World-record domino-placing robot powered by servos

Figure 1: The Dominator, a Guinness-World-Record-setting robot built by Mark Rober, placed more than 100,000 dominos to create a Super Mario Brothers mural. (Source: Mark Rober)

In just over 24 hours, the Dominator, a Guinness-World-Record-setting robot built by Mark Rober, placed more than 100,000 dominos to create a Super Mario Brothers mural (Figure 1).

Teknic’s all-in-one servos were used to power the omnidirectional wheels to place 300 dominos at a time, with an accuracy of a couple millimeters.

Teknic’s ClearPath servos were selected for several reasons:

High-performance servo drive: Automatic compensation for inertial loads, including direct drive wheels such as in AGVs like the Dominator, velocity accuracy of less than 0.005%, patented anti-vibration algorithms and an easy auto-tune.

Easy-to-use all-in-one servos: Control with step and direction or initiate pre-programmed moves with digital I/O using Arduinos and other controllers; or program on any Linux or Windows PC with Teknic’s C++ or C# library.

Rugged and reliable: Brushless dc servo motors with oversized bearings, Class H windings (180ºC), fully sintered rare-earth magnets and extensive testing during production.