What’s cooler than a cyborg? A LEGO cyborg, naturally #WearableWednesday
Super cool robotics arm made with LEGO Mindstorms! Via cnet.
OK, this one probably isn’t going to be helping any amputees any time soon — but it’s still a pretty freakin’ sweet concept. Lego and robotics enthusiast (and webcomic artist) Dave “Diavo” Voltaggio has been building himself a functional robotic Lego arm.
He’s been working on the concept for over a year, and is currently up to Mk VI: a construction of Lego, Lego Technic, and Mindstorms that fits over his own right arm. Where Voltaggio’s hand sits is a series four buttons, each attached to a motor. When Voltaggio touches one of the buttons, it triggers the motor on the corresponding finger of the hand (three fingers and a thumb).
The whole thing is powered by a Mindstorms EV3, and blue LEDs and a phone mount on the inner forearm provide a little bit of decoration (as well as functionality — Voltaggio can operate the phone using only his left hand). It took a few evenings to build, on and off, and about an hour to program — not including the time spent on the previous models perfecting the design, of course.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!