May 24th, 2005 Robot Competition

May 4th, 2005 Well you could say I've really fallen behind. I need to put a link out to the Open Robotics Peripheral Platform. In trying to find the link I noticed that several other groups were working on an Open Source Robotics Platform. Including PINO, specifically for humaniod robots, and The Rossum Project, which is a robotics resource focused on the Software needs of robot developers.

January 22nd, 2004 Air Muscles, are an up and comming power source in Amature Robotics. At first I thought that they were relatively complex and expensive in construction, and viewed them more as an oddity than a practicle solution for any of my ideas, then I found Chris' LEGOTIC lab, and his description of how to build an air-muscle. After spending some time searching for more information on the "modeling plastic", sold under the name Utile Plast (found under "Melt and Mold" from the link), and his "Heat-retractable sheath", I realized that his list could be modified, to possibly achieve more durable and efficient results. I present my own component list here:

1. Surgical Tubing
2. Heat Shrink Tubing
3. Tubing, smaller diameter than the surgical tubing, non-expanding, capable of handling the pressure
4. Cable Ties
5. Expandable Braided Sleeving

Books

Magazines

Web Resources

Getting Started

Others

Advanced

• Dynamic Scheduling for Obstacle Avoidance in Mobile Robots
• Just What is a Robot Architecture Anyway?
• Turning Equivalence versus Organizing Principles
• A Multiagent Robot Janitorial Team

Companies

Bibliographies

Conferences

September 23rd, 2003 I receieved a nice e-mail today. I'm excerpting it here:

My idea involves using a thin, stiff, spring layer with rows nitinol wires on either side. You heat one side and it shrinks, causing the sandwich to curl. heat the other side and it curls the other way. let everything cool and the stiff middle layer brings everything back to neutral. You can move the heating current pulses down the rows to produce an oscillating motion, like a sting ray.
-Jason