Robotics / engineering / things I build
I’m Justin Barnes. I build robots, design mechanisms, and turn ideas into working prototypes.
Featured project
I built Dog V3 around a printed chassis, articulated legs, and a serial servo bus. The work spans SolidWorks design, electronics packaging, and gait tuning. The purple revision is shown walking; the earlier footage documents the prototypes that came before it.
13 projects shown
I built a hand-wound 36N42P brushless actuator with an AS5047P encoder and a largely printed structure. It was backdrivable, with tunable PID control that could resist externally applied motion when commanded. The gallery follows the motor construction, mechanical packaging, and position-control tests.
For my capstone, I worked on TerraTrek, a rover combining ROS 2 Jazzy, SICK TiM561 lidar navigation, SLAM Toolbox, and a dynamic rocker-bogie suspension. The gallery follows the earlier open-frame prototype through the later red rover and its suspension tests.
I worked on an academic sorting cell using UR3 arms, a conveyor, and RGB cameras. OpenCV detected the cubes by color and located each cube’s centroid to help align the gripper for pick-and-place motion.
I built a browser tool for designing printed name tags. People can choose the shape, lettering, size, and strap-hole position before I make the physical part.
I'm testing three small mobile robots with ArUco position tracking and swarm control. The clips show formation driving, repositioning, column form-up, and individual driving. Two CAD views show how the chassis changed during the build.
I used the open SCUTTLE robotics platform developed at Texas A&M as the foundation for a golf-ball collector. My work involved camera and lidar inputs, object detection, and navigation. We called the robot Dog V2; it is separate from the Dog V3 quadruped.
Our Turtle Robotics team explored whether fan-driven suction could hold a robot against a wall for travel. I designed the test rig, using Bernoulli’s principle as a starting point for investigating the adhesion force available at different fan speeds.
My earlier actuator designs explored NEMA 17 or NEMA 23 stepper motors driving 9:1 planetary gearboxes. I used TB6600 stepper drivers and rear-mounted AS5600 shaft encoders. The surviving footage shows the assemblies moving a long test arm on the bench.
Stackable Aquaponics was my first major CAD project. I used Autodesk Inventor to work through a repeatable fish-and-plant growing module, with matching units that could stack together. It introduced me to assembly design, tolerances, plumbing, and the weight of water-filled structures.
ArthroHand was my eighth-grade robotics invention for assisted grasping. The prototype explored turning a small finger movement into a larger gripping motion. It is an early example of my interest in mechanical design.
In a 24-hour Aggies Invent design challenge, my team proposed a way to look for possible nuclear testing using a bhang sensor. Small actuators would aim the sensor toward selected geographic areas. The challenge was to shape a workable concept and communicate it clearly in a team presentation.
Through the Project Lead The Way curriculum, I worked on team rocketry projects that put the fundamentals of rocket science into practice. My hands-on work included a motor-mount and body-tube repair, alongside team design work and presentations.
Before sixth grade, I was already trying to figure out how rockets worked. I did not have the math yet, but I had the drive to build things and see what happened. These early projects were about curiosity, rough ideas, and learning with my hands.