Robot from scrap

Taking a break from B9 for a week or so to develop the Bender-meister. So far I scrounged up scrap wood and styrene to make the head portion of Bender and he's coming along nicely.

The top of the head was going to be a mixing bowl but instead I decided to make a resin head using 2 mixing bowls as the mold. They were a pair of mixing bowls (one larger than the other). I put one inside the other with a spacer on the bottom and I filled the inside one with bolts to weigh it down. After the bowls were sprayed with mold release I sprayed primer on the outside bowl OVER the release. It's a trick I learned from the folks at smooth-on. After pouring my resin, the final product is already primed. The head turned out fine but was a little difficult to remove from the metal mixing bowls. But it finally popped out.

I also got some linear gears in the mail yesterday and will start thinking about how I can get the B9's arms to retract and extend using a couple motors and gears with the drawer slides.

We're now into another long weekend and perfect robot building weather.

Resin bender head being made

Let the sawdust fly

I really was in the mood to do some woodworking/ robot building today so I started working on a different approach with my Bender project. The resin tank idea is now scrapped because the proportions are way off. He would have been too big.

The circle cutter was dusted off and attached to the band saw and I started building a new bender head. I'll make it out of MDF, an old bowl I bought at goodwill and some styrene. An idea I had is to use the cut circles for the head/neck base and the OUTSIDE of the cut circle scrap will be used also in the eye portion of Bender.

The weather is nice and it was a great night to be building robots. It feels good to get my hands into the sawdust again.

Holiday robot

It's been awhile since I updated this log because of the mad rush with Christmas and guests. However, last week I managed to completely redo the wiring of the robot. There's still work to do but it's starting to get organized inside the B9. Using the club's tips and techniques article about mounting stuff inside the torso, I epoxied several bolts inside of the torso to hang various electrical boards and wires from.

I was rushing to get B9 in working order to show my father-in-law who was visiting from Michigan with his ladyfriend. He showed up earlier than anticipated so he was able to help in the miscellaneous b9 electrical tasks.

The programming bay was also finished and installed. The to-do list is starting to wind down. This week I also started working on sensors and created an internal enclosure/reflector for lights to illuminate the belly buttons. I used scrap plastic and reflective tape on that project as well as duct tape (as they say ... the handyman's secret weapon) I was initially going to purchase some of these parts but decided to make them myself. I guess I don't have the patience to wait for the vendors in the club Plus it's much more gratifying to make your own parts.

After the robot was put together, we fired him up and turned on the I-B9 software. With the new Remote control torso swivel motor I installed with the I-B9 voice, the robot looks completely realistic. As he talks, he pivits and slowly turns from person to person as he speaks. Looks very cool. All except for the holes in his arms. I'll be so glad to get him a set a claws and wrists some day !! I've been told I should have a set by the first of the year.

B9 robot doing the twist

I spent most of the day yesterday (except for a few painful hours when the Bucs got stomped by New England) experimenting with making the torso move using the Vex controller and motor (sold by Radio Shack). Several different designs were tried before I settled on the one being currently used.

Here's a video of the motor and robot movement
http://www.floridarobot.com/b9/media/vex1.wmv

The design works but the motor / gear assembly seems like it wants to move around and I can hear some noise there. It may be too stressed ... but I'm not sure.

The vex system from radio shack is pretty cool. I will be using the programming module to make the robot look around on his own. The video has me using the remote control that comes with the vex kit. It would be more cool if he moves on his own like he's looking around. The programming kit (additional $99.00) has an easy to use interface to program the controller in easyC or something like that.

I gotta get back to work ...

The birth of a robot

Cutting the resin tank wasn't so hard with the right tools. The reciprocating saw cut the plastic very nicely. Then the table belt sander was able to smooth it down and sand all the nubs from the robotal cranium.

A little cardboard and some pictures to prototype the idea and a robot is born. Ain't he cute?

Collar lip and water softener robot experiment

Added a lip to the collar tonight. The lip is made of scrap acrylic and fits just inside the top of the torso opening. It's attached to the bottom of the collar. Until now, the collar was just sitting on top of the B9. Now if someone bumps it, it won't slide off accidentally.

I got to do something similar for the radar unit. That also just sits on top of the collar.

In other robot news, I officially started working on the futurama robot Bender. Well, kinda. I started hacking away at the resin tank that was in my water softener to shape the tank. This is going to take some work.

Oh the pain ....

What a pain it was to move Mr. B9 into the house. It's one thing to wheel him around the garage on the dolly I created but getting him into the house and set up is mucho work.

I was thinking it would be cool to take him to conventions and all but he's probably going to mostly be a homebody robot. Here's a few pics I took tonight. Don't you love those shiny legs ?

Too bad I'm still waiting on his claws and wrists. Some day ....

Cold turkey

I feel like a robot building addict with a screaming monkey on his back. Just too many household chores to do this weekend with not a minute to spare to work on the B9. I even got a new programming bay kit from Craig but wasn't even able to do more than give it a good look.

I better get a fix later in the week or else !

Ear surgery or the Incredible shrinking robot ?

Today was one of those days where everything went perfect in addition to the weather being a perfect robot building day.

The highlight of the day was fixing my one broke "Scott S." ear with the gears. The main shaft had come loose. This was one of those cases where using plain old brute force worked. I basically pried the ear apart and was able to break the epoxy's bond without any damage at all to the ear. After a few dabs of goop and repositioning the gear, the ear's as good as new.

Radio Shack makes a cool new robotics learning kit that teaches robotic concepts and how to program controllers. This is an area I know nothing about but have always wanted to learn. The learning kit comes with an easy to understand and read manual in addition to all the parts needed to build controllable robots. I asked on their online forum and found out that there's a way to interface their controller with more powerful motors than the standard vex motors. There were several helpful replies that gave me just the info I need to use the Vex controller to animate my robot. The ideas keep coming how I could use this technology with the B9.

Yesterday more charcoal grey dye was applied to the legs and I spent the day re-fitting my spacers on the legs. You could call this the incredible shrinking robot. It was very surprising the size of the gaps between a few legs and between the waist and the donut. The robot shrunk at least 2 inches !!! Wood shrinks and the new layer of armaflex is positioned differently. Plus I look at the robot more critically now than when I was in a mad rush a few months ago putting it together. So I spent a good portion of the day re-adjusting the spacers and now he looks great. The charcoal color looks great also.

I love building this robot!

Darker dye for the legs

After a long look at the legs and knees, I decided to go with a darker dye so today I got the dye SP954 charcoal grey dye in the mail. It's darker than I want to go but the dye I used was just too light. And unless paint is used, the charcoal grey is the only other dye alternative.

Dye is very quick drying and I got most of it done tonight. Tomorrow I'll put on the final coats and then the robot will go back together again.

Another advantage of a darker dye is when any tears or knicks happen in the legs, they won't show up. The light gray dye showed the blemishes easier.