As if simply designing a suit capable of remotely controlling a humanoid robot wasn’t cool enough, designer Daniele Benedettelli has taken things to the next level by making its exoskeleton completely out of Lego building blocks.
Benedettelli’s creation, which has been featured by IGN and Slashgear uses Lego Mindstorms NXT hardware to control a robotic figure (also made from the popular brand of building blocks) remotely using potentiometers and Bluetooth technology.
The potentiometers capture the user’s movements, and that information is beamed to the robot via Bluetooth through the use of an Arduino board. Currently, the set-up only enables the wearer to control the shoulders and arms, but command can be transmitted from up to several feet away – and with minimal lag as well.
Remote manipulator set-up four years in the making
Benedettelli started the project back in 2011 with the development of a protoype robot capable of walking and talking, which he built using four Firgelli linear actuators (LA) and two Mindstorms NXT motors. On his website, he explained that the walking performance of this version was poor and that the actuators wound up cracking underneath its weight.
The original machine wound up being completely redesigned after a friend told Benedettelli that it resembled “a box with arms and legs,” and by May 2012, he explained that it looked far more humanoid in shape. It also used three NXT servo motors to walk, featured eight R/C servos used to actuate the arms and legs, and was controlled using a telemetry suit for the first time.
“In robotics lingo, Benedettelli’s set-up is known as a remote manipulator – a device controlled by a human operator via mechanical or electronic linkages,” the folks at Nerdist explained for the benefit of the robotically challenged.
“Remote manipulators have been used for decades by everything from heavy industry to radioactive science labs to NASA,” they added. “So while Benedettelli isn’t exactly innovating conceptually, by making a remote manipulator out of LEGOs, he has shown that both scale and cost can easily come down. And that LEGO robotics is awesome.” Amen.
(Image credit: Daniele Benedettelli)
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