I am building a robot now.
I found a Basic Stamp2 micro-controller one day at Radio Shack. While it is not the best by anyone's standards (in terms of processing power, etc.), it is easy to use and well documented and supported. So that will be it's brain.
I also have a servo controller board for all the servos. It will control the limbs. I am slowly building up a library of servos. Servos are pretty damn expensive.
Currently, Im trying to figure out what sort of features and form I want to have. A biped would be my first wish, but I understand that balance is a pretty tricky nut to crack... Might have to make something more modest.
More details as they become available!
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
About that robot...
Yah so, here's me:
A couple years ago, and episode of "The Amazing Race" was on that featured the teams going to Korea where they had to use a small robot to play a game of soccer.
"Holy Shit!" I was blown away.
Like a lot of kids, I loved robots. When I say robots, I mean the kind in Star Wars, not the REAL, BORING kind. The kind that actually did things and talked and all that. I grew up in the 70's and saw Star Wars when I was 5 yrs. old. It blew my mind, of course. Since that day, I loved movie robots. I always ran around telling people I was going to build one and that it would be totally easy and blah, blah, blah. I was 5.
Real-life robots turned out to be uninspiring. I came to realize that robots, in real life, are best left to academics. By the 80's, with no real progress in robotics that I could see - they weren't talking and walking and acting like C-3p0 or R2-D2 yet - I sort of lost sight of any interest I had in robotics.
Ages passed, then I saw Asimo in the 90's. It blew my mind. I gaped and googled and wow! But it was still a big company with lots of money kind of thing, nothing that really got my hopes up.
Then out of nowhere, Amazing Race did the Korea episode. The teams gathered in a small room that looked like an empty store front. there were some ping-pong tables set up with goals on each side and everyday-looking Korean guys gathered around.
And there they were: 2 teams of small, humanoid, bipedal robots! What the HELL!? Then they started running around the soccer "field" playing soccer in a amzingly human-like way! My jaw was on the floor.
This wasn't some University research lab, those weren't scientists with super computers, and their robots weren't small, dumb, wheeled platforms that could follow lines. The way those little robots moved was unlike anything I had seen outside of Asimo. I forgot all about The Amazing Race and excitedly began googling everything i could think of to find info about those robots.
That was a few years ago, and now Im obsessed with robots again.
A couple years ago, and episode of "The Amazing Race" was on that featured the teams going to Korea where they had to use a small robot to play a game of soccer.
"Holy Shit!" I was blown away.
Like a lot of kids, I loved robots. When I say robots, I mean the kind in Star Wars, not the REAL, BORING kind. The kind that actually did things and talked and all that. I grew up in the 70's and saw Star Wars when I was 5 yrs. old. It blew my mind, of course. Since that day, I loved movie robots. I always ran around telling people I was going to build one and that it would be totally easy and blah, blah, blah. I was 5.
Real-life robots turned out to be uninspiring. I came to realize that robots, in real life, are best left to academics. By the 80's, with no real progress in robotics that I could see - they weren't talking and walking and acting like C-3p0 or R2-D2 yet - I sort of lost sight of any interest I had in robotics.
Ages passed, then I saw Asimo in the 90's. It blew my mind. I gaped and googled and wow! But it was still a big company with lots of money kind of thing, nothing that really got my hopes up.
Then out of nowhere, Amazing Race did the Korea episode. The teams gathered in a small room that looked like an empty store front. there were some ping-pong tables set up with goals on each side and everyday-looking Korean guys gathered around.
And there they were: 2 teams of small, humanoid, bipedal robots! What the HELL!? Then they started running around the soccer "field" playing soccer in a amzingly human-like way! My jaw was on the floor.
This wasn't some University research lab, those weren't scientists with super computers, and their robots weren't small, dumb, wheeled platforms that could follow lines. The way those little robots moved was unlike anything I had seen outside of Asimo. I forgot all about The Amazing Race and excitedly began googling everything i could think of to find info about those robots.
That was a few years ago, and now Im obsessed with robots again.
Welcome to my stream
Hello humans!
This is my first post in my new blog "Ghost in the Stream". In light of that, I feel I should tell you about myself and what the blog will probably be about.
My name is Thomas. I live in Seattle, WA. with my partner and our dog. I am a digital artist by profession - I do 3d animation and modeling. According to medical professionals, my brain is afflicted with Attention Deficit Disorder. My thoughts are zingy and zangy and given my interest in science, art, and building stuff, I have plenty of ideas, with no one to hear them.
So, to sum it up, this blog is a place to talk about my crazy ideas that, in real-life, no one wants to listen to me talk about for hours on end.
Things that will definitely be written about are: robotics, psychology, theories about video game design, ramblings on evolution and... whatever happens to intrigue me at the moment.
Given that I am not a scientist, my ideas may or may not be valid. I read a lot of science in various periodicals; I have subscriptions to Science News, Scientific American, National Geographic etc. and I have been reading them since I was a kid. I read the New York Times Science Times section every Tuesday. I have taken college level courses in psychology, archaeology, sociology, anatomy/biology, optics, etc. I have taken C++ courses and am teaching myself about micro-controllers. I am building a robot. All those things said, I am not an expert on any of those topics. I do not have a science degree of any sort.
Therfore, my thoughts in my posts shouldn't be used as evidence of anything. They shouldn't be viewed as any sort of scientific theory. You shouldn't quote them in research papers for class; your teachers will laugh at you.
Additionally, I am writing these things partly to clear my head, and partly to see if anyone has any further thoughts on them. Any relevant information on any of the topics would be AWESOME!
Tell me I'm wrong! Tell me I'm right! Or just tell me I'm uneducated!
So there you have it. I hope some of what I write is interesting to you.
Thanks for reading.
This is my first post in my new blog "Ghost in the Stream". In light of that, I feel I should tell you about myself and what the blog will probably be about.
My name is Thomas. I live in Seattle, WA. with my partner and our dog. I am a digital artist by profession - I do 3d animation and modeling. According to medical professionals, my brain is afflicted with Attention Deficit Disorder. My thoughts are zingy and zangy and given my interest in science, art, and building stuff, I have plenty of ideas, with no one to hear them.
So, to sum it up, this blog is a place to talk about my crazy ideas that, in real-life, no one wants to listen to me talk about for hours on end.
Things that will definitely be written about are: robotics, psychology, theories about video game design, ramblings on evolution and... whatever happens to intrigue me at the moment.
Given that I am not a scientist, my ideas may or may not be valid. I read a lot of science in various periodicals; I have subscriptions to Science News, Scientific American, National Geographic etc. and I have been reading them since I was a kid. I read the New York Times Science Times section every Tuesday. I have taken college level courses in psychology, archaeology, sociology, anatomy/biology, optics, etc. I have taken C++ courses and am teaching myself about micro-controllers. I am building a robot. All those things said, I am not an expert on any of those topics. I do not have a science degree of any sort.
Therfore, my thoughts in my posts shouldn't be used as evidence of anything. They shouldn't be viewed as any sort of scientific theory. You shouldn't quote them in research papers for class; your teachers will laugh at you.
Additionally, I am writing these things partly to clear my head, and partly to see if anyone has any further thoughts on them. Any relevant information on any of the topics would be AWESOME!
Tell me I'm wrong! Tell me I'm right! Or just tell me I'm uneducated!
So there you have it. I hope some of what I write is interesting to you.
Thanks for reading.
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