I just got this flying saucer type metal sled in the mail today and tried it out on gort. Looking sporty. He could almost blend in with the ladies red hat club if his body had some purple in it.
I'm guessing the saucer could be trimmed down and make a nice dome. The oval shape will make it a little more challenging.
We have been spending every spare minute over the last week looking into buying some property/swamp which (today) we decided to back out on. It could have been a bad move for several reasons ... plus it would have zapped every spare moment from us for the next 6 months. Oh well ...
So today I got back into the routine by cleaning out the garage and stowing ALL of the R2 parts away as well as the spare shark parts. The main shark was dispatched to my son's bait shop. I needed to get all the distractions out of my garage and make some room so I have room to work. It was getting pretty cluttered and I get distracted too easily with never ending side projects.
Saturday I worked with a friend's daughter to help her with her senior engineering project using the microprocessor from the VEX robotic system using ultrasonic sensors. It was a good learning experience for both of us but there's still a lot of work to do.
So tonight I did a little more work on GORT by cutting out the eyes and nose area. Some thought was put into the arms but that still needs a solid plan. Next step is to attach on a layer of styrene skin.
As the Sonotube has lines spiraling up the sides, I found a spare hour in an extremely busy weekend to cut out some styrene to attach to the dorsal fin backing and the tail fin backing. Construction adhesive works pretty good for that sort of thing although it is a big lumpy if you look close.
Tomorrow the shark will be painted with a new Rustoleum paint I found. It's textured multi color paint. Looks pretty interesting and I think it will be a good base for the fins and back.
Working out in the garage for an hour on Sunday night was a perfect end to an almost perfect weekend.
The other day I had an offer to buy a lot of R2 parts from a friend that was laid off and wanted to sell them in a group. Being the type prone to always bring home stray droids and robots, resistance was futile. In the past, I deliberately put off learning about R2 because of all the other unfinished projects I have going. R2 is a major project in my mind. So add another project or two to the list. Also, we just purchased some property that will be needing a lot of renovation and work in the next 4 months. So robot building will grind to a slow crawl. But my swamp creature is going to be happy because the property backs up to a beautiful swamp (yeah, I like swamps too).
In this group of parts is almost a complete R2 and a partial R5 unit. Included is one A & A Frame (not sure how I'm going to use that), one wood tube partially cut out, a set of aluminum skins, a set of pvc skins, a resin Dome that needs a lot of work, and about a million resin pieces.
So in the spirit of trying to complete projects, the shark is now on the hot list for finishing ... tomorrow. Then B9 gets some attention and once that's done, the waterheater robot resumes.
Well after putting in a couple more lightweight supports, it looks like the new shape of the Sonotube is going to hold. Oval it is !!! The only adjustment I had to make is to remove one of the supports at the base of the torso. Two of them made it too small for my hips. Removing one of them didn't seem to matter so now it's onto the nose, eyes, belly door and skin.
The new size is wider and easier for me to get my arms into the holes I cut.
The Ironman competition is being held in our city tomorrow and they will be passing right behind our house. There's several thousand competitors I heard. We'll be able to go out our back gate and set up a couple of lawn chairs under our tree and watch them go by.
I thought it would be cool to set up the robots with signs in their hands / claws encouraging the competitors but my wife said that they could get distracted and end up in a big bike pileup which would be our fault so the robots will stay in the house and garage. They're hot much into competitions anyways.
Time for change is what I've been hearing a lot of on the election coverage today after the landslide victory for Democrats. Being very happy with the election results, I considered the current robot I was working on. Time for change ....
After installing the shoulder pads yesterday, it was apparent that the bars the pad were on would have to be moved up about 2-3 inches because of the padding. And while trying it on, I thought it was a pretty snug wiggle to get my arms out of the beast. So changing my original plans seemed appropriate. Better now than down the road. Time for change.
First, I'm going to squish the robot to give it the oblong look instead of round. This was advised by another builder. It will also give my arms a little more room to move around inside the robot. Plus, it will get my head closer to the torso which will be better for seeing where I'm going.
It's not easy squishing a sonotube. I laid heavy stuff on it but it only bent slightly. I have some large threaded rod which I will use with some 1 x 4's and bolts to crank down on the sonotube and let it sit for a few days squished about 5-6 inches. After it loosens up and reforms (hopefully) I'll mount some more of those bars that I used for the should support. Since they're adjustable and bolted to the sonotube, they should act to hold the tube's shape after I remove the squishing bolts.
Change is good. When I build robots, I never completely stick to a plan. I keep the plan loose and am never afraid to admit when my ideas don't work. Better to change and improve than continue down a wrong path. And I never thought building a Robot and politics could have so much in common.
It's a good day today.
I used the new router circle cutter I built to cut some wood circles for the top and bottom reinforcement of the torso. My ears are still ringing !!!! That was the noisiest experience I've ever had. And I used to shoot the 3" guns onboard my ship when I was in the Navy about a milion years ago. I'm sure people miles away heard me cutting the wood. My wife told me the neighbors dog started barking like crazy until the owner took him in.
So .... until I get some ear protection, the next two cuts I have planned on the router will have to wait. My ears won't be the same.
Ok, so on the GORT Front, I figured out how to get the stickiness off the inside of the sonotube. Degreaser and paper towels did the trick. After that I trimmed the torso and started preparing for cutting the arms and face holes out.
Since most of today was spent appeasing the wife in a long overdue list of home improvement projects, there wasn't that much robot work. It's getting harder and harder to get in good honest robot building time.
Recently I sold off some parts of my B9 number two. I decided that one B9 was enough. There are plenty of other robots that could be built and nobody needs two B9's.
I have almost a complete second robot from the waistplate to the bubble as well as an extra set of wheels. I'll put these up for sale in a few weeks. I need to clear some of this stuff out of here. One guy I know said he wants to buy it all but if I don't hear from him in the near future then I'll probably put it up for sale on EBAY.
In other (GOOD) news. I just found out that MegaCon in Orlando next February is going to have Bob May, June Lockhart and Mark Goddard. So I'll be contacting the promoters to see about bringing some B9's and other robots to MegaCon. Send me an email if you're interested in bringing any of your mechanical friends there.
I picked up a section of Sonotube yesterday but had to cut it in half at the warehouse since I couldn't handle a 12' piece of 20" pipe in my truck. So I brought a saw with me. I also picked up a 4' x 8' sheet of styrene at a local plastics distributor. Since it was the bottom of the stack and very dirty I got it for almost nothing.
To trim one of the sonotube pieces to an estimated size, a laser level was used. After drawing a line, the tube cut easily with a jig saw. The one drawback of the sonotube is the stickiness of the inside of the tube. Kind of like a wax inside. Since Sonotube is a concrete form, it makes sense to have some sort of mold release on the inside of the tube. I need to think of some sort of liner for the inside if it's to be a wearable robot.
