delta robot

Light Play

Robot Army : Cuddling my Spreadsheet

Today, I find myself wanting desperately to feel as though I’m doing something right. I think it’s likely all the rain we’ve had that’s tainting my mood, but I’m discouraged. I’ve been adding things to my bill of materials and the proportions are seeming less than hopeful in some areas. Now I need to start shaving cost off things that are needlessly spendy. I guess this is where I learn to be inventive and shrewd all at once. It might just be my lack of experience in doing PR related stuff- but I’m stuck again with the getting the word out part. Maybe I’m not begging loudly enough. I’ve never been all that good at asking for attention. So this is another hurdle to overcome. This morning I did mock ups of several different variations Mark came up with for my delta’s arms. We foresee the cups that hold onto…

Light Play

Robot Army : We’ll Make More

Yesterday was another full day spent with Mark working on the Robot Army. He’s taken my sub par original revision of the delta brain board and is making it more practical for my needs and for my audience who will use it in the kit I’m Kickstarting. So far he’s made one huge adjustment : making it so VCC is not directly opposite from ground on the I2c bus. Apparently you can flip the connector around and blow things up this way (oops). He was either making a point, or practicing ritual sacrifice by blue smoking one of our three test boards >.< This is just one of the examples where he has filled in for my general lack of experience with his circuit wizardry and electronic prowess. While he tinkered, I did PR stuff. I’ve pretty much been rewording the same write-up in a dozen voices while emphasizing different…

General Stuff

SYN Shop Podcast Pilot

Last weekend my friend and collaborator Mark Koch and I were asked by our wonderful PR team at SYN Shop to have our delta robot making ‘rivalry’ featured in the pilot episode of the hackerspace’s podcast. Needless to say we were excited to help out and talk a little bit about our precious bots whom we’ve been building over the past five or so months. We each had goals to achieve before the episode was shot last Sunday, but both Mark and I had some complications that kept us from preparing anything epic quite yet. With the team’s deadline set before first friday, they needed to get things underway so they took what we had (even though we whined a little). You see… I had a lot of motors scheduled to arrive earlier this week, which they did on time as expected… however I am an idiot and ordered the…

Light Play

Delta Robot Completed : Jeden

My neon yellow filament came in the mail finally! So last Saturday I monopolized the 3D printer at SYN Shop and made six new florescent arms to replace the grey and nasty transparent ones on my delta prototype. I also recut the robot’s base using some 1/4 inch acrylic, complete with name, signature, and project title etched along the edges. With the prototype upgraded, Jeden is now the first official addition to Light Play… and he’s a looker : Having figured all that out… it’s time to do the next step: Make about a hundred more. Alas, I am here at the hackerspace hoarding the Replicator 2, this time during off hours so I don’t get the reputation of an equipment hog. So far I’ve printed another set of parts and assembled a second robot making use of some old donated servos. I’m testing it out now to see if…

Light Play

3D Printed Delta Prototype : Jeden

The last working delta robot I created was completed last August, nearly six months ago. I didn’t have access to a metal shop, so I relied on my dremel to do all the work and because of this it was made entirely out of hangers and tupperware. I hacked a multitude of plastic household objects and to-go boxes into actual moving robots… which was how I had expected to create the whole army of such deltas. That is until I met everyone at the budding hackerspace last summer and learned that 3D printers are now desktop sized. I’ve come a long way since then. Now having figured out how to make 3D models of the parts I need, I’m printing my robots like a more civilized maker. I’ve also departed from relying on hobby parts for the joints due to my friend Mark’s ingenious idea to implement ball bearings into…