Friday, July 23, 2010

adventures in robotics—tying shoes with manipulators

Or would that be pliers?

We’ve been enjoying ourselves in a fantasy world of nuts, bolts, and shapely robot girls. okay, maybe we aren’t advanced enough to build sentient androids, but we’ve built some little square remote-controlled robots.

I enjoyed myself immensely wrenching/spannering all the fiddly bits of metal together working out all the kinks, and being distracted by the awesome instructors. My team’s robot, Lister, had quite a bit of difficulty with his left-side motor driveshaft.

There were a few mishaps involving installing motors upside down and missing antenna cases, but I had the idea of substituting plastic coffee stirrers and everything turned out okay. later today we’ll be perfecting our robot base designs and then moving on to challenges. I have no idea what they are, but I’m sure they’ll be pretty fun.

rachel b.

3 comments:

  1. That tying - the - shoes thing was HARD! And my robot (Techy) was an especial pain, considering my partner (Kavya) and I kept having to tighten the bolts. BTW, you draw AMAZINGLY WELL!!!!!

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  2. Hi, Rachel. Sounds exciting. I can't wait to hear more!

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  3. This project sounds really engaging - I would love to see pictures of your creations and the tasks they do. Good luck with your challenges!

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