Robotics

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi There

Does anyone on this forum make parts for robots?

Perhaps you make mechanical parts and also do the electronics?

regards David

 

Edited By David Clark 1 on 23/02/2010 13:00:45

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

I always fancied a go at robotics. I have a large box full of stepper motors, and experience with microcontrollers. I keep planning to make an autonomous dalek A model of the old PUMA industrial robot would make a good subjet too.

 

I have an Arexx Yeti built from a kit, a two legged robot about a foot high built around a Atmel MEGA8 processor. It walks around and avoids objects using ultrasound.the cats are scared of it!

 

Despite being largely plastic, it was a beautifully presented and engineered kit with excellent (if exotically phrased) instructions in English. You can program it using C over a supplied IR link to a PC. This sounds intimidating, but it comes with a good tutorial and is probably as good as a way to get into C as a way into robotics!

 

If you like I could do a review for ME, but I only have photos of the assembled beast.

 

Neil W.

 

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi Neil

Yes, a short one or two page review to see what response we get would be welcome.

regards david

 

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Ok I’ll revisit Yeti

 

Neil

[mgjParticipant @mgj]

I did control engineering as part of m y MSc. I can say with absolute confidence that anyone getting into control loops has by definition to be either a mathematical genius or truly insane.And if they are not at present, they will be – its only a matter of time.

 

A friends daughter who is a mathematical genius went to Reading university to read robotics. She lasted 2 days, thereby proving she is not insane. 

 

If one can get ready made software and the like, that could be great.

 

If you have to do your own maths to produce a transfer function for each  channel and work from the ground up, its a  nightmare with some very very complex maths in the algorithms. That’s probably some of the most complex applied, rather than theoretical maths that one is going to meet. Beats electronics and radar type sine wave conversions by  transform into infantile simplicity.

 

I suppose if one used industrial PLC type stuff which is mainly on/off and set points its easy enough, but truly proportional responses against varying loads at varying rates, is not rithmetic for the faint hearted.

 

I wish you luck, and all the best if you really are going from the ground up and going to do your own functions. Sounds like you are good at matrices?

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

  Blimey Meyrick,

 

That’s a scary posting!

 

All yeti does is walk around powered by a pair of servos, beeping and ocassionally avoiding walls and cats!

 

You must mean a PUMA. It would be more of a challenge, but I don’t imagine emulating every function there – certainly not picking up a raw egg (I’m sure I saw one do that on Tomorrow’s World when I was a kid). Just being able to whirl the arm around in 3d using a stepper at each joint would be fun, pick and place would be a bonus!

 

Neil

[mgjParticipant @mgj]

Well I admit – most of the bits on the courses I loved, but control  – I think thats a reserved occupation. I understood just enough to scrape through the exams, and I mean scrape, as low as you go without failing.(not even a whole mark) Still a pass is better than ppm.

 

there must be now some good software about to control these loops. I’m a bit out of date now, but there must be building blocks that you can use and feed in integer values, which take a lot of the pain out of it. ( I didn’t really get involved latterly, except on fire control systems/tracking accuracy etc, where I could get away with nodding sagely and the odd “Quite so” and be result orientated )

 

I admire you taking that kind of thing on. A traction engine or a loco is just long and munching metal to someone else’s drawings. But a robot, that’s going to take some grey cells, because its experimental all the way.

 

I watched a thing on robots on the box – some annual Japanese competition. I forget the detail, but basically the robot had to perform a series of tasks, and I think there was a time factor and a “non-compliance” penalty system.  Fantastic what these people (kids- nerds?) had done, just fantastic, with some really serious engineering and own programming to back them. Just astounding – and they were only a couple of foot high at most – the robots, that is, not the nerds of course.

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