Open-source wheeled biped robot | Hacker News Reader

Open-source wheeled biped robot

github.com

28 pointssurmoi9 comments

Relevant: https://github.com/commaai/body#comma-body (I'm aware that the Comma Body just uses wheels, and thus differs from Upkie in that Upkie claims to support uneven terrains)

I had no idea about https://github.com/stephane-caron/awesome-open-source-robots -- there's one of those for everything, I guess (and are also a just stunningly terrible way to distribute collections of links, IMHO, since creating Wikipedia pages is free and those can be edited by anyone with an account, versus the "open PR and pray" model of GitHub)

Does Wikipedia allow content of this type? Aka “here’s some cool stuff I found”?

Or put another way, if you’re more familiar with Wikipedia, can you describe how to think about this type of thing being done on Wikipedia? Thanks.

There's no way you get past the notability / external sources gatekeeper.

This content is suitable for a wiki but not Wikipedia

(And screw Fandom).

There are many pages comparing (free/open-source) software on Wikipedia, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Software_comparisons

The individual entries don't always seem to be super notable. But the notability threshold is also somewhat topic dependent. In my experience in software, it's not as strict as biographies or politically charged issues. In hacker/nerd topics things seem to operate a bit more loosely.

The github _awesome_ pages are a meme at this point https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome-awesome-awesome-awes... Concept is _awesome_, the curation so so.

Wait, the BOM has 4 x Qdd100. And each Qdd100 is listed for like $500 USD. So these robots are $2000+ is that normal? I was hoping for a cheap DIY haha

Hmm yeah one could probably replace those with regular serial servos for a tenth the price, but this sort of actuator does require both a lot of torque and an extremely fast response rate, which tends to equal expensive oversized FOC controlled BLDC motors with a low gear reduction.

All the prices for DIY robots seem to be defined by the servo motor prices.

I will start by building the Koch robot arm with servos harvested from my kids toys. Let’s see how good that works.

> So these robots are $2000+ is that normal?

In the field of robotics there are a lot of things that are expensive to do well, but you can do them badly at a much lower cost.

For example, for many industrial robot arm applications you need an arm that doesn't wobble - so you need stiff links and low-backlash actuators. You need to be able to precisely follow straight lines, so your position control feedback loops need to run fast. Six-axis control of the end effector is standard, gotta be able to move and rotate in X, Y and Z to accomplish arbitrary assembly tasks. And of course it can't be slow - on a production line, throughput is money! Don't forget the need for reliability, a design for 24/7 operation, and availability of maintenance and spare parts for 15 years. $20,000 please.

On the other hand, a robot arm for educating kids? Doesn't matter if it wobbles, or if it's slow, or if the position control isn't great, or if there are some rotations it can't accomplish, and it easily breaks. It'll still be cool and teach the kids plenty of stuff. $200.

$2000 is a typical price for a university group project that'll land somewhere between the two.

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