Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #10617
To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: "Timothy Flytch" flytch@hotmail.com
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 20:54:34 PST
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: Was solarbotics pager mtr+fan Is: Torque and propellers
I didn't mean the "first" but rather the first truly controllable... The
demonstration that they loved to give was inside a gym full of people...
Timothy...
>Timothy Flytch wrote:
> >
> > ... look up the "FockeAchgelis Fa 61" it was the first
> > true helicopter ...
>
>Nope. Louis Gagnon built and flew the first true helicopter in February,
>1902 (he beat the Wright brothers). Flight time: approximately 2
>minutes. Horizontal distance covered: 0. Vertical distance covered:
>approximately 200 feet. One overhead rotor for lift, independantly
>powered push propeller with a rudder directly behind it. The machine was
>too difficult to control with the push-prop/rudder combination, due to
>problems with torque.
>
>By the time the story was authenticated, the history books had been
>written and no one was about to change them. Kinda like the myth about
>Mrs. O'Leary's cow.
>
>Regards,
>Bruce
______________________________________________________
10618 Mon, 21 Feb 2000 23:04:44 -0600 [alt-beam] Steering an Aquabot and giving it a purpose. BEAM Tod Dow I am working on an aquabot using Jim Vernon's method. I finally found a
propeller off of a $3 toy submarine and attached it. I haven't bought
the 1F gold caps yet. Sorry Jim. : ^) (He told me that they would be
the best power source.) What I would like to do is give it an active
steering mechanism controlled by a light source. On the ground, a
photopopper does a left-right motion to propel itself and steer. In
the water, a setup like this would probably spin the robot one direction
and then the other which would not be very interesting.
Say you had a robot with a propeller behind it for forward propulsion.
You hook this motor to a simple 1381 solar engine where it triggers
every few seconds. Now hook up a fin/rudder to a photopopper ciruit so
that one side makes it turns left and the other side makes it turns
right. Has anybody worked out the steering mechanics for the
fin/rudder assembly? I have thought about using coils, magnets, motors,
and solenoids, but I haven't come up with a solution in my mind that
works yet. A motor directly linked to the rudder might work if you
could reverse it's polarity on the fly. Could this be done with an
H-bridge? It would be nice if the rudder returned to a neutral
position after it triggered.
The other question is should the two circuits be linked together or act
independently? There are probably advantages/disadvantages to doing
each but both would give an interesting behavior. Is it possible to
get a solar engine to trigger a photopopper circuit? It would be good
if the bot went straight some times and then turned mid-run. Anyway,
just some thoughts. I appreciate your sugestions.
Tod
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