Hey there robot-kayak lovers, and other beings of the universe!

Your favourite intern here to tell you our video shoot went very well.

T'was a stressful afternoon, but all in all we got some good footage, so hopefully we can produce a quality, final video for y'all. We are most likely going to have another shoot, the date and details are TBA stage. There was just a lot of talk about it.

Also, pictures are coming your way I promise. I made sure to take some, and maybe I'll be able to you guys some videos, but there's no promising.

I'm designing a new piece today, so hopefully it turns out well like the other piece I made. Fingers crossed!

Well, thanks for reading today, sorry it was kind of boring, but here's the song of the day to make it a little more exciting! Bringing it back with some Beirut. Woot, woot!

Tuesdays and Cool Vibes

MoVo the intern here to say "Ayyyyyy"

Basically, it never looks like I'm working on anything because I'm always on some blog site. For example this one, or tumblr. Also, I always have spotify up when I leave the computer, but I assure you I'm working on something almost always.
So tomorrow is the big video shoot, and guess who gets to sit on the kayak while the whole contraption does its thing, this girl right here.
I'm slightly stressing over on how everything is going to go, and such. We're making a twitter and a facebook page so be sure when that happens to like and follows us. What's this we stuff? I am making a facebook and a twitter(that's what I'm in charge of basically). Cause who wouldn't want to read my witty, lovely comments on kayaks. Be prepared for some kayak puns, yo.

Anyways! After this entry I have to go 3D print this part and you know, I am ALWAYS amped on being able to 3D print, I love it soooooooooooo much. Ha. Okay, maybe I am exaggerating, but seriously it is pretty rad.

Wel,l thanks for reading today! In summary we're all working pretty hard to get this video shoot rolling and we are all on track. Everything is looking pretty excellent, and I can't for you guys to see it, because then you guys will be just as thrilled as I am. I do not think you fully understand what it is, so the video will definitely help with that.

Mkay I hope you have a lovely day, night, and life.
Your favourite intern, out.

PS the cool vibes part involve the tunes I'm listening to, bands like

• Girls
• Best Coast
• Com Truise
• Mister Lies

I AM THRILLED.

Can you tell? But when am I not thrilled to be honest. Always amped about something, tis life.

HA, well I just 3D printed this part for one of our kayaks, it looks SUPER rad. I'm just stoked because making new things is always fun. YES OUR KAYAKS ARE GOING TO BE THE BOMB!!!
Just you wait and see. I was talking to our director today and we have some fun, good ideas for our video shoot in a couple weeks, so stay tuned for that.

Thanks for reading.
From your favourite person on your robot kayak team, MoVo.
:D

Monday.

Everyone dislikes Mondays...especially me. But not today! Good things are happening today. More progress on our project Mas progressivo en nuestro proyecto. You didn't know I was bilingual huh? Anyways, our video shoot is in a couple weeks...WOOOOOOOO!!! It's always cool to know we're getting really close to finishing out super interesting, new project.

Another day in kayaking land.

We have made huge progress with our app. We have it connected to our rudder controller so we can control it with our phones, opposed to our hands. Swwwwwweeeeeeet! So since we have it connected we are ready for our video shoot on August 6th. We are currrently working out the small, few kinks. So things are going well.  Our robot is going to be super dope! I hope you guys realize that because once you see it, you're going to be like how'd they do that? As magical as this picture and cause damn, that's pretty magical.

Thanks for reading, stay tuned for awesome pictures and videos!

Work it.

Our design team is on it!

Monday...Funday? Um, yes!

Here are some photos to keep you updated. We're in the midst of making it look pretty for our shoot. Woo hoo! This is going to be so cool! We're still trying to figure what to name this whole shabang...we'll figure it out! I hope it's "Row-bot" because that would be hilarious!

HOW COOL.

.

Imagine being able to kayak with whales! That would be so cool. Imagine going to a spot right where the whales are and not having to worry about how to get there, or finding where it is. That would be even cooler.

I love whales, can you tell? They're so beautiful and majestic. But I love kayaks more. So much that I have two blogs about them.

Practice driving

Here I try to drive around three trash cans:

back together again

And then we put it back together again...

Hammering out dents

Hammering out dents and repairing innards ... And making roboteq modular while we're at it.

What the Battlebot needs:

1. Non-corroding gas hose - we almost got disqualified for this when we showed up last time. - on order
2. Driving practice - on order
3. More gradual turning response - on order
4. Bang out dents and re-level the bot - IN PROGRESS
5. Tire repair - DONE
6. More driving practice - on order
7. A cool new name - on order

Battlebot repair

Worked on repairing tires. We drilled holes for cotter pins through the shaft. We are supplementing the set screw with a cotter pin to prevent slippage. This seems to become an issue in battle.



What the Battlebot needs:

1. Non-corroding gas hose - we almost got disqualified for this when we showed up last time. - on order
2. Driving practice - on order
3. More gradual turning response - on order
4. Bang out dents and re-level the bot - working on it
5. Tire repair - working on it
6. More driving practice - on order
7. A cool new name - on order


In other news: I disassembled our decommissioned supercomputer...

Kids with guns... and robots

1. Behold - wholesome educational stuff:




2. Crack open the battlebot to figure out how it should be retooled:




What the Battlebot needs:

1. Non-corroding gas hose - we almost got disqualified for this when we showed up last time.
2. Driving practice
3. More gradual turning response
4. Bang out dents and re-level the bot
5. Tire repair
6. More driving practice
7. A cool new name

Wish list:

1. Quick release mechanism
2. Weight reduction to make room for:
3. ...defense against flipping or a defensive flipper
4. ...defense against catching on the floor or walls
5. Define how long we can run gas continuously without running out or burning up
6. Micro-controller for drive processing with gyros
- this could allow for a rotation mode
- recall that smashing people with our face was our most effective weapon last time


3. Rovio by Joystick

Scott got Rovio running by Joystick via ROS. Neat. Golf cart should be no problem.

3D Scanning & Rovio

Robot day:

1. Daniel creates a 3D scan of a golf club with a laser and webcam






2. Scott investigates ROS (and application to Rovio)

3. Justin brings back the Rovio




4. Meanwhile the kids rode bikes, drove the golf cart, and watched movies

Neural Interfaces, DARPA, and ROS

Dataczar attended the Neural Interfaces Conference and among all of the very interesting eye and tongue I/O devices, direct neural implant I/O, and memory augmenters (for mice), etc, DARPA presented the 2009 Revolutionizing Prosthetics program. This program has established MODULAR OPEN STANDARDS for prosthetics control. They also made an arm that mimics human sensory and actuation characteristics with direct closed loop control to the brain. That's all well and good. But modular open standards for such devices from the organization that invented the Internet means there will now be a clear path to the interoperability of these devices.

Should this become widely used, an adapter can be added to the Robot Operating System (ROS) and allow arbitrary control of devices from neural I/O. That's exciting because an interface, say, that monitors tongue movements in a paralyzed person for control of a computer mouse can be easily adapted to any other device of arbitrary complexity (like say a Jeep).

Unfortunately I did not get a picture of the paralyzed monkey that had his limbs reanimated by a tinkering scientist.

Here's a nice lady controlling an iPhone with her tongue.



Here's a guy explaining how Utah's electrode array gets the data in and out of the brain.

Robogames Wrap-up

We're back now with our gold medal and beat-up robot. Now for another year of procrastination and at least a month break from robots. In retrospect our robot had a very clear vulnerability: once it was flipped it was like a turtle on its back. Most of the other robots had that vulnerability, and it would have been fun to get in the ring with a few more robots with spinners. But we'll have to do that another time.

Next we'll refocus on finishing Zippy (the golf cart) and investigating this new "ROS" Robot Operating System that seems to be replacing Player.

Robogames day two

Here's where we won at battlebots:




Here's where we won at autonomous turrets:



Here's another video where we won at autonomous turrets:



And here's where we went wee wee wee all the way home:

Robogames Day One

First we got ready in the pits -







We were up third. We started strong and everything was good until... We died.



Autopsy revealed that none of the wires were properly duct taped. Our battery came disconnected directly at the terminal. We promptly used a complete roll of duct tape securing every last connection in the bot. Duct tape fixes stuff.




Here's Daniel explaining what happened:






For most of the rest of the day we prepared the gun for the gun fight tomorrow. Since we hadn't used it in a few months it needed some work. We did get it working and it should be ready to go for tomorrow.




Later in the day, they called us back up for a 6:33 time. Then they kicked us out. Apparently they screwed up a bunch of times. It took us a while to figure out what happened but I was pretty sure we didn't lose. Unfortunately we didn't win either. Tomorrow!




I also caught a few other fights:

Last rights v maximus


Last rights v sj



Cool thing:

Off to Robogames

We secured the Desmolisher to the roof with shrink wrap on a pallet and tie downs. And a few bungee cords. It held up. Then we drove to San Mateo for Robogames.





After driving 8 hours, we showed up at the event center at 7pm.





Apparently our scale at home isn't as accurate as the scale here because we ended being 5 lbs over the limit. We spent a few hours chopping metal off to get under the limit (120 lbs) so we could pass inspection.

Here's Scott cutting off 5 lbs of metal:





Also it turns out we registered as "Test" so Desmolisher will be called Test this year in the ring. We thought we'd just drop it off but it ended up taking 3 hours. And we passed inspection! Then we left and ate pizza.

Trish joined the team:

It's ALIVE!

Behold Desmolisher! It's Alive!



Here she is wedging under and pushing pallets around:



Here, Scott drives the robot with Daniel on top:







And here's Daniel driving and riding: