R2L Labs

This is the end for this iteration of BASE.001 (V3), as I finally got my hands on some "smart" servos (LX-16A serial servos from Hiwonder) that I plan to use instead of these "dumb" servos. I haven't touched the code or hardware due to completing a milestone in life recently, but hopefully in 2023 I will be able to resume full attention on this project. In the meantime, here's some pictures of the robot before I tear it down and toss the parts in a drawer for who-knows-how-long. Happy belated Christmas, Happy early New Year, and see you all in the near future! Still powered by ESP32, but the inventr HERO board will be forever remembered as the first brain. #dreams2reality #r2l_bots #BASE001 [Original post on Dec 28, 2022 5:00PM PST on Facebook]

Ta-da! Behold, BASE.001's fully 3D printed body (V1)! It took a while, but I was able to make it work ok. The biggest issue with the model is that the hip, knee, and ankle isn't designed to bend much due to how I mounted the servos. I also rewrote the code for the ESP32's FreeRTOS; built-in tasks and non-blocking code woohoo! It haven't been able to walk though... so I will be starting over again, because certain joints are too limited, and the hip box is too big. The next leg design will be inspired by various types of humanoids such as TonyPi, Kondo HR-3, and others.  For walking, I am reading and studying the works of Dr.Guero2001 on his Kondo HR-3; Dr.GIY on his dancing robots; and WatakoLab on their custom humanoids. I will be uploading the code and the STL files to the github repo sometime in the future, please note it is very much a Work-In-Progress! [Original post on May 4, 2022 9:10PM PST on Blogger] 

A new year, a renewed interest in robotics! Going to resume this project, it has been sitting for too long on my shelf, waiting to be brought alive.   Currently, I am writing the code from scratch (again.) This WIP program should make everything run faster, and with less blocked code. It is very limited in functionality, calling it WIP is a understatement, maybe?  As shown in the pictures, I have labeled each servo with its port number and code name, this will help me in debugging as well as pose designing (make the robot walk, sit, etc.) Also, all servo horn brackets are now 3D printed, thus making them lighter and a bit more forgiving if the servos push too far (it will bend and recover instead of warping like the original metal brackets). Picture #2 was taken before I swapped all of the brackets; notice how the hip servos are mounted vertically instead of horizontally as with picture #1 and picture #3. Due to a project, I have been working on other 3D models and printing, thus I hav

Working latest code of my BASE.001 robot is now live on github!  https://bit.ly/base001_repo I usually don't publish my code online, but since the goal of this project is to share about my journey in building robots, it only makes sense to share the code as well. You can also see the new, beautiful 3d printed black brackets on the robot. While they flex more than the metal brackets, they return to their original shape more or less, so less chances of "bending" and causing problems for me when recalibrating the servos after a disassembly. Goals for next update: Finish printing more brackets for the legs and maybe start experimenting with 45-degree brackets for the arms and legs. Make it walk more stable. More future goals: Add distance sensor for autonomous walking/obstacle avoidance. Share 3D model files (not sure where to put them yet) Remake the body in Autodesk Fusion. Make a website/blog/thingy to log project progress??? As always, I'm still learning, so comments,

Progress of BASE.001: A Self-Taught Humanoid Project. UPDATE 2021/04/24: the robot went crazy while on the testing bench and it bent the metal brackets on the legs again... Calibrating the servos each time the frame gets deformed isn't gonna work in the long run so now I'm forced to switch to 3D printed brackets for the motors. Code won't be updated until then, but I hope to publish the latest working code for you all. (github and project documentation at end of post) As of this post, BASE.001 is able to automatically get back up when it detects that it tipped over (both front and back recovery is possible). Walking code hasn't changed for a while, as I'm learning how to make my servo controller "non-blocking" so I can read data from the IMU and react to it in real time. Major changes from the last time I posted are: ESP8266-based board instead of a Mega (previously I did use it, but now it's way more integrated) Wifi monitoring with Blynk + local ser

Progress. WebSerial and OTA updates on ESP8266MOD + SSC32 + 16x SR319 + 4x 18650 + single 18650 battery pack. [Original post on Nov 20, 2020 6:49PM PST on Facebook]