Ball Balancer
By Andrew Gregory. Posted
This article was originally published as part of HackSpace magazine, which has since been incorporated into Raspberry Pi Official Magazine.
This robot is able to balance a ball on its flat surface. The designer, Johan Link, is an 18-year-old Swiss maker, self-taught on electronics and programming. "When I started learning how to use OpenCV, I wanted to put my knowledge into practice, that’s how I started this project," says Johan.
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"Three servo motors are used to tilt the plate to compensate the motions of the ball. A USB camera is perched above the platform, and a Python program analyses the images to detect the ball position, then the computer controls the servos via a custom PCB inside the robot."
"I quickly realised that I was not the only one who had the idea of this kind of robot, that’s why I wanted to stand out by making a robot as elegant as possible."
The build instructions are available at: www.instructables.com/id/Ball-Balancing-PID-System/
Features Editor Andrew trawls the internet for Cool Stuff while keeping the magazine running smoothly.
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