Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #12976



To: alt-beam@egroups.com
From: David Simmons devs@idirect.com
Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2000 20:58:20 -0700
Subject: Re: [alt-beam] RE: Almost Complete Walker


Phillip,

Congratulations on the impending birth!

At this I'm not really teaching him anymore, he is teaching me. When
Wilf writes out one of his long descriptions of what is going on in the
circuit I just print it out and let Kyle do the reading. He understands
it better than I do. It would be nice for Kyle to have a Uncle Wilf
around to help him out more so then myself.

With the legs we are looking at either hanger wire or industrial ground
wire. Using a small triangle of sheet metal screwed to the servo horn
and legs epoxyed to that. He is so good at salvage now that he builds
things that can be taken apart. Not that he is willing to take anything
apart at this point.

Thanks for the advise,
Dave

"Phillip A. Ryals" wrote:
>
> Hey, that's great!
>
> I'm anxiously awaiting the birth of a son (August 6) and I like to imagine
> teaching him to build bots. How old was Kyle before he really got into it?
>
> The bit about attaching the legs to the servos... Has he tried epoxy? I
> just use old clothes hangers cut to the proper length, bend them, and attach
> them to the servo horns. I put in an extra bend in the center and rough it
> up with some cutters so there's plenty for the epoxy to grab onto. It works
> like a charm.
>
> Tell him congrats, btw.
>
> -phillip
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: David Simmons
> To:
> Cc:
> Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2000 8:26 PM
> Subject: Almost Complete Walker
>
> > Hey All,
> >
> > Almost complete walker complete, almost.
> >
> > I mentioned last week that Kyle (9 going on ten for those that don't
> > know) had started to breadboard the almost compete walker circuit of
> > Beam Online fame. I expected several failures the first time round due
> > to the pure number of connections. Consider, the addition of the two
> > H-Bridges, and LEDs to indicate gait. However he made only one mistake,
> > missing a pin with one of the .22uf caps, which didn't long for him to
> > debug.
> >
> > The same day he started to layout the circuit on pref. board, was nearly
> > complete when he had to put it to the side for a few days. The week was
> > nuts so he wasn't able to get back to the project until yesterday.
> > Yesterday he completed the pref. board and the frame work and hooked it
> > all up with jumpers. At that moment he was ready failure, or at least
> > major problems. At first it just wiggled around in one spot, with a
> > quick flip of the connections for the back servo and it started to walk
> > across the table. He tested the reverse, and the started to finish off
> > the body etc.
> >
> > Today he was busy right from the morning to get everything just the way
> > he wanted it so it will ready to show off to a few friends, grandparents
> > and so on. Making the tactile sensor, mounting it, mounting the battery
> > pack and so on.
> >
> > For the entire project my involvement was limited to a little dremel
> > work, and paying for the parts. This one he wanted to do all on his own.
> >
> > O.K. the proud Dad part is over.
> >
> > There is some work left to be done, he plans on making some better legs
> > once he finds a better way to mount to the servos and gluing down the
> > power switch. Just little details like that.
> >
> > Thanks to all the talk about the almost complete walker over the past
> > few weeks that I've been passing onto Kyle he was well prepared for the
> > problems that occurred and to avoid most of them all together.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Dave
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Save 75% on Products!
> Find incredible deals on overstocked items with Free shipping!
> http://click.egroups.com/1/2711/7/_/5594/_/954770624/
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Home