YUTU is Fantastic !!!!!!!!!!

  I know there is a lot going on but so few have noted or cared about this magnificent achievement !! I cannot get enough about this stuff. Space is the realms of dreams. I believe if we look up we will solve more problems then looking down. Look up and look at these videos too !!! I will write more very, very soon !!

Amazing Rover PICS !!!!!

       

              Its gets better and better as the days go by!! Yet there is no wide coverage of this event. Let me say the world has its priorities upside down !! I am going to have a YUTU party !! Boy this is going to be a merry Christmas or what !!! Take a look a these most

fascinating pictures from the MOON !!!

Jade Rabbit is on the surface of the moon !!!!!!!

LOOK MOTHER TRACKS !!!

Jade Rabbit's Lander taken by rover, WOW!!!

YUTU LANDED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

       Wonderful news, exciting news YUTU is on the moon. It landed in my time zone at 8:11 A.M. Congratulations to all those who made it possible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why is the world not heralding this as simply awesome, great, fantastic. You certainly know how I feel. Let us celebrate as a species. Strangely the news media is awful silent.

Moon as seen by YUTU

CONGRATULATIONS CHINA  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MOON ORBIT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

        Jade Rabbit the Chinese moon rover has achieved lunar orbit . The burn to slow the craft was an important one . If it had not been successful their would be no landing later. Now all we have to do is wait, which for me is the hard part.

         What is strange to me is why the media is ignoring this story. Is it because the moon rover is not from a western nation? Surely this is the most exciting news. What could be more important than mankind's quest for space. We are to preoccupied as to the origin of this little robot. The United States carried the the torch for a long time and now they have passed that torch to China. For whatever the reason we are all one species. I do believe that the differences that people consider important will be seen in the future as completely irrelevant.

Jade Rabbit will soon being doing this for real !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

            

Good Luck Jade Rabbit !!!!!

GO YUTU GO !!!

 I am so excited Yutu the chinese moon rover is on its way to the moon. It should land about December 14 or 15 THIS YEAR !!! WOW I cannot wait and I wish all the people involved the best of Luck. My prayers are with them and that brave little probe. What a wonderful Christmas this will be ,there is going to be a robot on the moon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rover and lander on the moon conception, absolutely fascinating!!!

Spectacular view of rockets after separation of  rocket stage

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 !!!

Fascinating Stuff !!!

Yes the world is full of robot builders !! Here are a few examples at what their creative minds are up to !!!

Robot Soccer

I can watch these robots play four hours. Besides being so much fun the creators of these teams hope to be able to field a team of robots to play the world soccer champions in the year 2050. Good Luck to them !!

Little Dog

By the same people that created Big Dog this little robot stole my heart. When you watch you will be cheering it on as it struggles to get up that little hill. Its movements are so like a real creature that it sends chills up my spine.

Wild Cat

Yet another creature that moves so like a real creature. Now that is not to say it is not real, just robotic. Watch carefully as it comes to make a turn. Its power system is very loud but it moves so gracefully.

Hero 2000 Singing

This is an older robot built by Heathkit in the early 1980's. When I saw and heard this clip it made me smile and I hope it makes all the viewers of this blog smile. Come on now robots are fun !!!

Mimic

This just so weird I had to put it at the end. I have no comment about this but I would like to know what others think about it ???

Take Care until I blog again !!!