slightly. I also wired up the batteries, which were salvaged from a less-than-optimal dell laptop battery. I’ve still got some work to do, but the velocity feedback is now countering it’s tendency to run away. The center of gravity is still really low (I’m waiting for mounts to get made to move the batteries up to the top), so it can still outrun itself really easily. Next on the list is to add control from the PC via the bluetooth module that is currently attached.

This is the beginnings of a robot I’ve been working on. Katie named it Gizmo. Eventually, it will be a two-wheeled balancer and stand up like this on its own. The picture is a little deceiving, the wheelbase is about 14" and it stands 24" high. The electronics for this are almost complete, it will be gyroscope stabilized like a Segway and eventually roam around on its own avoiding obstacles. This hardware is a quick hack so I can get started on the software, at some point the hose-clamp motor mounts will be replaced by something more permanent.