There’s nothing we love more than making stuff. Creating new gadgets out of old materials and figuring out ways to make them function is just the coolest. But you don’t have to take our word for it! There are plenty of people out there who have caught onto this trend. We, as the IT people we are, truly enjoy the weird and unique ways people have been able to avoid doing simple tasks. It’s computer customization on a whole new level. So, sit back and relax on this Friday afternoon. And we will tell you all about the wonders of Do-It-Yourself (or DIY, for us Pinteresters) robots!
UkuRobot – The Hero We All Need
Starting off with a strong candidate for both the most important and most useless robot ever created is the UkuBot. This magnificent robot uses an Arduino microcontroller, various motors, and Legos for good measure. The creator of this robot jerry-rigged a wood base in order to hold the Ukulele in place. Then, they lined up the motors with the Ukulele strings, so they could easily change key with some commands from the Arduino! This is a prime spot for IT professionals and computer geeks to have some fun by learning new tricks in programming. This robot has done nothing but great things for the world in its month of existence and we are sure there will be great ukulele covers in its future.
Lawnmower 2.0
For all you dads out there who are sick and tired of mowing the lawn every Saturday morning, we have got the DIY project for you. And it’s actually been done quite a lot! Remote Control (RC) lawnmowers honestly could be their own subreddit page. In this specific example we chose, this RC lawnmower extraordinaire used a PS2 remote control as their transmitter and an Arduino as the onboard processor. And the results were very impressive, for the collective cost of about $50! But now that you just have to sit outside and drive your RC lawnmower to cut the grass, how about a robot that can launch or pass you a beer?
An Expert in Shitty Robots (Sophie’s Choice!)
Simone Giertz is a “Swedish inventor, maker, robotics enthusiast, TV host, and professional YouTuber” and she makes amazingly-useless robots. She has made robots to brush your teeth, feed you soup, cut vegetables, “trim” your hair, put on lipstick, make you cereal, etc. But they all have one common trait that links them all together… Which is that they only work about 50% of the time. However, Simone’s personality and persistence is what takes the cake; she has a following a YouTube following of 1.3 million followers! Getting back to the “beer-passing” robot, this masterpiece uses VEX Motor parts to hold the beer bottle in place and pass the red solo cup. It may not be the most “functional” beer passing robot, but maybe with some extra diagnostics, turning it on and off again, and fine tuning some of the programming it can become the best “beer-passing” robot around.
Benefits of Useless Machinery
Aside from the fact you get some pretty hysterical results, building useless robots is truly an art… And a great educational tool. In IT support, we are constantly having to try new things and keep adapting to new technology! Creating robots might not seem like a great way to fine tune your skills, but you can learn A LOT. What do you think would be an awesomely-useless robot?
Oh yeah, here’s that beer launching robot we mentioned earlier!
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