Building the perfect robot power supply

Greetings,

We have a great meeting planned for this Saturday. Check the website and this
group Friday night or Saturday AM before coming just to be sure it's happening.

Bring along robots, great finds & bargains, projects to show, etc. Bring things
give away, trade, etc. during & after the meeting. If you have pictures you'd
like to show during the Round-the-room, bring them to me on a thumbdrive (before
the meeting if possible). Bring projects to work on during the afternoon
workshop.

Professor Manrk Ganter from the UW will present on the UW's 3D Printing Lab. If
you own a RepRap or other rapid prototyping machine, bring it along to show.

Bring info about area or online events coming that might be of interest to club
members.

Of course we always encourage lots of mingling after meetings.

WiFi should be available in the room.

I hope lots of you can make it.

===============================
If you'd like to give a robot (or other technical subject) talk at one of our
meetings, please contact me at the secretary email link on the SRS "Contact Us"
page or talk to me at a meeting. I'm booking slots beyond November.

Come early if you can & help set up the meeting room & chat.

Steve K. - SRS Secretary & Meeting Organizer
http://www.SeattleRobotics.org

So, I�m working on a UAV parachute for an undergraduate research class.  I need
a way to test it from heights higher than the 20 meter building I�ve been
dropping it from.  Currently we�ve built a huge sling-shot and can get it as
high as 30 meters.

The plan at first was to tether a helium filled weather balloon and hoist it up
repeatedly, but apparently helium costs money.  So we can't do that.

So now we're trying to find a cheap way to get it up to 300 ft. or so and drop
it, repeatedly.  The only thing I can imagine is a multi-rotor of some sort
which can carry up to 1kg. payloads.  Maybe there's someone out there who'd like
to volunteer...?  We do our testing on Sunday mornings, usually, in West
Seattle.

How about kites? It's the windy season, you should be able to get
something up without too much trouble if you pick a good afternoon. And
a pretty large kite can be built on the cheap. The publiclaboratory.org
people might have some good links to payload-carrying kite designs, I
know they use kites as well as balloons.

I think 750 grams of payload to 100m might be too much for easy
Estes-type rocketry; to lift that you might have to go to high-power
amateur rocketry, and that's a whole different level of complexity, both
technical and regulatory.

Potato cannon.   Of course, then everything has to be able to deal with high
G's.

----- Original Message -----

From: David Kopala

To: SeattleRobotics@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2012 12:18 AM

Subject: [SeattleRobotics] Independent Study

 

Hey, My name is David Kopala and I�m an 8^th grader in Westminster, CO. In my Gifted and Talented LA class, were doing an independent study. My topic is �The Modern World Of Robotics: Animatronics, Artificial Intelligence, And Craft. I am having a hard time grasping what I am Finding on the web, so I was wondering if I could ask a couple of questions.

1)What is a servo?

2)What type of coding and software do you use?

3)What are some of the major hardware pieces that are used to build animatronics?

4)How long does it take to build a very simple robot?

5)What are some practical uses for animatronics?

Thanks,

David Kopala

Construction crane?

I think a group of Mylar party balloons, perhaps with a higher He2
concentration, would be about your cheapest non-borrowed solution.
Welding He2 with a balloon nozzle on the bottle has been used.  You
might ask a welding store for a donation or discount.

Multi-rotors cost money too but would be a cool solution unless the
rotor wash disrupted your chute deployment or something.

Chris

Thanks Dude

--- In SeattleRobotics@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Ross" <kevinro@...> wrote:
>
> 1) What is a servo?
>
> For most robotics, people usually associate a servo with a small motor that is
used to provide accurate positioning. Same sort of motor is used, for example,
to move remote controlled airplane parts (elevators and rudders).
>
> The term Servo is a rather ill defined if you are looking for a precise
explaination. A servo is a device that is used to provide control of something
by incorporating sensors to feed information on the device back to the
controller. In practical terms, there are lots of different servo mechanisms.
>
> 2) A lot of robot building people will code in a few languages, depending on
the task. Most of us use C or C++. Some will use the BASIC programming language.
Others use Labview, or few other languages. A lot of robot builders use free
compilers for various controllers such as the GNU compilers for the Atmel series
of controllers, or the Motorola brand of controllers.
>
> 3) Animatronics can use a wide variety of different hardware. There are
usually servo motors to control the position of physical parts. There is usually
some sort of control computer (look up Microcontrollers and Ardiuno Boards to
see what they are like). The control computers are often very small, rather
limited compared to a PC, but are very well suited for making things move. The
rest of the materials depend on the builder of the robot.
>
> 4) How long does it take? That is a tough question to answer. Many variables. 
FIRST Robotics students, working in teams, can build a very large and complex
robot in about 6 weeks. Other peoples robots can take months or years. Simple
robots, if you know what you are doing, can be built in a day.
>
> 5) Practical uses for animatronics?  Great question. Very few at the moment!
The truly practical animatronic creations are used mostly in entertainment and
education (museum displays, etc). If you expand that to robotics, there are lots
of robots which do manufacturing. Of course, a few are on Mars.
>
> From: David Kopala
> Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2012 4:18 PM
> To: SeattleRobotics@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [SeattleRobotics] Independent Study
>
> Hey, My name is David Kopala and I’m an 8th grader in Westminster, CO. In my
Gifted and Talented LA class, were doing an independent study. My topic is
“The Modern World Of Robotics: Animatronics, Artificial Intelligence, And
Craft. I am having a hard time grasping what I am Finding on the web, so I was
wondering if I could ask a couple of questions.
>
> 1)What is a servo?
>
> 2)What type of coding and software do you use?
>
> 3)What are some of the major hardware pieces that are used to build
animatronics?
>
> 4)How long does it take to build a very simple robot?
>
> 5)What are some practical uses for animatronics?
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> David Kopala
>

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