When it comes to designing a robot you can just jump right in and start building or you can figure out what it is you want to accomplish with said robot and design from there. The second method is generally preferable, although building for the sake of building sometimes can lead to new discoveries. For the You Design It project we pretty much have to go the route of figuring out what it is we want to accomplish first.
Rather than presenting a million different possibilities on what our completed robot will do, we will start with the method of locomotion, which should help us narrow down our possible purposes. For the sake of simplicity, I am presenting only the basic forms of locomotion that I can think of; some of these will require further decision making to determine the actual method used, sort of subclasses.
Stationary - a robot that does not change location on its own. A few examples would be robotic arms, tracking turrets and outdoor plant watering robots.
Wheeled/Roller - motor/servo driven wheels provide movement for this style of robot. This is the second most common method of robotic locomotion (stationary being the first).
Walker - the third most common form of robot movement involves a given number of legs rising and falling, or gyrating to push forward on wheels like a roller skater would. This would include bipeds as well.
Flyer - a robot capable of some form of flight or another, including hover-style motion. Limited hobby applications and more complex 3-Dimensional environment, but pretty cool stuff.
Swimmer - above and/or below water surface robotic motion that would present a variety of differing options on method of swimming. Like flying, this form of locomotion has limited hobby applications and a more complex 3-Dimensional environment.
Slitherer - snake like ground movement, which also presents the possibility of enhanced climbing capabilities within a larger 3-Dimensional environment.
Voting for the above topics will be enabled sometime on Monday, March 3, 2008. If you can think of a method of locomotion not listed above, please post a comment to let me know what I missed so I can include it. Keep in mind that teleportation is not a theoretical possibility at this moment. Bending space and time for warp propulsion is out of the realm of any hobbyist, instead think of something you would like to learn more on. Remember, the end result is to be a tutorial that other hobbyists can learn from and duplicate, not an experiment in complexity (although I do like making complex things simple). Happy voting.
Saturday, March 1. 2008
You Design It - Locomotion
Stumble ThisYou Design It
I have two little interrelated quirks when it comes to projects, the first being that I need to be challenged, the second that I work best when taking on multiple projects simultaneously. The less challenged I am, the more projects I attempt to undertake (it keeps the voices in my head busy). This is no different when it comes to robotics, which has had the side effect of keeping me from building new robots. I have even managed to come up with several very challenging robotic ideas, but lack a real incentive to undertake the task.
This is one of the reasons that for the last few years I have been inventing and theorizing rather than building. It has definite bonuses in keeping my mind busy and presenting ongoing projects, but until each new invention comes to fruition or each theory produces something I am in need of, I will be slow in designing and building new robots. And I miss that.
To fix this I came up with a novel idea and presented it to the forum members over at the Society of Robots, you can view the post here. Basically the idea is to use this blog to continue to motivate me to build a specific robot; self motivation is after all one of the founding reasons for this blog. The idea is for you, my four readers, to create the overall design of the robot I am to build. It works like this:
Step 1. I present a design topic on said robot, listing the available options as I see them. An example being method of vision choices: (a) Black and White (b) Color
Step 2. For three days I will accept additional suggestions (via comments) related to the specific design topic, for instance if the topic is method of vision as listed above, you might suggest I include Infrared or Ultraviolet as choices.
Step 3. The design topic is presented as a poll or survey with the options I have come up with or you have suggested (within reason, asking for x-ray vision would be out of my price range EVER and thus not included as an option choice). The poll will stay open for a week or so to allow everyone to vote on the chosen design principle.
Step 4. Where applicable I will post an entry on the design choice decided upon including my theories on the topic, maybe some history, possible implementation methods, etc.
Step 5. If further options are available on a given design technology we will return back to Step 1, otherwise I will get to work building the given robot part and document it along the way. Once I have completed the piece, I will create an entry detailing what I did and how I did it, so you can follow along.
Step 6. We move on to the next part by going back to Step 1.
When all is said and done, we should have a working robot that you helped design, and more importantly, helped motivate me to build. The completed project will then get wrapped up and edited into a nice tutorial that I will post someplace here, as well as submitting it back over to the Society of Robots website. Obviously, there will be some design decisions along the way that I will just make, but for the most part it will all be up to my loyal readers, you, to design it.
This is one of the reasons that for the last few years I have been inventing and theorizing rather than building. It has definite bonuses in keeping my mind busy and presenting ongoing projects, but until each new invention comes to fruition or each theory produces something I am in need of, I will be slow in designing and building new robots. And I miss that.
To fix this I came up with a novel idea and presented it to the forum members over at the Society of Robots, you can view the post here. Basically the idea is to use this blog to continue to motivate me to build a specific robot; self motivation is after all one of the founding reasons for this blog. The idea is for you, my four readers, to create the overall design of the robot I am to build. It works like this:
Step 1. I present a design topic on said robot, listing the available options as I see them. An example being method of vision choices: (a) Black and White (b) Color
Step 2. For three days I will accept additional suggestions (via comments) related to the specific design topic, for instance if the topic is method of vision as listed above, you might suggest I include Infrared or Ultraviolet as choices.
Step 3. The design topic is presented as a poll or survey with the options I have come up with or you have suggested (within reason, asking for x-ray vision would be out of my price range EVER and thus not included as an option choice). The poll will stay open for a week or so to allow everyone to vote on the chosen design principle.
Step 4. Where applicable I will post an entry on the design choice decided upon including my theories on the topic, maybe some history, possible implementation methods, etc.
Step 5. If further options are available on a given design technology we will return back to Step 1, otherwise I will get to work building the given robot part and document it along the way. Once I have completed the piece, I will create an entry detailing what I did and how I did it, so you can follow along.
Step 6. We move on to the next part by going back to Step 1.
When all is said and done, we should have a working robot that you helped design, and more importantly, helped motivate me to build. The completed project will then get wrapped up and edited into a nice tutorial that I will post someplace here, as well as submitting it back over to the Society of Robots website. Obviously, there will be some design decisions along the way that I will just make, but for the most part it will all be up to my loyal readers, you, to design it.
