Is that a real robot mom ?

In my typical fashion, I found another excuse to wander from my list of things to do to get ready for the MegaCon SciFi robot invasion. I've been tweaking Robby's electronics and an idea that has been forming in my mind for a few weeks finally gripped me to go for it.

Robby's neon is about eye level. If you peer inside, you can see the wires and the modern electronics that I installed. So I installed clips and a black cloth to cover that up.

Let's face it, we know these robots are not real robots but like a movie, we display them to fuel human imagination and wonder. So why not add a little extra fuel by displaying a wall of retro electronics behind the neon.

Originally I built a platform about 18" long and 4" wide which sits behind the neon and houses the speakers and microcontroller. On the front (neon) side of the platform, I extended it a few inches and completely covered it with 1950's vintage electronics. Vacuum tubes, large resistors, capacitors, potentiometers and all types of old style wire and connectors. Some LED blue lights shine behind the vacuum tubes to make them look like they are actually glowing. I have to say it really looks cool. Yes, very cool.

So when people are looking at Robby, they may peek through the neon tubes and catch a glimpse of a head full of 1950's electronics .... and who knows what direction their imagination will take them.

On the MegaCon SciFi robot invasion front. We are beyond capacity. The only thing I know for sure is we are going to have a massive turnout .... so much so that we will be very crowded. But it's going to be a lot of fun. Also, I never mentioned this before but we have a big celebrity displaying a robot with us. He was in a top American POP band as well in movies and broadway. His robot will be with us during the whole convention but he will only be stopping by for a few hours. And that's all I'm going to say about this to protect his privacy.

Also, all exhibitor passes and guest passes have been mailed out to builders and collectors with an information packet. You should get everything by the end of the week. That's a relief for me since I dread paperwork and details like that. The MegaCon promoters are really excited about us showing up and are rolling out the red carpet for the robots. It should be fun and I can't wait !

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

For the love of robots

We're heading out first thing tomorrow morning to drive two days in the truck to pick up a 1:1 life size Robby robot. Another interesting robot road trip with the wife. Talk about being a lucky guy ! Pictures next year.

Robot building season

Now that the Florida robot building season is upon us, new projects are slowly starting to form while the older ones are finishing up. Some of these new projects are a little bizarre to say the least. But fun !

The plan of building the second B9 has been officially abandoned so I will be selling the B9 parts in November. They take up a lot of room and money from the sale of the B9 parts will finance other projects.

Recently, I found a John Riggs Robby for sale but there were two people who responded to the ad before me. IF they pass on it, then I'll be able to purchase it. However, hope is fading fast and it's apparent that Robby won't be available to me. However .... a different Robby opportunity has possibly opened up so we'll see where that goes.