Robotics

Sounds like a great father-son project.

I would love to have something like that to inspect the crawlspace under my house with, to check for leaks and puddles. The genius that installed the hvac ducts 20+ years before I arrived ran a main duct directly across the crawlspace entrance, covering about the top 12 inches of a 22-24 inch high opening, so getting in and out is very annoying (especially since I'm not as thin as I was a few decades ago when I was a pre-teen :-)). The floor is gravel that is fairly smooth, covered with a couple of layers of polyethylene as a vapor barrier, so I don't think tracks would be required but the wheels would need to be several inches in diameter and the overall height less than 12" for easy entrance. Would also need headlights, and a flat shelf for cargo would be nice so you could use it to bring someone that wrench or screwdriver or sump pump they forgot to take under with them. You could even add a cargo trailer for those big loads or XL battery packs if you need to explore all night before returning to base for a charge. Just a suggestion for another market if you try to sell these. Heck, I'd pay as much as $19.95 for one, maybe even a bit more :-).

Regards, Carl Ijames carl.ijames aat deletethis verizon dott net

The robot that I made with my son, that works like a tracked skid steer, turned out to be really good. I have no idea how we will end up at the state level olympiad, but it is a good workable robot, like a real skid steer, a machine for getting work done.

Following this, and realizing that motion and electronic components are very cheap and good nowadays, I decided to make a surveillance robot.

It will be mounted on a wheeled or tracked platform (off the shelf), have a Raspberry Pi 2 linux computer, it will connect to wifi and carry a camera. The use for it would be to be remotely controlled and explore my warehouse, so that I can tell it to go where I want, from home, and I will be able to see the webcam stream from the robot.

I do not think that it will be particularly difficult to implement. This is something that I always wanted to have, like "how is that pile of copper pipes doing in that corner" or "are there any puddles on the ground in this corner".

I do have cameras, about 8 by now, but they cannot cover everything.

My sister has a home that is frame on piers, on a slope so the downhill has standing room underneath. During a bathroom renovation for my bil due to his paralysis issues (widen access for wheelchair, roll in shower, silly Japanese toilet, etc.), the fiberglass insulation under the house needed to be replaced. It was full of vermin, etc. I recommended closed cell polyurethane foam, which the contractor also recommended.

My sister told me the guys doing the spraying in their respirators and suits were frying rats, snakes, tarantulas, etc. with the foam guns. Looked like the pre-flight on "The Fifth Element".

Would be a good robot application. Those guys were looking for some relief from the critters.

Pete Keillor

It looks like there is quite a jump in prices for something like this:

The SuperDroid platform with wifi starts at $2,898.00 See:

and no reviews yet...

Sounds like a cool project Ig ;-)

"Ignoramus18077" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com...

A classic student-project robot from the early days spent its time looking for outlets to recharge itself.

-jsw

"Ignoramus18077" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com...

Can you make it snarl and bark if it detects motion?

-jsw

Good idea. Use a large EEPROM and store the binary code for the sound - use a 8 bit D-A and make the machine talk/growl. Might use an 8 bit A-D to program it.

Iggy will likely pick a PIC and have it do the task.

Mart> "Ignoramus18077" wrote in

Speeding up some all-day, two-man job by a factor of two would pay for a lot more than $19.95.

"Errand Bot"

That's so last century, Martin.

Just play a wav file.

I will build something like that superdroid, but a bit smaller and using Raspberry Pi 2. The total cost should be unser $300.

Being a full fledged Linux computer, this robot could be playing youtube. Hey, even my CNC milling machine can play youtube.

Richard fired this volley in news:q7GdnbSW6fZd- snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:

Yeah, for goodness sakes! It's LINUX, the rPi is fast (the newest one WAY faster, still), and one has gigs of flash disk to work from; plus Ethernet, USB ports, an HDMI video resource on-board... It's a 'real' computer, not just a little 'micro'.

Shucks! You could project a ten-minute Hires video image of a dog barking, and still have gobs of storage left!

Lloyd

You could just play youtube... This is what I do on my CNC machine while machining...

I see you son did the soldering!

Good job on the design. How much can the scoop lift?

Paul

Only if you have the flash storage for the wav and the PIC computer can read and play it out an blue tooth port to a blue tooth boom box.

Mart> That's so last century, Martin.

Not much, maybe 100 grams

Jesus, Jim. There aren't enough miserable barking dogs in existence now, you want barking _machines_, too? Bite your tongue!