Floppy the Robot

Alien54 writes "Build your own Robot for almost Free..... As seen here where there are complete plans [and pictures] to build a robot from a 3 1/2" floppy drive without taking it apart. The floppy drive has all of the motors and electronics you need to get started and compete in a robot contest. With some old 5.25 inch drives, you can really get some power."

Comments

FINALLY!

[B3ryllium]

Someone found a use for my spare 5 1/2" drives. Geez.

Does this work for 2x CD-ROM drives, too?

Re:FINALLY!

[critter_hunter]

This is sooo old news. Heck, I made a similar project in 2001, based on Ohmslaw's. It really sucked though, so I'll plug in a classmate's project instead of mine: Phil's Floppy Robot, ladies and gentlemen.

I recall it to be much better than the one featured in the article, but maybe that's just my rose tinted glasses

Re:FINALLY!

[rf0]

Wonder what would happen with 8"? The extinction of the human race :)

Rus

Re:FINALLY!

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

It's not the size, its how you use it ;)

Re:FINALLY!

[robslimo]

When I saw the article title, I immediately thought of some 8" floppy drives I've got. The neat thing about them is that they've got a standard (8051-ish?) microcontroller and socketed EPROM to control them... re-programmable floppy robot!

Unfortunately, they also weigh as much as my 3 week old baby. I do plan to do some boating this summer... boat anchors maybe?

-robSlimo

Re:FINALLY!

[Anonymous DWord]

Unfortunately, they also weigh as much as my 3 week old baby. I do plan to do some boating this summer... boat anchors maybe?

I dunno. Good luck. I tried that last summer, but the babies kept floating to the surface.

Wonderful.

[HobbitGod42]

Atleast now we can recycle these drives... Anyone up for a /. BattleBots Team?

Re:Wonderful.

[fubar1971]

To hell with floppy drives, I'm going to MOD a Iomega Zip drive. I will be the only one with a "Click of Death"! I will rule an conquer you all BUUWWAAAHHAAA!!

I bet...

[DCowern]

If you used an old CD or DVD drive you could build a robot with a "la-zer". You could then hold the world ransom for one million...errr...biiiillllion dollars. Muuuuah ha ha ha... muuuuuah ha ha ha...

Re:I bet...

[B3ryllium]

Yay for frickin laser beams! Woo! Robots that can burn holes in the "ozone" layer!

Re:I bet...

[DCowern]

Dr. Evil: or perhaps we can make robots that interfere with the loading of web pages. They disallow access so we can all it a "denial of service" attack.. we will bring the world to its knees...

Scott: Uhhh... dad... that's already been done... they're called "slashbots" and its called the "slashdot effect"...

Me: I can't get to the site... can ya tell? :-D

Re:I bet...

[Kris_J]

Americans and their "Zee"s.

Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. LASER. You want some fricken sharks with fricken lasers on thier fricken heads.

Re:I bet...

[AndroidCat]

Nah. They're obviously Weapons of Mass Storage.

Your own airplane

[dimss]

You can build your own airplane from 52x CDROM.

Re:Your own airplane

[DrMrLordX]

They make better projectile launchers. Amaze your friends as you fling high-velocity cds into their skulls! Marvel at the hospital bills!

Re:Your own airplane

[Poeir]

I can build 500 airplanes from what I've got in the printer.

Re:Your own airplane

[notNeilCasey]

52x??? To the RIAA, that's a squadron!

Make sure to use broken drive...

[Max Romantschuk]

Floppy drives these days are of really bad quality... I went through something like a drive every two years at almost no use. Then I rescued a drive from an old 286. It's built like a tank, and still works perfectly.

My thoughts on the robot as soon as the page loads... ;)

Re:Make sure to use broken drive...

[Ripplet]

>It's built like a tank

Why would anyone build a floppy drive with a revolving turret on top?
Still, it gives you an advantage in those robot contests I suppose, especially if you use DU ammo.

G-G-G-G-G-Google Cache

[Arc04]

Cache of the first page

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=cache:HC7NCC9XudM C:ohmslaw.com/robot.htm+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Enjoy!

Wow. Look at that website

[corsec67]

That server must be a floppy robot doling out bits one by one. And, if you are lucky, it might accidently grab a disk and give out 1.5 megs of data.

Finnaly we have a use for all of these floppy drives. When I built my current computer, I did not put in a floppy drive, even though my case has a special slot for one.

Pictures

[Adam9]

Here's a project that was adapted from Fran Golden's floppy.

I knew I should have saved that spam

[GrodinTierce]

With some old 5.25 inch drives, you can really get some power.

Finally that spam about "Enlarge your 3.5 inch floppy" would have come in handy.

Tierce

More news

[Zayin]

What the description doesn't mention is that the web pages seem to be hosted by... [drum roll] FLOPPY THE ROBOT! Just two disk swaps per page view!

I'd build a giant robot

[mharris007]

I'd build a giant robot to crush your little 3.5" floppy bots. I'd build a bot out of one of those old Iomega Bernoulli drives.

I will crush all your tiny bots!!

A Few Other Pages

[TubeSteak]

Step by Step Instructions
Construction Pictures
5 1/4" FLoppy II Robot
"Floppy II" Robot Plans
Yea, no pictures. I think this site was crawling before /. even got to it... or maybe the subscribers killed it. Subscribers: please mirror this!

Re:A Few Other Pages

[Anonymous Coward]

Thumbnails of the pictures are here

And people wonder why ...

[burgburgburg]

robots attack? After being called "Floppy the Robot"? 8 out of the last 10 serious instances of robots rampaging have been traced back to humiliating naming and/or attire. Do we really want another "Snugglebuggle the Robot Has A Flamethrower" incident?

Of course, if the federal government had instituted mandatory Asimov controls in robots instead of deciding that that was "anticompetitive and restrictive", we wouldn't be in this mess.

Another interesting project

[Kj0n]

You can also build your own nuclear weapon using a discarded smoke detector and a cell phone.

Re:Another interesting project

[maetenloch]

You can also build your own nuclear weapon using a discarded smoke detector and a cell phone.

Well actually you could use the thorium from Coleman lantern mantles to make a breeder reactor like this enterprising young man did.

Re:Another interesting project

[kesuki]

he used purified radium and thorium... radium isn't as easy to come by, but marie curie can give you the recipie for purifying it at home...

Sorta kinda like Floppy

[TubeSteak]

A Related Site With Pictures!
He references the /.'ed site, so at least you'll get some usable pics.

Great! Now you've made it mad!

[teamhasnoi]

Don't hammer the poor server, or the robot will start shooting little tin Enterprises, Birds of Prey, Tie Fighters and X-Wings at you.

They really sting, and could put your eye out.

G-G-G-G-Google's images cache

[Viswanath Gondi]

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8 &oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=+site:ohmslaw.com+Floppy+Robo t+

Duh

[soliaus]

And what's the use of building yet another gadget-on-wheels that doesn't do all that much, but can be called a "robot". Seriously it's the robotics equivalent to 'hello world'. This kind of thing worries me in all seriousness; there are dozens of worthwhile projects people can spend their time on, coding and debugging work for some of the big OSS jobs that can be really worthwhile!.

So we can load linux on it!

Re:Duh

[EvilTwinSkippy]

And what's the use of building yet another gadget-on-wheels that doesn't do all that much, but can be called a "robot". Seriously it's the robotics equivalent to 'hello world'. This kind of thing worries me in all seriousness; there are dozens of worthwhile projects people can spend their time on, coding and debugging work for some of the big OSS jobs that can be really worthwhile!.

So we can load linux on it!

Say what you will about the simplicity of the project. I'm just glad to finally have a cheap supply of motors. Those suckers are expensive! And with a +/- 12V drive, all ready to go. I'm slapping myself for not having thought of it first.

Frankly OSS isn't about developing products, its about developing the building blocks for other people's project, who in turn have their ideas icorporated into a more sophisticated procect, and so on.

reboot, roboot, robot, ribbit

[Tablizer]

Don't tell me, you boot the robot from a floppy, right?

Forget 3 1/2 or 5 1/4 go for 8"

[SWTP_OS9]

Why deal with wimply 3 1/2 or 5 1/4 converts! Go with 8" floppy! Those thing had AC motors to drive the disk and built like a tank. Plus would stomp the heck out of these wimppy robot drives!

Re:Who is driving website? Bear is driving website

[Traicovn]

Google has a Cache of course....

Re:not so Wonderful.

[Anonymous Coward]

And in other news,
Several so-called "slashdot readers" have been
hospitalized with probable blindness after trying
to get a close up view of their freakish toys
in action...

Floppy drive robots?

[x136]

How... constructive! Everyone knows it's more fun to be destructive! Last time I was bored enough to take apart a floppy drive, I modified it to fire floppy disks halfway across the room. And yes, it still looked stock from the outside. Unfortunately, after a few super-ejects, the force tore the thing apart on the inside. Oh well.

Another variation

[depechemodem]

http://www.tvdsb.on.ca/banting/ICE3M/unit6/floppy/ floppy.html

Re:Another variation

[JjCale]

there's a space in the url, try: http://www.tvdsb.on.ca/banting/ICE3M/unit6/floppy/ floppy.html

Zip drive robot

[jpm242]

I build a cool rover with parts from my IOMega Zip drive, but it started making this wierd clicking sound...

JPZ3

Re:I fail to see the use.

[LoztInSpace]

Just because you don't get anything out of it doesn't mean it's not fun for someone else. The only reason any OSS stuff gets done is because it takes someone's fancy. Some people would argue that writing code and not getting paid for it could be considered a non constructive realm. However that much mentioned itch is getting scratched by somebody. Don't bag something just because it's not your thing.

World Domination

[birdman666]

So that's why Steve Jobs took floppy drives out of Macs, to build an army of loyal robots to take over the world. It seems so obvious now.

Google is your friend

[muyuubyou]

http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:LYumJ-IViUcC: ohmslaw.com/robot.htm&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Images!!!

[TubeSteak]

okay, so they're Google Thumbnails

Respect to the AC who brought these to my attention

Re:Super Floppy

[Chainsaw]

And there was me sitting happily with my 8" floppy hanging off the wall

One word: ouch.

Bean there, done that...

[snatchitup]

Well almost. I've definitely used the stepper motors from disk drives. Steppers can be expensive.

What I'm suprised at is the need for a the
1 - 7805 Regulator IC

I'm pretty sure most disk drives already have a voltage regulator already on board. The part number is no doubt OEM, but they're fairly easy to recognize, since they come close to the main Volatge, and usually use a capacitor in conjunction.

------

Oh and by the way.. This page is a year old...

Re:Bean there, done that...

[Lumpy]

What I'm suprised at is the need for a the
1 - 7805 Regulator IC

I'm pretty sure most disk drives already have a voltage regulator already on board. The part number is no doubt OEM, but they're fairly easy to recognize, since they come close to the main Volatge, and usually use a capacitor in conjunction.

------

Why? cince you have a ultra regulated 5 volt source going into it already why waste parts by adding a 5 volt regulator to regulate a already regulated 5 volt supply?

it doesnt suprise me one bit that there isnt a regulator for any of the regulated supplies coming into the device... remember it's a add-on prephrial for a system that has the powersupply already designed in another module of the system.

Re:Bean there, done that...

[snatchitup]

Oh no, you gotta dive in really deep to work with steppers. I've got a bunch of other IC's, such as L293D's for H-Bridge motor control.

Also, I'm into Atmel AVR's for my brains. I specifically use the AT90S2313, and AT90S8535. I bought these from eBay for cheap just a few $'s each.

You can't power a motor using the 5V output pins of the AVR. You've got to send them into the L293D (H-Bridge) to drive the motors.

If you dare dive in. Maybe start with the comp.robotics.misc news group.

It's a very complicated work (Hobby Robotics) and is a very demanding hobby to produce anything of substance.

The first thing you need is a breadboard. This can be integrated with a prototyping environment. But you need something to test out your circuits.

Then, you need soldering, wiring, resistors collections.

Then, go ahead and get yourself a halfway decent at least dual channel o-scope. After searching on eBay for quite some time, I ended up going with striaght to This dude's site and got a 150Mhz o-scope for $225.

Have fun. If you're an EE, you'll feel good about using your education.

Careful!

[AndroidCat]

Does this work for 2x CD-ROM drives, too?

Are you sure you want to build a robot armed with a laser? :^P

Actually I did take apart an old 1.5x drive. The motors work nicely off of a small solar panel. The laser module is cute, I wish I had specs. It has a laser diode & drivers, detector for the bounced beam, and coils to steer the beam/detector with a small lens. Cool.

Re:Careful!

[AndroidCat]

You're probably a troll, but .. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I did a Google to find the picture of the TDA1302T (main IC #) laser unit that I found last time I searched. This time I found the freaking chip specs at Philips. For some reason I'm finding all sorts of data that I didn't the last time I searched. I even found the board I took apart (and trashed) here. Of course, I can no longer find the picture of the unit, figures! :^P

But thank you! My plans for world domination may now proceed...

Okay I built one

[AndroidCat]

I used a bunch of some old weird parts kicking around. After I powered it up, it said "I long to serve!" and something about "ire".

Should I be worried?

mad max floppy, another crazy robot

[DrD8m]

Here is another floppy robot

Mirror

[SirTwitchALot]

here's archive.org's mirror:

http://web.archive.org/web/20020914113646/http://o hmslaw.com/robot.htm

Re:Super Floppy

[twoslice]

Yeah, all those ads about an enlarged penis do not say it will ever get hard again....

Re:not so Wonderful.

[Upright Joe]

And in other news,
Several so-called "slashdot readers" have been
hospitalized with probable blindness after trying
to get a close up view of their freakish toys in action...

I've news for ya. Robots have nothing to do with why slashdot readers go blind.

Printer to Cool Artsy Table

[eval]

Inspired by this, we took apart a printer and made this.

Yet another mirror not /.ed yet....

[erth]

http://www.tvdsb.on.ca/banting/ICE3M/unit6/floppy/ floppy.html Has not been /.ed yet

WOW

[amd6891]

I really enjoy reading slashdot, but really this is like 3 years old. My high school science team won a robot contest with this thing back in 2001. We modified it a little bit and wrote a BASIC program and then left the little bugger go at it. It actually is quite amazing, although be forewarned it is more difficult than it looks, my friends and i went through 3 drives to get the parts that we needed or broke or were missing from the other drives. Once built though it is amazing. I probably still have it somewhere i will have to post so pics of my modified "floppy"

Working mirror with all of the contents

[signout]

HERE IT IS I got all of the files emailed from the author.
He's upgrading the server BW on monday (12 may 2003) by the way :-)

... Dennis