# Not wood, my 1st robot



## Reel Bender (Sep 30, 2004)

But thought you may appreciate the challenge. Spent about 41/2 solid hours building, tweaking, re-engineering, and re building because it kept coming apart. Still has some designing for motion and touch sensors. Now the hard part, learning to program it to roam a 4ft by 4ft square area to find and move soda cans, then locate the tuna cans and place the tuna cans in the exact spot you removed the soda can from all by its self!!! LOL

I know your asking wth?
Well I really stepped off in it now, I have started an after school robotics club and my students seem to think they can build some robots to do the above task in less than 3 weeks. So, that means I got to figure it out so I can steer them in the right direction.

This was all just an idea 3 weeks ago when I mentioned it to the students. I took 10 of them to college of the mainland Saturday to watch a small contest. I have 25 kids to sign up for the program, and we did not even have a robot. Our after school program managed to come up with a couple of sets of an older model to try to use.

I think I am going to be extremely busy the next couple of weeks!!!!!!!!! lol


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## bill (May 21, 2004)

that's pretty cool

My Daughter was in 4th or 5th grade when they were doing after school robotics


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## Tortuga (May 21, 2004)

That stuff fascinates me.. You may have pushed me over the edge to jump in with both feet like I usually do... Do ya think I can whup one out on the lathe ?...LOL


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## Reel Bender (Sep 30, 2004)

Tortuga said:


> That stuff fascinates me.. You may have pushed me over the edge to jump in with both feet like I usually do... Do ya think I can whup one out on the lathe ?...LOL


Funny you should ask.

Actually, what got me interested, but I was too late for this year, is one contest where they furnish you everything you need. Raw materials and the electronics, then you have 6 weeks to design and build it to perform the required tasks.. 
The raw materials includes things such as pvc pipe, plywood, screws, paint roller screens, string etc. etc.

You must the design and build a robot using theses things. Examples: making wheels and pulleys out of the plywood, using wood plastic or aluminum to make mounting hardware to mount the wooden wheels to the motors. Also you need to startegicall remove wood from areas to reduce weight.

So, to answer your question..................................you are darn rooting tooting you could use your lathe...............................at least on some of it!!


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## Robert A. (Jan 8, 2009)

Awesome work there Bender!! I will have to come up and check this out for me self!!! LOL Keep em interested My friend it keeps em outta trouble!!


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## Reel Bender (Sep 30, 2004)

I have built another one, a newer model, of course I got to learn another programming software to run this one. I was able to make it travel in a rectangle (1 ft x 3 ft) and return within 2" of where it began. Next. i need to figure out how to program it using the light, touch and infrared sensors.


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## bill (May 21, 2004)

get a roomba and take it apart LOL


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## Reel Bender (Sep 30, 2004)

he new one, looks like I will spend my holiday learning to program it and use all of it's h-tec gadgets.


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## speckle-catcher (May 20, 2004)

hey RB - you need any assistance with this? My GF has an electrical engineering degree and loves making stuff like this. She could probably help you with the programming also.


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## Reel Bender (Sep 30, 2004)

speckle-catcher said:


> hey RB - you need any assistance with this? My GF has an electrical engineering degree and loves making stuff like this. She could probably help you with the programming also.


We will see, I'll keep her in mind. I've got the basic programming now I need to move on to the hard stuff. I am going to dabble with it over the next few days, if I don't go fishing. We will only have about 8 school days to figure it out and make it happen.

She may be a good person to come by and just talk about what she does and how she got there.

I'm hoping to find someone close to be a mentor.

I'll give a holla if I need help!!


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## speckle-catcher (May 20, 2004)

oh, and as a grad student, she taught courses in robotics and artificial intelligence.

I'll have to show her this thread - she'll probably be pretty geeked about it.


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## catndahats (Sep 15, 2005)

Just saw this; that LEGO NXT is what we use in our elementary robotics team. I've been coaching our team for 4 years and it is pretty amazing what the kids can do with programming and building. 

Have you looked into joining FIRST LEGO League? Our season is about to wrap up with a competition at U of H on Sat. Dec. 11th. It's worth a trip just to see what and how the competition works. 

Nice looking robot by the way.


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