Robot transportation

Now that MegaCon is getting closer, I need to finalize transportation issues to make sure all my robotic friends travel in comfort.

A few days ago, I found a really nice sturdy, lightweight large round bin at the Habitat for humanity outlet store for $4.00. It fits my B9's head PERFECTLY. That's the collar, radar unit, neck and bubble all assembled. The way my B9 is constructed, two small wires that dangle from the radar unit with quick connectors on them. It takes me about 30 seconds to hook the B9 head up with the rest of the robot. So I'll transport the B9 head in this container in one piece. The other container I had already built for the B9 head will now be used for Robby's head.

Robby's software has been tweaked and I ran him for a couple hours with no problems. His actions appear random which makes it interesting. After the show, I'll get his head to look from side to side occasionally That gives me a fun project to look forward to.

Coordinating the event at MegaCon is also heating up and taking more of my time. Everything is smooth though and we should have 15 to 16 robots and a LOT of builders stopping by and hanging out.

Zero problem(s)

A very fruitful day indeed. Remounting the motor did turn into a good idea because I was able to reposition it and make it a much more efficient angle. The motors turn great now and he's about ready for the show.

As "C" programming is not my expertise, I also ran into another programming problem that I just figured out a few minutes ago. One of the functions I wrote had a waittime parameter that I would pass it. Well, I tried passing it a zero half way through the routine and I coded in my program if the variable was zero to skip that section. Low and behold, the program crashed (you can't really tell though) so the motors just kept spinning at the last valid command's speed.

It turns out that the variable I was putting a zero in was an integer. AND an integer MUST be a value between 1 and 32767. ZERO isn't allowed. Thank God I figured that out before going to bed or it would have driven me nuts.

I also installed a miniature kill switch for the robotic controller that I installed in Robby. After a lot of thought I mounted it in the back of the head between the fins so you can barely see it.

Another lesson in what not to do with robotics

Yesterday I spent the better part of the day tweaking my computer program that controls Robby's functions. Speed and direction of the radar ear posts, speed of the saxton valves and timing of when they all randomly turn on and off.

It was more work than I anticipated to get everything running smoothly. However, in the process of adjusting the motor speeds, I experimented with slowing one of the radar motors down. After downloading the program into my controller, I had to put the project down for a few hours. When I came back to it, I hooked everything up and kind of forgot about the changes I made to the software. I was having trouble with one of the ears earlier so when I fired up the motors, one of the ears just groaned and stopped. I thought that the motor had burned out. So after checking connections a dozen times, I began the difficult task of removing the motor from the ear. After it was removed, I tested it and found the motor was still good. Did I feel foolish for removing it without testing the controller first. My next culprit was the controller. I was suspicious that I burned out the first motor channel on the board because I was unplugging and plugging in the motor while it was running and I had the wires reversed once.

AND THEN IT DAWNED ON ME !!!! After wasting a lot of time, I finally realized the reason the motor just groaned when I turned on the controller. I turned the speed down too low in the software. After turning the speed up a little higher, everything was working again.

Now I have to remount the ear motor which isn't a bad thing since I wasn't happy with the way that side was mounted. My next attempt with give it a little more of an angle so the radar piece won't vibrate out of the axle connector.

Robby get computerized valves

Now, pardon me but I'm not sure the terminology and names of all the parts on Robby yet. The 6 valves in the head I think are called saxton valves but not sure. Today while working on a project at work, I had a brainstorm how to computerize those valves to get them to pulsate like in the movie at random times.

I designed a fairly simple method to open and close the valves under control of the robotic control module. When I got home from work tonight, I mounted a motor in the head and assembled the required parts to make it happen. It's going to be a busy weekend but I think I'll have time to get it going this weekend. Fun stuff.

New Shoes

I finally got C3PO a new pair of shoes. They're TK409's old gold vacuum metallized shoes from his C3PO costume. My C3PO was all vacuum metallized except for the feet which look very strange. Now he finally looks complete.

Also lined the B9 transport crates with foam.

Motors aligned

Got Robby's ear motors aligned correctly (after a couple more tries) and the radar turns very nicely. I've been doing a lot of experiments with the computer programming side of the controller in Easy C so the motions will be random.

The last thing I need to do is to mount a switch to the microcontroller in the foot section. That's because it is so darned difficult to remove the dome of Robby unless you have a couple people. I can do it by myself but it's tricky holding the dome while you undo the quick release wires. It will be comforting to have a kill switch to the controller.

It worked the first time

I woke up bright and early and spent about 4 hours soldering and making wiring harnesses to get Robby working. I surprised myself by getting it done a lot quicker than anticipated. My Niece, Nephew and sister were stopping over so it was nice that we were able to have Robby all lit up and talking when they got here. The blue LED lights in the bulbs look so cool ...

I couldn't believe everything worked first time with the exception of a few minor glitches. That left time to head to the beach with the wife and then watch some football. The only problem was one of the motors shifted so they need to be realigned.

Needless to say my sister and her kids loved Robby ! He does look impressive.

Drilling out light bulbs

Time is flying so I need to kick it into high gear to finish Robby in time for the show. Today was spent drilling out small light bulbs to replace the filament with superbright blinking LED's. After experimenting with a drill press, bench sander and a few other tools, I took the plunge and started the tedius task of hollowing out small light bulbs.

The "living life on the edge" part was I had to drill 4 bulbs and I only had one spare bulb in case of an accident. Sure enough, one of the bulbs cracked and disintegrated so the next bulbs were high pressure jobs. Because these bulbs are not easy to come by and were specially painted a very beautiful blue color.

I'm happy to report that with the help of hot glue and a lot of patience, I was able to redo the blue "eyes" of robby to now use blue blinker LED's. Not only do LED's rarely burn out, there's less heat and they take less electricity. And in this case, there's no filament to be seen in the bulb. The bulb now blinks with a really beautiful blue glow. Looks very different than a standard light bulb. And the icing on the cake is no light blinker controller is needed. It was a lot of work but well worth the trouble in the long run.

Another accomplishment, the motors were installed in the ears and the radar was tested. As the shaft is not completely centered in the radar pieces, there is a little wobble and I was worried that the side radar (the one mounted on a right angle) might vibrate out while turning. I let it run for an hour on the bench turning off and on and it seemed to work just fine. The motors were installed with a vex bracket I fashioned and hot glue.

Robby was moved out to the garage tonight and tomorrow (between watching playoff games) will be spent wiring him up. Most of the pieces are ready so hopefully tomorrow we'll have a working robot (at least the first stage).

B9 closure

The B9 appears to most people as finished. However there were several nagging little projects that were put off over and over. This weekend between working on the Robby electronics, I finally installed my B9's programming bay permanently and hooked up the switches and light on the programming bay. After a few failed attempts (several months ago) with epoxy putty, Hot glue worked excellent to mount the programming bay.

I'm also (FINALLY) in the process of mounting my B9's side vents. The vents were made but never installed. The important thing I must remember when installing these vents is to easily allow access to the inside. So I'm hot glueing some brackets inside the torso so I can hang the vents from with small pull ties. That will allow access by pushing open the vents when you need to reach inside the robot. Hot glue seems to be the weapon of choice nowadays. It dries quickly and is very strong. Plus you can (if you work at it) remove the glue if you have a change of heart.

On the Robby front, I built and installed a panel in front of the neon to protect the neon and mount the speakers to. This panel also has a computer controller for the electronics.

I initially tested the Robby ears and had to re-mount a motor axle inside one of the ears. On one ear I used epoxy dough and on the other I used gorilla glue. It's good to experiment with different techniques. It's a toss up which one was best. The difficult part was lining the axle inside the ears so it's straight. Getting it completely straight completely eluded me so my ears will have a little wobble in them as they spin. I've been working on the "C" controller program and am in the process of writing a program to randomoly move the ears in different directions and different speeds at random times.

Fun stuff. I'm working at a much faster pace than I usually prefer but time is running out to get these robots done by MegaCon. And I don't want to wait until the last minute.

Adding to the list of todo's

Despite having a million things to do to get the robots ready for MegaCon, I keep finding excuses to add to the todo list. Originally I was going to add microcontrollers to Robby in a few months. But today adding a microcontroller and motorizing the radar/ears spinners was added on the immediate todo list. By adding a microcontroller the "ears" will randomly turn and in different directions as well as variable speeds .... all programmable. The hardest part will be providing a fairly constant 7.2 volts to the microcontroller.

The rewiring and soldering of the neon and audio connections was completed today. Now it just needs to be installed neatly in Robby's head. Axles were also installed in the radar/ears using epoxy. The axles will be fitted to miniature motors and the motors will be mounted inside the ear housing.

Robby Base

Robby's base was a piece of 3/4" plywood which looked pretty ugly. When Brad was over on Sunday he mentioned that diamond plate would look cool as a base for Robby. Today I found a piece of scrap Diamond plate at an aluminum shop and mounted it with plywood underneath. It's the perfect base for Robby.

I have the lights and controllers all spread out on the dining room table and am completely redoing all that. I plan on using blinking LED's instead of the old type of lights with flasher controllers. The blue "eyes" lights of Robby will especially benefit from superbright Blue flashing LED's. I'll have to drill out the light bulbs and glue the LEDS in but it will be worth the extra effort.

I'm starting to kick into overdrive to get these robots ready for the robot invasion. We're overflowing our space and it looks like we're going to have to get a bigger space. Fortunately the promoters are working with us and despite being almost completely sold out, they may have some extra space for us.

Neon Zap

Brad, a fellow B9 builder stopped over today so we could work on his neon. He had an unusual neon setup that had a chip built into the transformer for voice activation. Originally we took it outside to work on a table because my wife threatened us both if we caught the dining room table on fire.

The neon lighted up real nice but the voice activation feature just wouldn't work. When we felt the transformer was safe we brought it into the house and put it on the dining room table with a couple towels under it. Well, murphy struck and poor Brad got a nasty shock from the neon's pull cord. There was a short somewhere in the transformer. That transformer went directly into the trash. Fortunately I had a spare transformer that I was able to give Brad. That one also had a problem but we were able to diagnose it and now his robot now lights up and talks.

We're back

Well, we survived the trip to Michigan and are back in our nice warm Florida climate. We cannot deal with cold weather and were not happy campers after we left the sunshine state. Even though they were experiencing a mild winter it felt pretty cold to us. And speaking of colds ... I caught a doosey and was pretty sick (still am).

We met with Robert K. on New Years day to pick up Robby. Robert had constructed some enormous crates with a lot of packing peanuts to ensure a safe trip back to Florida. I ended up screwing the legs into the floor of the trailer and the ride home was smooth sailing with no problems.

The robot convention (Sci Fi robot invasion at MegaCon) is only a month or so away so I need to hustle to get my part of the exhibit looking good.

Should you ever completely trust your robots?

Most people are familiar with Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics"

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

A recent incident at a fellow B9 robot builders house in Michigan this weekend has me questioning these laws. Do ALL robots follow them or are they fooling us and acting the way we expect them to until the "day of reckoning"? A couple of days ago Robert K. of the B9 builders club was preparing a container that was to hold his "Robby Robot" that I was enroute from Florida to pick up. When unexpectedly a certain "coincidental" and unfortunate set of events was set in motion that led to the top part of his B9 robot crashing down upon his head and almost rendering him unconscious ! He had a headache for the entire day and if he wasn't wearing a hat (the brow protected his face) then his face would probably have been scarred and cut.

Maybe it was an accident. Or, call me a little paranoid but just maybe B9 was not too pleased with his owner selling Robby ... his one and only companion robot. We'll never know, but maybe ... just maybe, this is a wakeup call for robot owners everywhere to be on their guard.

Not only did Robert get hurt but his B9 brain was destroyed as well as his bubble shattered. It was a sad sight to behold.