新车间 [XinCheJian]

Insect Robot Body

Inspired by Lumi’s Insect Robot, we had our first insect robot workshop today.

The BOM

• Cloth hanger
• 9v battery
• Batter Holder
• Ultrasound Distance Sensor
• Servo
• Arduino UNO
• Velcro!!!

Insect Robot Workshop

Workshop instruction will be in Chinese.

• Date: April 24, Sunday
• Time: 1 ~ 5 PM
• Audience: any person aged from 5 ~ 99 interested in robotics 😉
• Bring your own notebook
• Fee：250 rmb
  The kit includes the following:
  • Arduino borad
  • 2 Servo
  • 1 Ultrasound distance sensor
  • Other material for the robot structures

Check out here for project updates.]]>

Make: Arduino Bots and Gadgets.

Video on Youku

posted a detail article on hacking HaiPad m701!

The M701 in itself is an example of hacking in China: here, hacking hardware that wasn’t thought to be workable together to achieve something close to a device that is much more expensive is not called a hobby but a full-time job! Like many others, the extremely low-cost of this 7 inch tablet is made out of a even lower cost chipset, the Telechips 8902. The Telechips was originally designed to fit high end automotive applications, not do tablets or robotics. This chipset powers a variety of similar devices: Augen Gentouch, Coby Kyros, HSG X5A, Haipad M701, Dawa D7, SmartQ v5/v7, Coby Kyros MID7005/MID7015, Imito iM7, Smartbook Surfer (Pictures) “Shanzhai” integrators prefer to keep their supply chain discreetly low-profile as they consider it their “secret” sauce. This is because in Shenzhen, manufacturers are in a race to produce a whole bunch and sell them before the local competitors do the same, often advertising capabilities of the underlying chipset that are actually unavailable to the user since unsupported by the OS.

member today! Xin Che Jian Open House Date: Sunday, April 3rd 2011 Time: 2PM to 5PM Location: Anhua Road No.76 suite 301, Changning District, Shanghai (near Jiangsu Road) Metro line 2, 11 (Jiangsu Rd Stop Exit No.4) Please sign up here for the event.]]>

Quadcopter Team

We have come a long way since the day trying to build the frame out of window frame. Thanks to Danny and Qicheng’s effort!!! Damn, the aluminum and carbon fiber looks awesome!!! Hopefully, we can fly this in the next few months.

Photos by Lutz and David

Building Quadcopter

Quadcopters are interesting to a lot of people and we have set up a quadcopter team looking into how to build a quadcopter from components we can find around Shanghai and finding instruction from the net. Researching quadcopter are a lot of fun and we have made some progress in the past few months.

Getting the frame

The first try to get the frame was fun. We Basically went down to the neighbor aluminum window frame maker and bought a few 50 cm aluminum frame and try to shanzhai our way to the frame. It doesn’t quite work but it’s a fun learning experience.

Getting the motors to work with Arduino

Getting the motors and propellers are easy. We can always count on Taobao for that. It took a while to get Arduino working with the motors tho.

Prettier frames

Danny got a friend to design an aluminum and carbon fiber frame and have the structure CNCed. This is beautiful! We have come a long way and hopefuly we will get to fly this in the coming month.

RoboPeak from Shanghai

We are so glad that RoboPeak, a robotic R&D team has agreed to be one of the speaking at our reopening event on March 26. We ran into this team founded in 2009 on Sina Weibo and are very impressed by what they are doing. We look forward to seeing their presentation.

Quoting from their web site:

RoboPeak is a research & development team in robotics platforms and applications, founded in 2009. Our team members are Software Engineers, Electronics Engineers and New Media Artists that all come from China. RoboPeak develops both software and hardware, which include personal robotic platforms, Robot Operating System and related devices. Our vision is to enrich people’s daily-life with the ever-changing development and innovation in robotic technologies.

From their blog, they are doing very impressive work with Arduino and Robotic. Here is a picture of their robot. Definitely check out the blog! Click on the image to read more about their works.

iPad controller

We have the FRAME!!!

Danny show up in Barcamp with a big surprise! He show me the fiber/aluminium frame of the quadcopter he just got CNCed. What a beauty!