Subject:
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Re: an idea, can someone tell me if this is possible/been done before/etc?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Wed, 3 Dec 2003 04:35:27 GMT
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Original-From:
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Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.SPAMCAKEssz.com>
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Viewed:
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1845 times
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On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, Kevin L. Clague wrote:
> My fault. I didn't really know the definition. All my successful walkers
> have dynamic balance. It is built into the walking mechanism.
There's no fault involved from my perspective. The idea is to have fun.
You can't do that without some sort of risk (at least I've never
experienced 'fun' without some risk). The problem comes when people mix
emotion/ego with curiosity. Very poor mix in my experience.
[Warning: 3rd person perspective here, "you" is not -you- ;)]
If you don't want other people to give you feedback on your ideas then you
probably shouldn't ask them for it ;) If you only want positive feedback,
well that rather speaks for itself I think.
[/Warning]
You're cool, at some point in my life I didn't know the difference either.
The more you know, the less you know. I look forward to increasing my
ignorance!
I've been building robots since the mid 60's when my first one was built to
scare the living bejesus out of my mom, aunt, and grandmother (and any other
poor unsuspecting I could find). I took a standard kids bubble pencil
sharpener, the ones that have the square pencil sharpener that fits into a
slot on a plastic bubble that catches the shavings. It dawned on me that you
could fit a Hot Wheels Sizzler motor into it. About the same time I realized
it as mouse sized. I hope you can see where this is going, worked like a
charm. Women jumping up on kitchen chairs, hollering and screaming for the
hubbies. Really made a kids day :)
I think the only time I figured out a better gag was the time in 6th grade
I put a grass snake in the art teachers big oak desk center drawer. She
was a little art teacher and the snake scared her so bad she managed to flip
the entire big desk over. I was expecting a scream and some yelling but
the gymnastics were an awesome extra ;)
> Steve's two wheeled vehicle is self balancing like a Segway (I thought this
> is what you meant.)
Yeah, I understand your example. It's like a bicycle in a lot of ways, it
has dynamic balance but not static (unless you put the kick stand down). A
gyro is another example.
> > I'm a physicist, not an engineer. $$$ makes me do engineering ;)
>
> I'm happy they pay me to be an engineer because I'm not a very good
> physicist ;^)
Oh being a good physicist is fun and easy, question everything; twice. it
just aggravates the hell out of non-physicists.
> Nothing more stressful than showing it to others.
I'd say there is one more level, it's when it works in the lab but not in
the demo and you can't figure out why ;)
> I often evoke the first rule of frisbee: "never say anything more
> predictive than watch this!"
Excellent!
> Lately I've been trying to make walkers that have something other than two
> groups of feet that are 180 degrees out of phase.
I've always wanted to build a millipede sort of thing. I've been trying to
keep up with the work in reconfigurable robotics the last couple of years.
I really like the self-constructing ones they've come up with in the last
two years. I also had some discussions with a couple of teams working on
the autonamous car project that's got everyones ire up currently due the
in-the-middle-of-the-game rules changes. Really lame situation. Once the
cahs flow is better I definitely want to work on that one.
> Do you have a web page I can look at. I'd bet you've got some very
> interesting robots.
Yes, I have a couple myself.
http://ssz.com (personal, online since Nov. of 1994 under Linux)
http://open-forge.org (my company and Hangar 18, I'm redoing the webpage
now, so it will look a lot different in a few days)
Though I should warn you there are no bots on them right now. I'm not much
of a picture taker/trophy sort of person. Don't even own a camera ;) I am
working on a couple of 'reference platforms' for Mindstorms. One is a
crawler and the other is a hex walker. I should have the crawler done in the
next week or so. It's really simple in that it's there to show others how
to build a basic base to do other 'stuff' on.
I don't hang onto most of my stuff for any length of time. I usually
either take it apart for another project or give them away. You can go to
the Robot Group page and look at some of the bots on there. I've helped
with many of them, was a founding member in '89 when they formed. I used my
science museum shop budget (I was responsible for building the exhibits) to
fund them. We've done walkers, crawlers, blimps, fish, etc. I know at
least two I've worked on have been shown in the Smithsonian. I don't know
how many magazines and television shows we've done over the years.
http://robotgroup.net
I also worked with Mark Thorpe on the first two Robot Wars, before the
legal hassles. I also worked on the SRL show in '97. You can see some of
the pictures on their page. I worked on the go-cart, several of the
walkers, the coke-can-throwner (we couldn't get it to work just right),
and the Tesla coil (He's my hero!, I worked on Richard Garriot's, ala
Lord British fame from Origons, Tesla coil. 12 ft. tall and nearly .5MV,
if you get a chance to go to his haunted house around Halloween enjoy it).
http://srl.org
The Robot Group and EFF Austin [1] have been trying to put on another
Robofest. If it happens I can pretty much invite anyone who wants to come
and play. I can't pay for your travel or staying but I can help you with
any fees or such. If anything of note happens I'll pass it along. It's all
talk right now.
My current robot project is to take a riding lawnmower, load a wireless
Plan 9 cpu server on it and then run it autonomously as well as remotely
(ala waldo) via a HMD, no silly Robot War remote control.
The major hold up right now is that I quite IBM (I worked in the Linux
Tech Cntr doing OS distros for internal projects) back in Aug. to start a
new company to develop Open Source technology (that's the Open Forge, LLC)
and as a result money is rather short and must be spent with extreme care.
The OF crew (both of us) did get a Plan 9 article into the Feb. 2004 Sys Admin
if you're interested in really distributed computing. It will also support
the styx-in-a-brick software from the Inferno OS. I'm working on the next
article now, Plan 9 rc scripting. If anyone has suggestions on where to
send articles for robots based around Plan 9 I'd appreciate the vector. We
have several projects in the pipe.
Anyway, right now what I need is a riding lawnmower. I've got the motor
and such ready to deal with the steering as well as most of the other
electronics. My business partner in OF still works for a company in town
that does video and such. He managed to salvage one of those monster
projection screens with the big motor and shaft and such. Perfect for
steering a heavy duty bot.
The idea is to have two or more of these babies go at it without all the
rules of Robot Wars and such. Flame throwers, jamming, etc. all allowed.
This means that the operators will be out of line of sight and the
audience will watch via remote camera. These babies are just too damn
dangerous, fast, and big to let real live people with no experience
anywhere near them with the power on. I've already gotten banged pretty
badly (no broken bones but some doozy bruises) from some 50-100lb bots I
worked on a couple of years ago, and I supposedly know what I'm doing.
Anyway, I see my 'mouth' has run away. Sorry. I've got some other mail and
such to take care of. TTYL.
ps The OF group runs a IRC server and one of our channels is #robotics.
It's open to anyone who wants to use it. We can setup specific meet
times or whatever.
[1] I was a primary actor in the whole formation thing. If you're familiar
with the whole SJG, LoD, Phoenix Project, The Mentor, Erik Bloodaxe
thing that started the EFF nationally then the simple question is;
"Who was user #19 on Phoenix Project?". I also had a peripheral
relation to the 'Cookoo's Nest' book, I knew many of the CCC at the
time because I was chillin' with the Black Monks of Holland with
regard to Amiga related 'stuff' I was working on.
-- --
Open Forge, LLC 24/365 Onsite Support for PCs, Networks, & Game Consoles
512-695-4126 (Austin, Tx.) help@open-forge.com irc.open-forge.com
Hangar 18 Open Source Distributed Computing Using Plan 9 & Linux
512-451-7087 http://open-forge.org/hangar18 irc.open-forge.org
James Choate 512-451-7087 ravage@ssz.com jchoate@open-forge.com
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Bump switches and "aggression"
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| I mentioned a 'reference platform' for the H18 group I've been working on in a previous post, and I'm curious if anyone will share their views on how they view bump switches and 'behavior'. I'm not interested in a debate but rather a 'collection'. (...) (21 years ago, 3-Dec-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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