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Author Topic: What's in a name?  (Read 2702 times)

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Offline knossosTopic starter

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What's in a name?
« on: September 26, 2010, 12:23:30 PM »
What's in a name?

Working on my robotics project, I quickly grew tired of calling it TestBed version 1.0 etc.  So I put aside the soldering iron and turned to the bookshelf for a good monnicker for my emerging project.  Without going into the full path of my search, which being an avid fantasy and science fiction reader, led to some fairly odd ideas, I finally settled on the short and simple Imp. To quote wikipedia:

Quote
Imps are often shown as small and not very attractive creatures. Their behavior is described as being wild and uncontrollable...

Sounds pretty fitting, since I don't care too much about appearance right now, I'm just working on interfacing, etc.  I also expect my initial results to be somewhate "wild and uncontrollable" :).   As a bacrkonym it also fits being an "Instrumental and Mechanical Prototype".

The term Homunculus started me on my quest, but not being humanoid, I didn't feel it was appropriate. So my question is, what have you decided to name your robotics projects, and what was your inspiration.
"Never regret thy fall,
O Icarus of the fearless flight
For the greatest tragedy of them all
Is never to feel the burning light."
 
— Oscar Wilde

Offline SeagullOne

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Re: What's in a name?
« Reply #1 on: September 26, 2010, 07:37:58 PM »
I think you meant to put this topic in "Misc" not "videos."

I've build a few robots in my hobby career. The first robot I built on my own was a quadruped controlled by two motors. It walked pretty well, except the legs weren't quite structurally sound. It kept wobbling, so I called it "Bambi."  :P

My biggest robot project that I have going on right now is NINA. NINA is a Social Machine I'm working on -- a robot that communicates with humans and teaches those with communication disabilities like high functioning autism and asperger syndrome to better communicate with their fellow human beings. It's a daunting project, I know, but it's an idea I'm exploring. I called my robot NINA as a tribute to my first puppy, who's name was also Nina. One form of the name means, "little girl," which is what her personality simulates. Another version of the name Nina means, "lovable."

Here's a video of the latest on NINA:

[youtube]LPr7KatqADg[/youtube]

There's also a video somewhere here on the forum of me testing NINA's first treaded mobile base. I'm rebuilding her framework to make her more lightweight (she grew up really fast, so I'm scaling her down).
I think the chauffeur did it.

.......

He did.

Offline knossosTopic starter

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Re: What's in a name?
« Reply #2 on: September 27, 2010, 02:20:54 AM »
I intended to have videos included, My robot is currently static and just uses a LabView interface which didn't show up well on video.  I went to do a retake and my camera ran out of batteries (Murphy's law :)).  So I decided to forego the video for now.  I would like people to include videos
(thus the reason for the category :)) but I edited that out of my original post.

I saw the original video of Nina's treaded chassis.  Pretty neat idea so far.  I would like to see what you do with her.  What kind of tread system did you use, and was it easy to implement?  I have toyed with the idea of using a tread system with an integrated suspension, but for now I have put that off as a future goal do to the (perceived?) complexity of it.  Besides for now it would definitely be overkill.  You know what they say, K-I-S-S.
« Last Edit: September 27, 2010, 02:24:36 AM by knossos »
"Never regret thy fall,
O Icarus of the fearless flight
For the greatest tragedy of them all
Is never to feel the burning light."
 
— Oscar Wilde

Offline SeagullOne

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Re: What's in a name?
« Reply #3 on: September 27, 2010, 04:19:30 PM »
Gotcha.  ;)

I intend to upload more videos of Nina in the future. By late October, I'm hoping to finish redoing the second module of the chassis, and by February redo the treaded chassis, because like I said it's just way too heavy.

I actually ran into quite a few problems with the treaded chassis, but I expected that and was prepared for it. First the aluminum frame wasn't sturdy or rigid enough to support the weight of the robot (motors, battery, laptop, and other components). So I started over with steel. It definitely did the job and now it holds up a 35AH SLA battery and two wheelchair motors. Obviously, the problem now is its way too heavy. I plan to go back to aluminum, but this time have the aluminum be thicker (1/16 of an inch didn't do it. 3/16 of an inch will do just nicely). I'm also scrapping the wheelchair motors and using two smaller motors from AndyMark Inc. I'm replacing the battery with a 12V, 10AH Ni-mh battery pack. Overall, the robot will be smaller in height than she was last year (she was almost as tall as me!) and I'm trying to keep the weight under 50lbs...the lower the better.

The treads are lynxmotion 3" wide treads. I bought four packs of them from lynxmotion to create them. The wider diameter sprockets for these treads fit perfectly onto the AndyMark aluminum hubs, which is convenient. I tried using the aluminum hubs by lynxmotion on Nina at first, but a tiny little bearing and a 1/8 inch diameter screw wasn't going to hold up the weight. So I used Andymark's hubs and bearings instead. They work much better, and are still lightweight.

I'll weight to see a video of your bot, Imp. Looking forward to it. :)
I think the chauffeur did it.

.......

He did.

Offline ImmortalityCircuit

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Re: What's in a name?
« Reply #4 on: September 28, 2010, 02:57:33 PM »
There appears to be some kind of ticking noise or something in the background of your video.Aside from that this seems very impressive,technical issues aside.
« Last Edit: September 28, 2010, 03:06:42 PM by ImmortalityCircuit »

Offline SeagullOne

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Re: What's in a name?
« Reply #5 on: September 28, 2010, 04:16:01 PM »
Thanks.

Yeah, I know about the ticking noise. It's due to a poor quality camera that I used, and i didn't realize it was there or that it would be nearly as obnoxious as it is until I had uploaded the video. Fortunately, I have a much better camera now. The next demonstration will be filmed with that.  8)
I think the chauffeur did it.

.......

He did.

Offline ImmortalityCircuit

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Re: What's in a name?
« Reply #6 on: September 28, 2010, 04:54:02 PM »
Ah I see.Have you managed to fix the software problem :something about basketballs.

Offline SeagullOne

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Re: What's in a name?
« Reply #7 on: September 28, 2010, 11:59:28 PM »
Actually, that joke about basketball was simply a hard joke to get. I guess it made sense when I programmed it into Nina and it was funny then, but after hearing it in her automated voice it was hard to follow as to what she was saying. I'm not sure it was even that funny in the first place. So when it came up in the random function while I was demonstrating Nina's joke functionality, I decided to cut and footage and leave the jokes at that--hence the irony and the charm in the movie. :D

I'd go into the social machine program I wrote and hunt for this particular joke, but its really extensive and it's kind of late over here. :P
I believe the joke is about a scale model of a basketball statue that sits outside a women's basketball court somewhere and it represents a real basketball and...(sigh), I don't know...
I think the chauffeur did it.

.......

He did.

 


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