Randy Hemingway's Blog » robotics

Aha! You thought I’d forgotten

Randy — Tue, 06 May 2008 23:26:00 +0000

No, I haven’t forgotten about my robot, but I’ve been pretty busy lately. Now that I have some time, I am going to go work on it. Actually, I probably have about a million better things to do right now, but I don’t feel like doing them. You’ve all heard that song and dance before, though. Enough! I’m off!

"Curious" robots

Randy — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:34:00 +0000

Frederic Kaplan, a designer with Sony, has developed algorithms that make it possible for robots to “learn” about their surroundings and interact with them.

Crusher UGV

Randy — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:01:00 +0000

This is one of those robots you don’t want to meet in a dark alley. Because it’s big…and armed. The Armed Forces have really been stepping up their unmanned vehicle R&D in the last decade, and the battlefield is just starting to see the fruits of their budgets. So, unmanned, heavily armed vehicles like the Crusher aren’t too far away.

Making a "useful" robot

Randy — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:41:00 +0000

iRobot, the makers of the Roomba robotic vacuum, makes a product that looks similar to the Roomba but is designed for people to develop robots, the iRobot Create. I’m glad to see that the makers of one of the few “useful” robotic products on the market is encouraging people to delve into robotics and try to come up with the next “useful” robot.
Besides price, I think one of the obstacles to there being more consumer-level robotic products on the market is that people have too many pre-conceived notions of what a “useful” robot would look/act like. We have been fed most of these ideas through television and movies. Unfortunately, it seems like most of the money used to research and develop robots is aimed at making a humanoid robot. Though human behavior and personality may be the ultimate challenge to emulate in a robot, there are an infinite number of different robots that could be made to simplify household tasks that wouldn’t necessarily look like or act like a human or part of a human.
Besides, having human characteristics, I think people are confining their idea of a “useful” robot to one that can handle many tasks. However, the cost (I know I said “besides price” earlier) of developing a machine or a robot that can handle many different tasks is very prohibitive. For instance, the company I work for just built a machine to press railroad wheels onto railroad axles (then, press on bearings but that’s beside the point). At first, we were going to have to be able to handle several different axle lengths, but our customer eventually narrowed the variation to two axle lengths. Trying to design a machine that could handle so much variation was quickly becoming very expensive. Was it possible to design such a machine? Yes. Was it a good idea? No. If, like the iRobot Roomba, a robot is designed to handle one task, the price of that robot quickly drops.
Even though I eliminated it as an option, price is a prohibitive factor in the proliferation of household robots. However, that issue is continually being resolved. As with any technology, the prices of components are slowly dropping. Hopefully soon, price may no longer be prohibitive.

To sum this little rant of mine up, (because I have to go to practice for my church’s Easter production) if hobbyists, inventors, and development companies can focus more on creating functional, single-focus, user-friendly robots, rather than sophisticated house-rovers, we could see a huge leap in the integration of household robots within just a couple of years.

Breathless, speechless, almost typeless

Randy — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:37:00 +0000

WHOA! If you bothered to watch that video of the little black toy robot I posted earlier, you’d know that it could, what…get up from being flat on its face? balance on leg to kick its other leg out?! oooOOOOOoooo!! I’m scared. See my knees shaking? No, because they’re not. Dude, this robot developed by Boston Dynamics is so much more awesomer!! I held my breath almost the whole time I watched this video — which got kind of life-threatening but so worth it. You have got to see it to believe it. But be PATIENT: the first few seconds are kind of boring, then it gets really amazing. Have fun!

The robot is taking shape!

Randy — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 01:05:00 +0000

Hey! I got a couple videos of my progress today. Okay, before you see the videos, there’s a little bit of background you might need to know if you are unfamiliar with electronics/robotics. First, ignore all the wires, gaze in wonderment at the blinky lights, and write regaling comments of adoration. Second, if you do know what you’re looking at in the videos, don’t criticize me for making such a big deal out of making a couple LED’s go blinky-blink.

All right, now that that is out of the way, the first video is of the Variable Brightness LED Circuit. Watch carefully: as I turn the screw one LED gets brighter and the other gets dimmer. Oh, and it’s kind of long so don’t feel like you have to watch the whole thing. The second one is of the Light Comparison Circuit. Basically, the two LED’s on the left are controlled by the light sensors that I’m waving my finger over. As the light over one set of photo sensors gets dimmer, one of the lights comes on, and vice versa. Enough jibber-jabber: Lights! Camera! ….

Another Saturday

Randy — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 13:40:00 +0000

Faith is working today, but that doesn’t mean that I’m just sitting at home doing nothing! Well, I kind of am, but I won’t do nothing all day! If you don’t know already, Faith and I put an offer on a house on Thursday. Now, we just have to wait to hear back from the seller! They should be calling some time today. So, the waiting continues….and still, it continues even now…..and now, too. ANYWAY, while we’re waiting to hear if our offer was accepted with tears of joy or rejected like a 5′2″ point guard going in for a lay-up, I have other business to attend to: namely, …. ROBOTICS!! This is long overdue, but here is the video of my very first circuit (well, I built a bunch of circuits in college, but this is the first I’ve built on my own)!

Maybe later, I’ll have another part of the robot built. I’ll see if I can get some more done on it today and post another video. Well, I guess I’d better get to work.

This robot is awesome!

Randy — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:43:00 +0000

Check out this video of this robot! It gets up from being flat on its face or its back. And it looks great, too.