Kilian's Robot Shop of Horrors - 07/12/2002

Alan had agreeded to give a robot presentation at the Ridgedale library. So we worked to get some robots ready. We had Ron's Microdozer that needed charged. We had Alan's Oscar robot that hadn't run for years. We had Alan's Trippy robot that needed to be reassembled with the rubber wheels that Brynn managed to tracked down. Trippy also needed the PIC-SERVO board attached and some software written. Jeff was going to supply the Earth Explorer for the presentation.

The Earth Explorer was working. And it would stay that way if we didn't manage to blow it up in the mean time. The Microdozer just required a quick charge and a little hot glue.

Trippy took more work. It needed some machining and some assembly work. There were a few surprises that turned up, but it went back together pretty well. We downloaded some drivers and demo code and Jeff hacked some code while Alan made some final adjustments to Trippy. The code actually worked and the thing could rotate and move forward or backward. Alan made a long tether cord to connect Trippy to the laptop computer.

Oscar has dead batteries. Rather than replace the batteries we found a wall adapter that plugged in to the charging adapter and supplied power.

So we came up with 4 working robots for the presentation.

-Jeff

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The Earth Explorer

Jeff brought the Earth Explorer over. Here it is bothering people as they drive by.	Alan is driving the Earth Explorer.	Some real exploring. Out in the mud, back in the trees.	A neighbor kid driving the Earth Explorer. The Kilian house must be legendary. He never took that bicycle helmet off the whole time he was there.
Brynn brought his kids over. Peter, Benjamin and Daniel took turns driving the Earth Explorer.	I think there is a rule. When you have kids you have to have ramps.	This tree wouldn't budge. But the motor drivers didn't burn up either.	You can see the ramp is getting plenty muddy. You can almost see the stick got pretty chewed up by the chains on the robot.

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Trippy

After all that fine work on the lathe a few weeks ago, a quick touchup with the drill.	Trimming some plastic with a box knife.	The hole had to be milled out for the hex shaft. Here the set screw is being inserted so the motor can be attached.	This is the tricky part. Tweezers are being used to thread in the screws.
All the parts for one wheel.	A closeup of the parts.	The Trippy base reassembled with a PIC-SERVO board attached.	Making a tether to connect Trippy to a laptop computer.

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Other

Oscar also came out of retirement. The batteries are history but it will run with a tether.

We have yet another distraction at RSOH. But we decided this would be a great remote control test bed.

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