Archived from the Tools In Action forum (Pub Talk). This thread is read-only.
If you don’t know me I’m big on electronics. I worked on robotic weapon systems in the Navy, industrial automation as a civilian, product development on embedded systems, and I even had the opportunity to design exhibits for Discovery Science.
Im using my GI Bill, studying Mechatronics (Mechanical, electrical, computer engineering). The engineering comes easy to me, calculus… Not so much.
Anyway, this semester I have been building a lot of robots. I built a Hexapod for one of my instructors, a humanoid bipod who I’m teaching Kung-fu, quads, & maze solving rovers.
These toys cost thousands of dollars and I wouldn’t normally get an opportunity to play.. I mean learn, with them if it weren’t for an engineering research class I’m taking. I originally signed up for the class because I was 1 unit short of full time. It didn’t take long for me to settle intomore of an active teaching role. I enjoy the field and it’s a lot of fun when I get to show-off and teach people who have PH.D. in Physics.
The is the Hexapod. I built/coded/& debugged it in one day. Lots of work but I wanted to get it finished in order to demo to the High Schoolers.
We are building 6 Quadcopters in the engineering class. I had to solder and configure some GPS modules so I threw together this rig to speed up production.
My truck was in the shop so I loaded up the wifes Subaru and headed over to an event where I demonstrated some robotics and gadgets for high schoolers.
Brought along my solar generator. Branded with a TIA sticker, this thing rocks! It powered all my demos while charging my laptop and cellphone. It’s a great talking point too 😉
This is the Humanoid robot. I’m teaching him Kung-Fu. Maybe I should teach him to build something?
Its really a cool kit, able to build many different styles
including robot T-Rex
*i have some videos but can’t seem to post them from my phone
Neat stuff EE!
That is so cool. I love how “no big deal” you sound. Ya know I built a robot and coded it, and I’m teaching it Kung fu, no biggie.
Keep eps up the good work! Mite great that you are sharing your knowledge with the next generations.
Alphabet the new patent company of Google is selling Boston Dynamics 🙁 They didn’t like the negative pr from this Atlas video that came out. It really freaked some people out.
Cool stuff, you seem pretty good at that stuff
Jimbo
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I have always been intrigued by robotics, and all the possibilities that can be achieved in the future.
those are pretty cool
here’s a pic of some of the kids in the engineering class. Dr. Sims in the center on the floor showing the students how to attach motors to a block of wood with plumbing strap. ?
I brough some some tools in that day and for many of the students it was the first time they used a power drill. I think I created a few Milwaukee fanboys/girls. 🙂
ill get get some pics of the students robots today.
interesting…..
Also, moral objections aside, DARPA is hosting a weapons design competition. They want people to build weapons from normal house hold objects. Think macgyver type stuff. Weaponized toasters! TIA inspired weapons? What can we make from power tools?
We can do better then a flamethrower ? But yes, I actually learned to build a flamethrower from this Russia guy I worked with.
I uploaded my first YouTube video. Nothing special, just shows the Humanoid doing some moves, including a headstand.
My dog Alley makes an appearance. She doesn’t trust technology.
Well robots are the direction everything is moving. Soon the whole dairy industry will be robotic. They already have robotic alley scrapers. Automatic feeding machines and several companies have their own robotic milkers. The human element is getting rapidly phased out. We are probably going to install robotic milkers at some point because of how quickly they can pay for themselves.
Just updating with a new robot build. This one is called the mDrawBot. It’s a kit that can be configured into 4 different XY Plotters.
mScara (current configuration) is a robotic arm plotter. Originally designed to clamp onto the edge of a desk. I mounted it to some MDF, finally discovered what MDF was good for. 😉
mSpider: Can draw on horizontal surfaces like a whiteboard. I am going to build this unit next
mEggBot: is great for Decorating Easter Eggs
. 
mCarBot: Maybe useful for making custom parking spot decals.
I will need to do a TIA Print, but for now here are a few I did.
The print resolution and quality isn’t the best but its pretty cool. I need to work on my video editing skills. 🙁
Lmfao…… Now that’s funny
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Now if they did the voice over in Bender’s it would have been legendary!
That’s pretty sweet!
Jimbo
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Cool!
PROTOOLNUT wrote:
4 hours ago, PROTOOLNUT said:If I was the robot, I’d turn my head to look at him and say. Push me again and just see what happens. 😉
And in a flash protool nut pulled out his 7 1/4″ ryobi circular saw and bevel cut that mother F%&$#* to death!!
Hey @EEtwidget time to arm those plotters with different color of pens!!
Im actually going to take it apart and configure it to write on a white-board. I have some Kreg T-Track i’m going to use to make an adjustable mount. Something I can take into the classroom and throw up on the board, press a button and away it goes. 🙂 Butt I’ll draw a TIA Logo with the arm first.
Today I made a few circuit boards with my friends CNC Mill. I really need a CNC of my own but they are just so damn $$$. I keep hoping Dan will give his away. 😉
Check out the youtub video I took of the mill in action. This PCB is a shield that attaches to the Arduino Mega board. A few sensors plug into it and turns the Arduino Mega into a flight-control for quad-copters. Nice relaxing music too.
Very cool
Another quick robot update. Meet Baxter. He is our latest & greatest ‘toy’. Baxter is made by a company called Rethink Robotics. Marketed as an easy to use automation bot, Baxter can be programmed by simply moving his arms. Here is a short video of the first run. I’m just calibrating his arms but next week I’ll program him to do something cool.
Thats pretty cool, robots have definitely come a long way!
Yes they have. The UN just had a meeting talking about Robots on the Battlefield. Many think it’s inhuman for a robot to kill a person because the robot doesn’t have any emotional consequences.
Yesterday we invited Irvine Valley College Robotics Team to present their ‘Rescue Robot’ IVC Robotics won 1st place last weekend @ a University level Robotics competition.
The robot is an first responder bot that can automatically search for a victim (simulated by an orange bucket) and report back the victims location.
This is is the 2nd year the robot program has been in existence and it gets better each go!
In in about a month the team will compete in simulated rescue competition
Today was fun. I set up a 3D scanner. It’s a cool unit. Runs about $800. Good resolution for the price.
I wanted to scan something interesting so I ran across campus and grabbed a platypus skull from my wife’s lab. It turned out really cool. Imports easily into SolidWorks.
ill scan some tool related stuff soon.
[Photo from the original forum is not in the backup]
Dope scanner bro. That skull looks awesome too.
Bought this hand carved elephant from the San Diego Zoo. Supposedly carved in Africa. Im going to try and 3D Print it, not for profit. Only Science.
Wow amazing!
My wife is out of town… so I turned our kitchen into a drone garage. 🙂 My swarm is growing. Soon I will take over the world! 
EEtwidget wrote:
15 minutes ago, EEtwidget said:My wife is out of town… so I turned our kitchen into a drone garage. 🙂 My swarm is growing. Soon I will take over the world!
I like the way you think brother!
I final got around to testing my biggest quadcopter. This thing is a beast, about 3 times bigger then the DJI Phantom and 10 times more dangerous. This was just a quick test in the backyard to make sure it would hover. I took it to the park and flew a bit but light was fading quickly. Still a lot more tuning to do before its ready to start 3D Mapping but that’s the goal.
Forgive my messy backyard. Dogs, gophers, and drought destroyed our last two attempts at growing grass. Artificial grass is in our future Also, I don’t advise testing UAV’s barefoot; my wife’s still out of town so I don’t feel the need to shower. 🙂 Normally I have more trees and the fence topper extended further… till the city started cutting trees down. Smashed up the topper and that metal plant rack. 🙁
That is really neat!!
Even sounds like it has alot of power.
Are the neighbors wondering what that strange noise is?
I’m lucky, I have awesome neighbors. Mostly all Veterans and tradesmen. I live on the end of a cul-de-sac, backyard surrounded by trees/hillside and a daycare. Our little piece of heaven. Wish we had more land but its not bad for California. The neighborhood kids love to troll around near my garage when I’m building. I had to keep my dogs in the house though, they attack my drones.
I don’t know if I ever posted this project. It’s a DJI phantom quadcopter turned into a flying Jellyfish. I built it for a friend (the half naked hippy in the pic) he took it to Burningmam Africa. It looks really good in person. RGB LEDs and fiber optics.
Although this isn’t a robot, I decided to post anyway ? Last weekend I put in an 18-hour day building exhibits for an escaperoom. I’m waiting on final payment and pictures. This is an old 8-track I hacked. Still more work to do but it’s got some pretty lights and the 8-track plays MP3 files. ? When the ‘player’ puts an 8-track into the slot, it trips a limit switch that triggers an audio file stored in a microSD.
The room includes hidden trapdoors and even a chess game that when you get checkmate, a hidden door opens.
We received more robot goodness. Amongst the lot, this PLC controls lab. It teaches control theory, HMI, PLC, and much more.
first thing I did was load xBox games
Damn-it! Want to know how to look stupid? Just try flying a giant quadcopter. Nothing damaged other then my ego.
EEtwidget wrote:
16 minutes ago, EEtwidget said:Damn-it! Want to know how to look stupid? Just try flying a giant quadcopter. Nothing damaged other then my ego.
Thank God it is okay! Man that thing is loud!
Turns out I broke some props & a motor mount ?
I have a set of carbon fiber props to throw on, flying spinning death props.
Im going to wait till after the 4th to mess with it though. I don’t want a repeat of last year where I nearly cut off my noise
Got a few more toys in today.
Badass bench-top CNC & a mobile robotic arm.
The shipping cases the robot came in are pretty cool. Even have locks built in.
this thing is heavy! Lidar and a 3D vision sensor.
The white this is a really quite air compressor. Whisper quite.
i have a 4th axis for this guy too!
I recently demonstrated one of our robots to a group of high school students. The first thing they did was teach Baxter to dance.
Testing the high speed camera. Honestly I got the shot on the first take, but I didn’t tell the student. It was too much fun watching him smack himself
EEtwidget wrote:
3 hours ago, EEtwidget said:Testing the high speed camera. Honestly I got the shot on the first take, but I didn’t tell the student. It was too much fun watching him smack himself
Aahhaha too funny!!
I kinda built a drone. I designed the plastic body. 3d printed it then installed the hardware (motherboard, motors, etc.) 4 prints later it flys. Except the motherboard likes to not stay flat. It needs a tweak I think. @EEtwidget did that ridgid box come with the power outlets or did you install them yourself. I wonder how much power you would get if you powered it with that monster energy I saw on the left?
The Ridge was a custom build. It’s a solar generator. Inside is a deep cycle battery, solar charger controller, inverter, led light strips, and a few other goodies. I use it for camping and anytime on site w/o power.
The monster is for me… and I drink entirely too many.
the battery might overload and explode if you gave it monster haha.