DPRG mailing list archives: [DPRG] Re: How did RBNO go last night?

Wed Jun 25 12:30:58 CDT 2008

> From: DeltaGraph at aol.com
[snip]
> Heathkit Hero Robot has real value.
> One faction wants to keep it. Another wants to part out on ebay $$$.
> I say keep it for a year keeping in mind it will always be a source a
> fascination for new members.
> If we create a robot showcase. Then of  course Hero would have a  prominent  place.
> Ed, Eric S.,Doug and Scott had the Hero talking  before I left last  night.

Not only did we have it saying "ready", we also got the arm to work,
got it to drive,
and Scott almost had it doing "quick-trip"!  Its a fantastic addition
to the club, and
to paraphrase what Drew said last night "There is no better home for a nostalgia
robot than a club what was founded near that robots era" - We can demonstrate
the robots of years ago <Hero 1.0>, the robots of "yesterday" <the
parallax boe-bot,
scribbler, etc.>, the robots of today <maybe a bot built on Ron's megadonkey?>,
etc.

> RoboMower looks interesting also. Might be good candidate for club outdoor robot.

Ed, Steve, and I swapped out the dead lead cells and put in some of the 12v
12amp scooter batteries and had the robomower moving slowly... I believe the
current plan is to forgo worrying about the perimeter sensing etc, and remove
the blade (it is a safety hazard), and convert it to a large remote
control platform.
We could have it rotate a disco ball / led sign generator, who knows..

> Might want to look into light-weight alternate battery source --- or maybe
> ship that robot to ebay??

Its as big / bigger than GARP, but I think the chasis could definately
be usable.
Keeper in my opinion (Sans VERY sharp blade)

> There were a few items in Eric's Yundt's  collection that were  duplicated in
> sufficient quantities to warrant placement on ebay including rolls  of heat
> shrink tubing and circuit breakers.

Agreed, we keep one roll, sell the rest.

> Most of the motors were garden variety steppers and small low-cost toy DC
> motors. No DC geared / ungeared that would have $10-$20 value.
> We did keep a bin full of motors.

Kept four or five matching pittman 24v motors with very long shafts, and a few
toy dc motors with integrated plastic gears and battery holders.

> We still have the bear LED panel -- no drivers  --- and some other  misc stuff.

Looking at the LED panel, it breaks out to two identical boards, with 3 rows of
8 "banks" of leds (arranged in a 5x7 layout), but looking at the
traces, it appears
to be running an array of 15 bits "vertically" and walking down the board. Scott
had a fun idea that if / when we get it running, we could make the
message display
on it "changeable" from our website (or internal workstation if we want) just to
have some fun with it.

> Steve was delighted with old news letters and records. I agree that, and
> possibly having Heath-Kit robot add value to the club.

In order to grow the club and move forward, one of the "big points" is
having a club
with such a long history, and having archives of it helps solidify this concept.

> My original position was sell the Heath-Kit robot, but in all truth robots
> like that, TankBot,  and the 6 legged walking robot from Parallax that  Brian
> Clough added the ARM controller to, add real value to the club and should  be
> displayed in a showcase -- where they can be powered up and demoed for
> visitors.

For each of these robots - they are unique in design and look (compared with
each other) and help demonstrate some of the variety we have in robotics.

As for "monies" made from selling some of these recently aquired donations:
it is not a sustainable business model.  I would rather us focus our efforts on
creating an annual fund-raiser or spend the time wooing corporate grants and
donations to build up the club funds so we could purchase some of the
"today robots" - whether its the parallax $4k wheeled bot, or a humanoid, or
a couple of DLP projectors, etc.