Robots
Thursday, October 19th, 2006
Aaron and the team at CMU’s Robotics Club have been putting together a Wiki on the history of the club – a really nice thing to have since the club evolves so much over the years.
I was an active member of the club for my entire time at CMU, and led the club with Gabe Brisson in the ‘97-’98 school year. So many great memories, and many of my practical technical skills came from working on projects with the club, and I have a ton of pictures sitting in a box to attest to that.
So it was great when Aaron offered to scan the pics in so that they could add them to their online photo album. He also let me grab all of the original scans so I can have them digitally.
Sidewider II: A pneumatic frame walker that sounded absolutely amazing when walking at full gait. Standing Sidewinder up and having it start to walk was an event, with wooshes of escaping and compressing air pronouncing each step. We took third place at the SAE Decathlon Walking Machine Competition in Montreal, Canada. You can see the sleep-deprived pics of the trip and competition as well:
Jim I: The prototype for the eventual utter dominance that was Jim II. Jim I was built on almost zero budget, stolen parts, and a dream. On the way to the SAE Decathlon in Illinois , our van broke down in a town where no one has ever seen a robot. At the end of the year, I wrote a grant to request some money from the Heinz Foundation. They gave us $20,000. Jim II was built the next year and scored almost twice the highest score ever in the competition. The Robotics Club stopped building walking machines for the SAE competition and moved on to more diverse projects that allowed them to get more participation and consistent funding:
Iria – The Biped: I worked on this bipedal walking bicycle helmet with Jon Hurst and Brian Olson for my senior thesis. We got a SURG Grant for a few thousand dollars and gave it a shot. A lot of great work was done, and we had a functioning robot at the end of it. But the servos we used just weren’t up to the torque needed to truly make a dynamic walking robot. In the end, Iria could balance on a moving block and I think eventually someone got it to take a step. Not bad for a few thousand dollars and a year of part time work. Oh, and the paper I wrote for my senior thesis was used as prior art in Sony’s Bipedal Ambulation Patent for their QRIO robot:
Aaron and the team at CMU’s Robotics Club have been putting together a Wiki on the history of the club – a really nice thing to have since the club evolves so much over the years.
I was an active member of the club for my entire time at CMU, and led the club with Gabe Brisson in the ‘97-’98 school year. So many great memories, and many of my practical technical skills came from working on projects with the club, and I have a ton of pictures sitting in a box to attest to that.
So it was great when Aaron offered to scan the pics in so that they could add them to their online photo album. He also let me grab all of the original scans so I can have them digitally.
Sidewider II: A pneumatic frame walker that sounded absolutely amazing when walking at full gait. Standing Sidewinder up and having it start to walk was an event, with wooshes of escaping and compressing air pronouncing each step. We took third place at the SAE Decathlon Walking Machine Competition in Montreal, Canada. You can see the sleep-deprived pics of the trip and competition as well:
Jim I: The prototype for the eventual utter dominance that was Jim II. Jim I was built on almost zero budget, stolen parts, and a dream. On the way to the SAE Decathlon in Illinois , our van broke down in a town where no one has ever seen a robot. At the end of the year, I wrote a grant to request some money from the Heinz Foundation. They gave us $20,000. Jim II was built the next year and scored almost twice the highest score ever in the competition. The Robotics Club stopped building walking machines for the SAE competition and moved on to more diverse projects that allowed them to get more participation and consistent funding:
Iria – The Biped: I worked on this bipedal walking bicycle helmet with Jon Hurst and Brian Olson for my senior thesis. We got a SURG Grant for a few thousand dollars and gave it a shot. A lot of great work was done, and we had a functioning robot at the end of it. But the servos we used just weren’t up to the torque needed to truly make a dynamic walking robot. In the end, Iria could balance on a moving block and I think eventually someone got it to take a step. Not bad for a few thousand dollars and a year of part time work. Oh, and the paper I wrote for my senior thesis was used as prior art in Sony’s Bipedal Ambulation Patent for their QRIO robot:
