This is Mr. Robotics’ progress on his Mechwarrior, which so far he has spent exactly a day and a half on, using parts we had lying around at home, deep down, as a procrastination tool. He will still kick ass and/or take names.
I Wanted for a long time to upload a video of me improvising with my guitar and the Kaossilator.
Everything I did was very boring as the loop in the Kaossilator is quite short. You can’t really play any chord progressions, only the same chord over and over and over and over.
I tried to think of a song that has a single chord and found Groove is in the heart. It’s the same chord and the same bass line all through the song.
It wasn’t easy making 7 minutes of the same chord not boring or anoying, but I think I did a good job.
So, for a little background: Stephen Nelson is one of our favorite people that most of the six of you who check this site regularly have never heard of. He builds things like power tool racers and, more importantly, robots.
His stable include Evelyn, a Modified Dawg(watch out, 16mg video download); Eva, the beer retriever, and his latest and gnarliest creation, Ethel, (named for the Zappa song). As Mr. Nelson says, “The goal of building Ethel is a learning experience with software and vision system on a off road robot.” At least this was the goal when he started, she has since sprouted a flamethrower and a portable DJ rig, amongst other things. But I digress.
I will now turn over the tale of the latest adventures with Ethel to Mr. Nelson himself posting from his garage while nursing his road rash:
Bre has established that Skynet will enable itself via tasty cheese-filled snacks:
This is one of those robots that I swear is alive. The noises it made were like an animal and it seemed that everytime we looked the other way, it was coming to life and changing things with the setup.
OK, it’s a stretch as videos go. But it does have robots in it. And anyone who likes robots will like this movie:
My friend Amanda had never seen a whole Star Wars film. When I asked her if she wanted to watch the original trilogy she said that she would, but that she already knew what happens. So I took out my voice recorder and asked her to start from the top.
I then created some very basic animation in Final Cut to go along with her narration.
Jamie also demonstrates the axiom that you don;t necessarily need to get all fancy with the education to build something completely extraordinary:
Just a quick note about me - I am a regular DIY’r and don’t have any formal robotics, electronics, or mechanical training. I have picked up most of my skills from various hobbies and projects, as well as my father who is a skilled woodworker. If you have a basic knowledge of woodworking and working with low voltage power, then you can build a mobile bar! Enjoy!
RoboGames fave Kazu Terasaki demonstrates an incredibly cute concept in iPhone add-ons: if your phone rings, why should you go fetch it? in this day an age, make it come to you!
Kazu has developed a kit for making just about anything into a walking robot, a la this iPhone, check it out here (some assembly and Japanese language skills required)!
[Yes, thank you I know video posts are a cop-out. I imagine someone might have something intelligent to say at some point around here, I promise. Many thanks to the adorable and Vienna-boundHead Rotor for holding down the fort for us for a while; it's been hectic around here]
This will likely last precisely as long as it takes the Dailymotion people to wake up and find the C&D from Pixar in their inbox, but here it is anyhoo:
DocPop alerts us to Ganzbot, a personable (robotable?) device that speaks and emotes. Ganzbot is designed to be hooked into microblogging site Twitter, which, among others, has ensnared MissySB and the Rotor in it’s addictive embrace.
Being as The Head Rotor, Mr. Robotics and myself live in San Francisco, so along with the usual ballot type measures, we get the fun stuff like Prop R Prop 8. Yes on the first, HELLS no on the second (if we may be permitted to lodge oblique political preferences on this website, which we are, on occasion).
In the meantime, this video is the emblem of a sweet future for our robot overlords:
Thanks Laughing Squid for the video!
I will be watching the results on Twitter (follow WashPostResults for state-by-state reporting) while attending a very important business function at Lagunitas Brewery this evening, which will entail drinking enough beer so that we can’t tell the difference between the hero and the villain, Purim-style.
I have one-a them nifty Lynxmotion hexapods, I imagine if I just applied myself one of these days I, too, could someday be cool. That’s what my guidance counselor always used to say, anyway.
Many tanks to the many tentacled wonder, Laughing Squid.