Need Help With Everything robotics

Hello, I found an old tube radio cabinet that still looks great, but had no innards (just the wooden shell). I installed a retractable screen dvd car stereo with speakers, which is pretty sweet. However, phase two of the project is more complex: the bottom portion of the cabinet is empty, and I want to convert in into a liquor cabinet. My idea is to provide a remote control gizmo to select your bottle of booze, and serve it (not pour, but extend the bottle out of the cabinet from a door). I might be able to rig something up with a 5-disc cd/dvd carousel, and some individual cd/dvd drives (cd player with 5 disc = rotational drive with large surface, and 5 known, programmed stop locations, with the individual drives at each stop position, eject disk = extending the bottle out of cabinet). This however, seems clunky, wire ridden, and ugly. So, I want something sleeker. A turntable programmable to stop at 4-6 locations, with a linear drive at the door position. The turntable rotates and deposits the bottle on the linear drive (like a mini mag from Dover), which, while extending, opens the door as well. This happens by remote (might have hardwired buttons on the cabinet itself too), which means that the door closing has to occur by remote as well. Door opening also triggers an internal LED light, but that should be simple enough to rig up with a magnetic catch. I think that the door could be hooked up to the linear drive, extending the drive opens the door, retracting closes the door. But some magnetic system would be cooler. Anyway, that is my idea. I hope that someone can give me advice as to how to make this work, make it more efficient, what I would need, and maybe even how to put it together.

Thanks!

Aare

You have an ambitious project planned for someone who says they need a lot of help.

It might be best to put this idea in storage for a while and concentrate on a project from a kit that has a lot of educational content. Something like the BOE bot would be a good choice. Then, you would gain the expertise to understand the programming and electronics. You might even cannibalize the kit to later put your project together. The wheels could drive a belt to drive your turn- table with sufficient force.

The BOE bot is a system designed with a lot of educational content included to get a robotic hobbyist started. Once source is

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for about $160, but there are other sources as well.

The kit would handle some aspects of your ambition. But, the mechanical design is more than a minor task. The weight of a device to handle a CD is in a different category from the weight you want to handle.

Joe Dunfee