Tuesday, September 11, 2007

RC Plane Drop Mechanism (Bomb Drop)

Been thinking about making a bomb drop for parachute guys and the like. Decided to do a survey of what people are doing and there are some neat things.

I like the tube, it is cool.


Nice repeat action


Simplest, and has swanky music.


Not a bomb drop, funny video that came up where a magpie attacks a rc plane.

Researchers Left Page on Biomimetic Work

Now defunct they left some interesting pages up on their "Raptor" project that initially concieved was to make a dinosaur robot but became a humanoid motion simulation project. Page includes some solid models and links to relevant papers and vendors for their project. Just making a reference to it for later review.

http://trixie.eecs.berkeley.edu/raptor/index.htm

Solid Models Online

I am getting to where I would make some 3D models of parts. I decided to do a search for models of off the shelf components like servos and came up with some sites.
I will add them as I come across them.

Lynxmotion.com sells robot components and robots, have quite a few 3D models, including std hitec servo.



Some robot models, didn't open them but have the link for future reference.
http://trixie.eecs.berkeley.edu/raptor/SolidWorks/SolidWorks.htm

And the 3Dcontentcentral, which is a solidworks site.
http://www.3dcontentcentral.com/3DContentCentral/

Sunday, September 09, 2007

2.4 ghz Antenna for the RC Cam

Did a bit of research on antennas, basically the more gain you get the more directional the antenna becomes. A interesting antenna that was made from a satellite dish and a bi-quad is shown on this link http://www.trevormarshall.com/biquad.htm
a builder of the style uses it to get wireless to his daughter at 1000'.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Commandobot Voice Recognition.


Picked up a "vintage" voice recognition Commandobot last weekend. The kids finally wore me down this weekend to open the box. Not new in box but used in box. We took it out and were able to find the Commandobot manuals online

The robot itself is pretty cool for a toy, it will shoot multiple plastic missiles (4-6' range, very low energy), small tank tracks under the feet (the feet do not actually move), lights that flash, and he does talk. The robot also can ease drop and acts as a intercom of sorts. Speed is very slow, has "programs" for "guarding" and patterns. I think it is also supposed to perform "missions" where you use the keypad on it's chest to key in moves and attacks, but we could not quite figure out if we were doing something wrong or if that feature was disabled.

We took on the challenge of doing the robot training of the 18 commands, which had to be repeated twice to the robots satisfaction. It was grueling but N stuck with it. It took me maybe 4 tries before I could get through it and after getting my voice we had to go through it again to set it to N's voice. N is 6 years old and really, really wanted to control the robot. I think the idea of voice commanding something that can shoot "missiles" was a big motivator. The video is him trying to get through the 18 command words with the robot.

Buster Robot


Got a new toy robot, and it's a Buster. Here is the general rundown at The Old Robot's Web Site. Buster was working except for it could not close it's arms. Another issue was that it takes 6C cells.

Some pics of the dissasembly and repair.

Took Buster apart and cut out the battery compartment to hold a 7.2v rc battery pack, and added a standard connector for it. Disassembled the the arm unit and found that one of the posts for a gear in the gear box had broken. Was able to fix that with some 3M potting compound. Even fixed the arm does not have much clamping force and cannot lift much without popping the clutch.