Time is the distance.

Yes, things are moving in the realm of education again . It is a good start to what should be a constructive year in the area of design & creativity.

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This is a light switch / motion sensor project (reliable to 22') mounted to a test wall section w/ a standard light switch. If it does not detect movement within the specified time via battery efficient 9V Propellar circuit, it helps save AC power by turning the light switch off (single servo motion). It will also turn on automatically on motion detection depending on the time settings programmed.

**************************Some plastic forms the students made for the school.**************************

**************************A variety of about half of our current B Class robots.**************************

*********************Transforming materials in the kiln room (home of the iron chef)*********************

A.Y.S.

At Your Service, or AYS (pronounced ace), is a project the students completed for the Animatronics competition in TSA (Technology Student Assoc.). Having done TSA for a number of years (9), I can say that are clear positive and negative things at the regional, state, and national levels. When we won first in System Control at Nationals in 2005 (robotic legos), I was ecstatic to be the advisor back then. Since then and many politics later, we are still entering students into these TSA events. I am very proud of the 2010 seniors that took this comedian idea and turned into a full on bartender with audio; taking orders and telling jokes the whole way to #1 National Champs!

A.Y.S. uses 2 VEX bricks with a slew of servos (continuous rotation and 210^) for the head, arm, and hand/ finger controls. Potential energies (gear boxes, rubber bands and springs) help with torque issues.

We were originally using PROPELLAR chips and circuits, but time contraints and audio issues made the team use an applet for the audio.

The hands grip and lift the cups. Besides the four fingers (Simpson's style), these are well made reps of generic human movements.

There are also a light and ultrasonic sensor that react and start the operations of the robot (when it detects you, it starts taking 'orders' / asking for tips and telling jokes). These are seen in the center with PWM wires and the ping sensor is under the front of the bar to detect movement.

This is the ABS prototyped head, drawn in 3D CAD (Inventor) then PRINTED, no bull, in our Dimension prototyping machine (check earlier blogs on DU frames and TIE fighters created in this machine). A servo controls the movement of the mouth to match the audio and another servo also controls the eye movement to 'watch' the human for interactions. The students did a BUNCH of trial and error to get the voice to match the movements of the jaw, and they used JAVA to push an applet that has the audio from an attached laptop.

So how does AYS move? This was the first system that the students had to build back in the Fall. We went with a roller coaster connection system on some old Bosch framing we had laying around. It worked great, powered by a car window motor for slower movements up and down the blue bar.

This is bad pic of the inside of the robot (rat's nest!), but it has a Victor to control the wheels (window motor) the VEX bricks, and the batteries ( 2 VEX 7.2 volt and a 12 volt 1.3amp). Oh, and lots of wires, seen here in "being worked on" mode.

Thx to the seniors who worked on this project:

J Linc, Silvio, Tedesco, and the Tanap.

Big thanks to LINDAB engineering for the spiral round we used for the body here and on the R2D2 unit!

About time...2010

I know, I know, it's been over a year since I put some stuff up. Well, I have been busy (ODU Master's grad in Fall- ONE MSIM class left!) and my students have been going full throttle too. Congrats to the Animatronics National First Place dudes - great successes lie ahead for ya'll as college freshmen! I'll get A.Y.S. up on the next post. With a number of 2010 students projects, I'll post these now and more in a few weeks. The Quadrover (HONDA DOV gas powered hydraulic bot) has a bad microcontroller board... maybe this will work to push the brakes....

PARALLAX Propellar 3 microcontroller board - thx C.C.

Seen here w/ 3D CAD mouse (awesomeeeeeeeeeeee) from 3D Connexxion and, the infamous black eagle.

All black Imperial R2-D2 'CanDroid'- left and right gear box wheel systems, head rotates, laser engraved shoulder 'tops'; lights, manipulators and end effectors are in the design phase (2011 stus), and yes, an afro is attached to the top.

Thx CanMan

Ah yes, the TEAM 769 C0ld Ph0enix (FIRST 2004) drivetrain flipped upside down for a remake. This idea then grew into a full on passion for launching t-shirts (footbal, soccer and Tides games hopefully). It runs on 2 or 3 12V, 22A batteries to keep the 2 compressors at capacity and you could sit on it like a go kart cuz of it's torque at the wheel.

And we have =-]

Thx to C.C. and the whole group of Senior Robotix students of 2010

dRiVeTrAiN

So we got the drivetrain chain to a proper tension and now I am putting a few different bodies on it. They do different things, but eventually I would like to get multiple end effectors on at the same time. The machine is 12V sealed so I can store it sideways on the bot, then attach any 'tops' to it. It drives well and last about 25 minutes with no top plate/ end effectors, but the more motor usage per minute take more amps away quicker (well torqued motors w/ gearbox). This coupled with a slow recharge rate for the battery leaves me no choice but to bring extra batteries to future competitions!

This week, I need to rewire some low gaged wires to some better soldered 12-14 gauge....... After I grade the final exams from those wonderful students of mine. Priorities?

Teaching?!?!????

What a roller coaster of student achievment. I'll make sure to post some of our new robots from the VBRC 2009 (VA Beach Robot Competition) of which we got 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5th place (SWEPT IT!) as well as 22nd, 23rd, & 24th. That part of teaching is going well mostly; the motivated students have a thirst for learning and want to soak up info like a sponge..... and keep me busy.

Battlebots, gear boxes, and TIE FIGHTERS!?!?!!!!

So, we are getting ready for Battlebots 2009 in Cali., and the kids are putting their second weapon together (their first one exploded at high angular velocity). There will be 2 steel "teeth" that are bolted to this disk. They will wreck anything in theor way and the wedge weapon on the other side has a pneumatic flipper being fabricated for double the destruction!

The left gear box had an 'incident' with torque, so it is being reset with the smaller dbl gear & bearing and new lube.

So then the prototyping machine was over heating. It took over 7 hours for the tech to fix it (2 of the 4 thermo switches would not reset....and a little fan was not turning on at 278 degrees).

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Now we had to test it again, so I made some TIE fighters then some more DU symbols- a little smaller but still precise. Thank goodness for warranties on $32k machines!

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The 4 big ones:

The 8 small ones I made yesterday:

These are S.W. VI TIE fighters cuz we need to test the newly electrically rebuilt prototyping machine thoroughly-

See ya'll soon with more pix of more robots to conquer the other competitions we are gearing up for this April!

Robots and plastic 3D Prototyping parts

So, I finally got around to making the 3D DUX UNLIMITED plastic frames for my older brother and then the machine jammed full of it's own plastic. I can easily purge and clear the solid plastic jamming up the exit hole in the end effector, but it is still under warranty so I am 'not allowed' to touch it internally (insert Beavis and Butthead laugh).

Frustrated, I took this picture anyway to prove that even after 30+ months, I am still trying to do that for him.

I am also helping some students who want to get to California in April 2009 for the next ESPN BattleBOTS series. They are making a fierce steel competitor, but my bot will still destroy them during testing in January (I am making my weapons to counter their weapons/ defenses). We are in the under 120 lb high school level.

This Friday afternoon we are getting out our HONDA robot. This thing runs on hydraulic motors, powered by a HONDA DHV gas engine. Bada$$, but we can only run it outside (gas fumes are bad mmmmmmmK). We might put a T-shirt launcher on it for football/ soccer games, and we can switch out a paintball turret equppied with ultrasonic sensor systems to locate targets up to 26+ feet. Bob and weave fool. The seniors even made a 'garage' to lock it up (indeed, robotix is an expensive hobbie/ educational venture. HONDA bot = 5K!)