How can you look at this collection of robot booty and not salivate all over your keyboard? Robot Magazine has a first look at Bioloid, a series of “edutainment” robotics kits from Korean company Robotis. The kits were shown off at the recent Consumer Electronics Show and apparently caused a bit of a stir. Like the Hitec ROBONOVA-I and the popular Robo-One humanoids, this kit is very servo-intensive, apparently never meeting a joint that it didn’t want to actuate with a dedicated servomotor. One of the coolest things in these kits is the servos themselves. The “Comprehensive Kit” ships with twenty of them. The gorgeous servos, encased in a sturdy-looking package, are called the AX-12 Dynamixel and have built-in feedback sensors and servo-to-servo networking functions. The servos use daisy-chain wiring to cut down on wire clutter and to enable digital data traffic between them. Nifty! Each servo has its own Serial ID number. They can operate in typical servo mode (back and forth motion) or with continuous rotation (without needing to be mechanically hacked). You can control torque, position, speed, and even monitor each servo’s temperature and voltage! The servo cases have plenty of lugs along the sides for numerous attachment points. Even if you don’t want to invest in any of their kits or the Bioloid system, these servos are worth looking into.
The Bioloid system also uses a servo/sensor module (the AX-S1) that has networked sensors built in, including a three-direction distance sensor (IR), a three-direction light sensor, and sound detection. The servo/sensor controller and power pack holds a 9.6V 2500 mAh rechargeable NiMH battery pack and has 126Kb of on-board Flash memory. It can control the servos, the sensors, an LCD module, and talk to an optional wireless module at 9,600-115,200 bps. The “Expert Kit” will include a C development environment, a wireless PC link, a camera and an image recognition library.
No word yet on U.S. pricing, but converting Korean Won to dollars on the parts they are already selling in Korea, the Comprehensive Kit would retail for about $800, the AX-12 servos for about $40, and the Sensor module for about $50. If you poke around the Robotis website, you can find PDF manuals for the servos, a photo gallery of bots, videos of various Robotis kits and robots in development, and other goodies. The article on Robot magazine’s site has many more pictures and links to several videos. – [Gareth Branwyn]
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