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Sunday, April 11, 2010

Robot tune-ups

Distressed Bus Stop Robots on the operating table

It appears the poor bus stop robots look a little distressed laying on the work table but they're just in for their 2 year tune-up. And in that two years their robotics and sensors have worked just fine (and still do).

But it's the time of the year when pollen from the oak trees turns everything green so I brought them in to clean up and paint their bench a different more colorful color.

Two years and the vex robotic controller has been running almost constantly with no problems. Having them on the front porch has worked out very well.  Sometimes we'll come home from work and there will be a flier in one of the robots hands. Instead of putting it on the door the solicitors sometimes put their fliers it in the robots hands which is very funny. Reactions to the bus stop robots on the porch are all over the place. Some (many) walk by them and act like they don't even see them. Others like them and will comment. And I imagine there's others that think they're pretty strange.  Probably from the first group.


Once our older son came home to spend some time with us on vacation and he was coming in with a lady friend about 2 in the morning. It was pitch black on the porch and as Jeff was unlocking the front door the girl heard a noise from behind them on the porch. When she looked back, she saw the robots with eye glowing and blinking as the heads were turning to look toward the front door. It was pretty spooky to someone who didn't know about the robots so she started screaming.  I'm sure the neighbors appreciated that.


So I'll be cleaning them up and re-mounting them to the bench this week as well as working on R2. But 90% of my time the last 3 weeks has been yard work. In a few weeks I'll hopefully get back to Mr. Giraffe.

If you weren't around this blog 2 years ago I'll repost the youtube video of these robots:

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Jim, I really love these two robots. I wish I lived in a climate that I could have built them and put them out on my porch. I like mostly the fact that they are so unique. When I play the video clip my wife starts bopping to it. I am glad to see they are still alive and kicking after two years.

Jim said...

Thanks for the comment Stan and glad you appreciate these two robots.

Virgil Finlay (the artist) would be proud !

Unknown said...

Please, What is the name and performer of that song?

Jim said...

I don't know the name of that song or artist. Found it by accident one day.