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46 GUIDES | 318 PAGES | 0 FEATURED | 18 POPULAR
Using Servos With CircuitPython and Arduino
How to use servo motors with CircuitPython and Arduino
by Tony DiCola
Learn how to connect a servo motor and control its movement with both CircuitPython and Arduino code.
Basic String Car Racer
A miniature race car is balanced precariously on a single pulley, speeding between two trees on a narrow zip line -- will your car win the race?
by Jan Goolsbey
The Basic String Car is a simple project that consists of a battery, motor, pulley, and a bit of fence wire. The initial design of the car was made from repurposed parts and materials found in Grandpa's basement workshop. This version uses some commercially-available parts, but could be hacked with parts gleaned from old CD players, for example. What modifications and improvements would you make?
Guardian Robot – Zelda BOTW
Now with micro servo and LEDs!
by Ruiz Brothers
3D Print a replica of a guardian robot from the video game, Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Unicorn Hat with Moving Ears
Really simple robotics and lights bring this mythical creature to life
by Erin St Blaine
Connect Circuit Playground to two mini servos and make unicorn ears that move! Control them with a mini joystick hidden in your pocket. Use Circuit Playground's onboard neopixels to add a glowing rainbow horn, and you're ready to ride out with the fairies.
My Mini Race Car
Bluetooth controlled, temperature sensing Formula E racer!
by John Park
Zooooom! Now you can build and drive your own Mini Race Car using the Feather 32u4 Bluefruit LE microcontroller. Keep an eye on racetrack telemetry with the included HTU21D-F temperature & humidity sensor breakout board.
CurieBot: Arduino 101 Mini Robot Rover
The powerful, 32-bit, Bluetooth enabled, three-layer robot of the future!
by John Park
Build your own mini robot with the Arduino 101 board. This smart little 'bot contains a 32-bit Intel Curie module, Bluetooth LE capabilities, and a 6-axis accelerometer/gyro! Drive it with your phone, or turn over the controls to this capable robot's own decision making!!
AdaBox 002
Explore and use the contents of your AdaBox 002
by Tyler Cooper
With AdaBox 002, we are bringing you the fun and versatility of a small robot. Learn how to control your new robot friend with a phone and make it sing custom tunes. Learn how to make your new robot more intelligent and independent too!
Wizzy: A Needle Felted Cat
Create animatronic animals with attitude.
by Rick Winscot
Transform a handful of electronics into a fun, fuzzy, and fabulous needle felted animal.
Adafruit DRV8833 DC/Stepper Motor Driver Breakout Board
Chopper it up with current limiting motor control
by lady ada
Spin two DC motors or step one bi-polar or uni-polar stepper with up to 1.2A per channel using the DRV8833. This motor driver chip is a nice alternative to the TB6612 driver. Like that chip, you get 2 full H-bridges, but this chip is better for low voltage uses (can run from 2.7V up to 10.8V motor power) and has built in current limiting capability. We set it up for 1A current limiting so you don't get more than 2A per chip, but you can also disable the current limiting, or change it to a different limit!
Circuit Playground Sound-Controlled Robot
Make your Circuit Playground mobile and change direction via sound
by Mike Barela
Circuit Playground makes the basis for a wonderful robot with two servo motors to move it. But how to tell it where to go? Maybe whistle or better use tones from another microcontroller.
Current Limiting Stepper Driver with DRV8871
Got big motors to drive? Call in the choppers!
by Bill Earl
This tutorial shows how to combine 2 DRV8871 motor drivers to create a high-performance "Chopper" style stepper driver. The current limiting feature of this H-bridge chip allows you to drive bigger motors, or squeeze more performance from your existing motors.
Adafruit Stepper + DC Motor FeatherWing
Make your feather motorized
by lady ada
A Feather board without ambition is a Feather board without FeatherWings! This is the DC Motor + Stepper FeatherWing which will let you use 2 x bi-polar stepper motors or 4 x brushed DC motors (or 1 stepper and 2 DC motors). Since the FeatherWing only uses the I2C (SDA & SCL pins), it works with any and all Feathers- ATmega32u4, ATSAM M0 or ESP8266-based. You can stack it with any other FeatherWing or with itself (just make sure you have each wing with a unique I2C address)
Build an ESP8266 Mobile Robot
Learn how to make a mobile robot that you can easily control via WiFi!
by M. Schwartz
In this guide, you will learn how to build your own mobile robot based on the ESP8266 WiFi chip. You will then be able to control the robot via WiFi, right from a nice interface on your computer!
Adafruit DRV8871 Brushed DC Motor Driver Breakout
Up to 45V and 3.6A of motor control
by lady ada
Crank up your robotics with powerful Adafruit DRV8871 motor driver breakout board. This motor driver has a lot of great specs that make it useful for a wide variety of mechatronics. In particular, the simple resistor-set current limiting and auto-magic PWM support make it super easy to use.
Adafruit 8-Channel PWM or Servo FeatherWing
A 8 x servo party for your Feather!
by lady ada
You want to make a cool robot, maybe a hexapod walker, or maybe just a piece of art with a lot of moving parts. Or maybe you want to drive a lot of LEDs with precise PWM output. What now? You could give up OR you could just get our handy PWM and Servo FeatherWing. It's a lot like our popular PWM/Servo Shield but with half the channels & squished into a nice small portable size and works with any of our Feather boards.
Bringing Characters to Life
More than just code and wires.
by Phillip Burgess
Whether robots, animatronics or purely onscreen avatars, how your creation looks and moves will make or break an emotional connection with your audience. Will they regard it as believable and “alive,” or a dull and obvious assemblage of mechanisms and software?
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Simple Raspberry Pi Robot
Build a simple moving robot with a Raspberry Pi and Adafruit's excellent robot platform!
by Tony DiCola
Use a Raspberry Pi and Adafruit Motor HAT to control two DC motors that move a simple robot around using Python code. This is a great base for starting with a Pi robot project!
Bluefruit LE Feather Robot Rover
Control this tiny 2-wheel drive robot with your phone!
by James DeVito
Use a Feather with Bluetooth LE and a Motor Featherwing to kit out a little red rover. Drive it around wirelessly with Bluefruit LE Connect's control pad, or even your phone's accelerometer!
Run an X-Carve CNC Machine Wirelessly with a Raspberry Pi
Use a simple Node.js server on a Raspberry Pi to link your X-Carve to Easel wirelessly.
by Todd Treece
Inventables' web based digital CNC software, Easel, currently requires a constant connection from a Mac or Windows based machine in order to send commands to the X-Carve over a serial port. This tutorial will show you how you can free up your main computer while the X-Carve is running by using a Raspberry Pi as a bridge to wirelessly send commands to the X-Carve's Arduino Uno. We will also use a Powerswitch Tail to automatically control the main power to the X-Carve when Easel launches in your web browser.
Mini Pan-Tilt Kit Assembly
What to do with that bag of parts.
by Bill Earl
This step-by-step guide to assembling the Mini Pan-Tilt kit will have you panning and tilting in just a few short minutes.
Open Sesame! A SMS-controlled door lock
Create your own SMS-controlled door lock
by lady ada
Wouldn't it be cool if, instead of having to give your dog-sitter a key to your place, you could just text your home to let her in? Now we build it ourselves using the new Lockitron body, Metro Mini (tiny Arduino-compatible) and a FONA 800 cellular module. Normally, a Lockitron has a built-in WiFi system for locking & unlocking via their App. Since they have redesigned their enclosure, we now have the 'guts' of the Lockitron available for hacking. There's just enough space inside for some tasty Adafruit electronics
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Calibrating Sensors
Get peak performance from all your sensors.
by Bill Earl
Most modern sensors perform quite well right out-of-the-box. But the sensor is only part of the measurement system. For best accuracy in critical applications, you will want to calibrate.
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Adafruit TB6612 1.2A DC/Stepper Motor Driver Breakout Board
H-Bridge it up
by lady ada
Fire four solenoids, spin two DC motors or step one bi-polar or uni-polar stepper with 1.2A per channel (3A peak) using the TB6612. These are perhaps better known as "the drivers in our assembled Adafruit Motorshield or Motor HAT." We really like these dual H-bridges, so if you want to control motors without a shield or HAT these are easy to include on any solderless breadboard or perma-proto.
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Adafruit DC and Stepper Motor HAT for Raspberry Pi
Stackable Steppers and DC motor control for your Raspberry Pi
by lady ada
Let your robotic dreams come true with the new DC+Stepper Motor HAT from Adafruit. This Raspberry Pi add-on is perfect for any motion project as it can drive up to 4 DC or 2 Stepper motors with full PWM speed control.
Using a 5V Stepper Motor with the RasPiRobot Board V2
Control a 5V stepper motor with the RasPiRobot Board using Python and the RRB2 library.
by Simon Monk
In this tutorial, you will learn how to drive a 5V stepper motor using a Raspberry Pi and the RasPiRobot Board V2 (RRBv2) expansion board for the Raspberry Pi.
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Adafruit 16-Channel PWM/Servo HAT & Bonnet for Raspberry Pi
16 channels of servo-bustin' power for your Pi
by lady ada
The Raspberry Pi is a wonderful little computer, but one thing it isn't very good at is controlling DC Servo Motors - these motors need very specific and repetitive timing pulses to set the position. Instead of asking the Pi Linux kernel to send these signals, pop on this handy HAT or Bonnet! They bot add the capability to control 16 Servos with perfect timing. They can also do PWM up to 1.6 KHz with 12 bit precision, all completely free-running.
Adafruit DRV2605 Haptic Controller Breakout
BzzzzzBBzzzzzBzZZZzz
by lady ada
The DRV2605 is a tiny motor controller that is specifically designed for vibration-disc and other haptic feedback motors. Using I2C you can string multiple built-in vibration effects for high quality tactile feedback.
Servo Animatronic Tail
Why wiggle when you can wag?
by Rick Winscot
Add a touch of awesome to your interactive displays, costumes, or art projects with an animatronic tail comprised of 3D printed parts, a silicon tube, a servo, and minimal hardware.
Controlling Motors using the Raspberry Pi and RasPiRobot Board V2
Learn how to use the RRBV2 to control motors.
by Simon Monk
In this guide, I show how you can make your Raspberry Pi control small DC motors using the RasPiRobot Board V2 motor controller Pi Plate.
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Pixy Pet Robot - Color vision follower
A frisky little friend you can build in an afternoon!
by Bill Earl
This project pairs the super-awsome Pixy CMUCam-5 vision system with the high performance Zumo robot platform. Combining the powerful object tracking capabilities of the Pixy camera with the nimble Zumo robot base, you can create a responsive little bot that will chase balls and follow you around like a pet!