Sunday, November 17, 2013

MY ROBOTS for ALL to SEE !!

    


    Robot builders strive for perfection and we always want to show the world what wonderful things we form with our own hands. My robots are built from scratch with parts I have in my lab-study. This does not mean I shrink away from making it just right but it does mean I tend to slow down so things work as they should. I experimented with different ideas and concepts and I have been graced with a few robots.

     Each was built around the specific parts that I found around my place or purchased. Now when I say purchased it did not mean a big outlay of cash. One idea I know to be true is that quite sophisticated machines can be built from the simple and cheap parts. Most of what I have in my lab comes from surplus stores or what I retrieved from all the electronic garbage people throw out routinely.



     The first robot in this particular piece is Robo. It is built around a rather cool motor I retrieved from a large piece of garbage electronics. In my other blog I intend to write how it was built and provide all the neat technical details.  I used a circuit that takes light and activated two small white relays, which in turn activated the motor. I had it set up that depending how the light hit a particular phototransistor the motor would turn in one direction, then the other direction. It works well and after it was built I noticed a very interesting phenomenon it displayed and is shown in this video. This has happened time and again when I have built robots. They exhibit completely unexpected behaviors, indeed the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.


Robo






     Good old Tipsy is a great little machine. If you look closely you will find that Tipsy is made from an old cassette drive mechanism. Around this I screwed some old metal parts and glued some small wheels that were from the same tape mechanism. To activate it I built, from some small transistors, a flashing l.e.d. and a solar panel  a BEAM type solar driven activator. BEAM is an acronym and stands for Biology, Electronics, Aesthetics and Mechanics. Tipsy is a photophile and goes toward a light source. Since it was built with a solar cell it was sluggish in ordinary light. However as this video shows it really loves the sunlight. Mark Tilden was one of the researchers that invented the BEAM concept. He wrote articles and books explaining his design philosophy.  He went on to assist WowWee Robotics. Robosapien was his as was Robopet and the Roboquad. All these are absolutely great robots. They walk and sense their surroundings and most important of all fun to play with when you want to play with robots. The most fascinating and wonderful robot is Robosapien V2. Talk about amazing and spooky in its reactions. I once watched it track someone with its head and it sent chills up my spine. Please do not worry about Tipsy in this video , both robot and creator are just fine.


Tipsy







     Every time I go shopping for groceries I pass the section that sells plastic containers of many sizes and I see hundreds of robots. No I have not taken leave of my senses I have come to them. If you look closely at this video of Firefly you will see that it's case is actually a sandwich container with the top removed. This robot was built so that my daughter would have an entry in a robot show that was eventually cancelled. The show did not go on because of lack of interest. I do believe the world has got its priorities upside down. How can anyone not find robots and robot building endlessly fascinating ???? The inside of Firefly was and old base from a toy jeep I had for years. I connected similar circuits that would activate when light was shone onto them. I made some parts petty obvious so the newcomers to robotics would not miss them. The decoration was courtesy of my offspring, someone I am exceedingly proud of on a continuous basis.


Firefly



FireFly moves








     Lester is the last video I am presenting in this particular blog. He was a challenge on two counts. Firstly I had to connect the head so that the wires going to the motor that controlled his head would not tangle as the head moved left and right. This was solved by placing the wire up near the motor. Secondly the circuit I used was one I had been experimenting for years. It also activates relays that run a single motor. However the light devices used were light dependent resistors. I was amazed since the LDRs were connected to a five foot wire and they still worked well. The robot head was from an old Robie Sr. robot from Radio Shack. The neat thing about the circuit was that I used two nine volt batteries. One was for the circuit and one was for the motor.


Lester






     As I write this last bit I am wondering if all those people who view this blog will like my robots? I am going to place a more detailed story of how each was built on my other blog " Robot and Nothing But."  I will include all the delicious technical details and schematic diagrams. I hope this will encourage others to build their own or similar robots. I am addressing the brave person who has come this far. I believe to the core of my being that no matter who you are, no matter what level of technical skill, no matter what your economic situation,and no matter where you are on this planet, YOU can build a robot. It will take a bit of work and some tools but all my robots were built from basically other peoples trash. With that treasure I was blessed with working robots. If I have encouraged others to do this then I will be very, very, very, happy!!!


Get that screwdriver !!!