Who never dreamed of delegating the rotten work to an electronic helper, a robot to make your life easier? They are already using numerous robots in the industry, and now they are making their way into homes too.
HURBA, the Hungarian Robot Builders Association, was registered only recently as an official organisation, although this group of handicraftsmen has already existed for more than two years.
How it all began
Áron Tanós is a founding member, the association’s main pillar and the initiator of the first meetups. “When I built my first robot in 2014 my possibilities were quite limited,” he says. Still, or exactly for that reason, Tanós organised the first robot builder meeting. One thing seemed instantly clear at the gathering: building robots is extremely exciting but together it’s even more fun.
From that time on the meetings became regular and the builders started to work on shared projects. “At first we were only working on small projects, everyone on his own,” Tanós recalls.
They were building, screwing and tinkering as long as their own resources made it possible. However, within a short time a hard core of about 20 handicraftsmen formed within the loosely connected group, and they quickly agreed that it would be better to work on fewer projects but work together.
This initiative finally resulted in founding the association. “There are people among our robot builders who have been working on developing robots for 10 or 15 years,” Tanós says. And even if this sounds like a relatively long time at first, robotics is still in its infancy in Hungary.
Playfulness is elementary
But why would you build robots at home? “In general, there are two types of robots at the moment: for one, the robots used in production, and for two, the small hoover, which cleans the house on its own,” he explains.
There are not so many things apart from this for the moment. This is why competitions are so important, because they enable the builders to find inspiration and ideas, and put the topic of robotics before the population: “Most of our projects are built for competitions, first of all for the ‘Hungary on Mars’ competition, organised by the University of Miskolc each year.”
They are working in a playful way. “There are always some fun activities at the competition,” Tanós says. “For example, once we had to complete the task that the robot gets from point A to point B on its own. We had to use a defined set of accessories that contained no wheels.”
This exercise put the creativity of the handicraftsmen to the test. “Finally we built a swimming robot that used its arms and legs to swim from point A to point B, or rather crawled from A to B,” he laughs.
The competition itself takes 24 hours and there are exercises for which you can prepare, and also ones that need to be solved on the spot. Concerning the topic of the upcoming contest there are already some guesses: “According to the rumours we have to build a robot with no wheels and no other such extremities but that can still move forward. This clearly points to BB8, the small droid in Star Wars.”
This task is not impossible at all, the handicraftsmen at HURBA having already built an own version of the small messenger droid. As Tanós admits: “We just could not miss doing that.”
Ideas come in their dreams
However, the ideas for robots not only come from movies. “There is no fixed method,” he says. “Most of the time you just wake up in the morning with a new idea in your head.”
Or you have a problem you need to solve: “Our xylophone robot for example was created after one of our meetups. I was telling the others at 1 in the morning that I would like to participate at a music-robot competition but I simply do not have the time to put the robot together.
“They looked at me and said: ‘What? It’s only 1 in the morning and the competition starts at 9am. We have all the time we need’. This is how we started to build and at 4am our small robot was already cheerfully playing music.”
Planning, building, programming, tailoring – and all in the middle of the night. In any case, it was worth it, since the small musician won a kilogram of chocolates.
“At our next meetup we created a drum robot and now we want to found a band.” The next step would be a robot playing the violin but “there are still some concerns about that within the group”. However, building a robot that plays piano is absolutely doable, and it would be universally applicable on numerous other keyboard instruments as well.
“In general it’s true that a robot is never really ready, it’s just in a certain condition for the moment,” Tanós explains. This is why it’s not worth overloading a robot with functions. “Sure, I could make my coffee machine perform a wake-up function but it simply has no sense. It’s the same thing with robots.”
However, developments and changes are an integral part of building robots, since once the base is there you can change a lot through the software or by adding a new part you can create an entirely new function.
Handicraftsmen are very welcome
The building and tinkering goes on at the association’s own workshop in District XI. You can find there countless circuits, every possible type of wheel, housings, tools and even a 3D printer, which is actually essential for building robots.
“There are ready-made robot kits where you get everything you need shipped to you, so it’s like a tinkering kit for making a robot,” Tanós says. “However, if we want to realise our own ideas it’s sometimes simply better when we are able to print for ourselves.”
He thinks robot builders in Hungary are unbelievably creative in general. “It’s really amazing what Hungarian handicraftsmen are able to realise. We are really lucky that we are situated on the border between West and East.”
On one hand there is the language knowledge, which is not to be underestimated: “You will get nowhere in robotics if you don’t speak English. Everything can be found on the internet that you need for building, building instructions, parts. So really everything.”
On the other hand Hungarians are rather “eastern people”, meaning that their creativity is not a thing of the past. While in America when you want a small engine, for example, you just go online and get your part within a few days, it works a bit differently here: “First, the parts are not cheap, second, the delivery costs are scary and it takes simply too long for them to get here. So we prefer looking for alternatives.”
One of Tanós’ handcrafting colleagues dismantled the mechanism from a rear-view mirror instead of ordering an expensive part from overseas. However, it was really proven at the RoboCup World Championship in the category rescue robots what Hungarian creativity is able to achieve.
The team had been preparing plans for months and they put together a cost plan and looked for the best possibilities. “Everyone in the team has a special area in that the person is a real expert.”
The result spoke for itself: the rescue robot prepared by the Hungarians scored ninth place in the RoboCup championship and even got the prize for best design. The team competed against working teams from Audi and other global players.
“There were robots where only their engines cost as much as EUR 30,000,” Tanós recalls. Compared to these, the Hungarian robots were not that costly at all, “and this is why our boys got the first place, as they simply value creativity around here”.
Getting started early
One example of the ideas that can be realised on their own are the drawing robots that can hold a pencil, using a kind of kit that enables the HURBA members to organise workshops for children. “A robot is composed of two parts: hardware and software. We have developed a hardware kit that even children of 12 years can easily put together themselves.
“In addition there is a programming surface where children can build their own software by pushing around colourful blocks to see whether the software works rather than typing codes.”
In fact the youngsters prefer to learn typing the codes, thus taking the first steps in the field of robotics and programming. Next may be a robot that can write letters as well.
It’s never too late to begin – and never too early
Besides the essential English language skills, an ability to think logically is necessary for studying robotics. “Natural sciences such as physics are not that important,” Tános says. “A good logical thinking ability and first of all motivation and interest are far more important.”
Then there are four ways to produce a robot. The first is via the fully equipped kits, which don’t need a lot of creativity, the point being to enjoy the building process and the use of the robot.
Then there is the opportunity to combine different kits and produce completely new robots. Or you can take an already existing appliance, take it apart and use its parts to create something completely new or to replace certain other parts.
Finally you can plan a robot from scratch, containing parts printed by a 3D printer. This requires writing the software yourself, which may sound more complicated than it actually is.
As Tanós says: “The software for robots follows a certain kind of logic, just like anything else. If you understand this logic once, all the doors will be open for you.
“We are already learning the first elements of programming with my five-year-old daughter at home, of course in a very playful way, but thanks to Comenius Log and similar programs it’s not difficult at all.”
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