April 1989 issue of The Robot Companion

Upcoming Events

The April meeting will be on April 8th, 2:00 PM, at the Dallas Infomart. The main activity at the meeting will be preparing for the Girl Scouts demo we're giving. Although we have a fairly 'standard' demo we give, we would like to have something original. Maybe not for this demo, but I think we should work on some original demo programs for future use. This should be one of the group's main activities. It's a lot easier to write impressive demo programs than to write 'useful' programs. I have yet to see a truly useful robot program in operation, although I've heard a lot of plans and ideas, and some programs in progress. I have, however, see many demo programs in use, and effective for catching people's interest. Well, I'm getting off the subject now. I'll save my ideas for a future article. Anyway, start thinking about what would be appropriate for the demo. Remember, their parents will be there, so a little technical talk won't hurt, but keep it simple.

The Girl Scout demo is scheduled for 1:00PM, April 9th. Contact Ed Rivers at (...) for more details.

March Meeting Minutes

I am guilty of missing the March meeting, so I don't have the minutes (and our secretary hasn't contacted me). However, I did prepare a treasury/membership report, so here it is.

Our current balance is $1276.42

We are spending about $45.00 per month on newsletter printing and mailing, plus a few dollars for miscellaneous mailing costs (information requests, etc.). The $45.00 includes printing extra newsletters for samples, and we could support another 25 members without additional printing costs (due to quantity discounts).

We currently have 45 paid-up members, which is down slightly from last year. If we had 50 members, the membership dues would amount to about $40 per month income, plus we make about $5 per month interest, which would keep us barely in the black, income-wise. (Most of the treasury money came from donations to the club by doing demos.) At present, the balance is being eaten away slowly, but slightly increased membership would put us in the black. Due to the treasury size, I'm not concerned, so we'll continue with the current dues amount.

NOTICE! The deadline for newsletter articles is the 1st of each month! Contact me earlier if you need to make special arrangements to get an article to me, such as via modem or FAX.

Notes From the Editor

by Stan Spielbusch
The club still needs updated information from all of its members. I'm keeping a database of the information from the membership and renewal forms, which can be very helpful at times. For example, we can determine how many members are interested in homebrew robotics if they mention it on the ROBOTS line, or even put homebrew in progress.

If you haven't turned in a renewal or new member form in the last few months, please send one to me. Use the form at the end of this newsletter. Fill in all of the spaces in the form. If a question doesn't apply, just put none or N/A. If you don't want your information available to other members, just mark no at the bottom question. However, it helps us all communicate and help each other if you allow your information to be released. We don't sell our mailing list to businesses, so don't worry about junk mail or phone calls.

I actually got a response to the request for newsletter articles! Yes, I got 1 article. Come on, guys, I know you have something to say! You may not realize it, but all of you have some interesting ideas. Just write a short article, or even a note, perhaps with a few homebrew ideas, or software tips and suggestions. I know summer is coming up, but take a pad and pencil to the park with you and write me a note. OK, that's ridiculous. How about during lunch. Maybe while watching TV? Hasn't Star Trek inspired some ideas? Mission Impossible? Transformers?

Remember: The deadline for the newsletter is the first of each month.

Special thanks to Victor Sturm for his article on his homebrew project (see page 3). This is exactly what this club needs more of -- homebrew type projects geared toward learning and experimenting with robotics. While my own homebrew project is gathering dust next to my HERO 2000, I do have an 'excuse' -- my interests are mainly with software experiments and development, so a ready-made robot kit is more to my benefit. While I can write and run programs on my HERO now, Victor may have to wait a long time before his robot executes its first like of code, just like my own homebrew. Nevertheless, I respect anyone willing to do the 'hard' part of homebrewing!

President's Corner

by Ed Rivers
First of all, I'd like to thank the members that helped out at the KERA (PBS Channel 13) pledge drive: Walter & Bev Bryant, Connie & Pete Testa, Bart deBoisblanc, Brian Vaceluke, and David Ratcliff. I taped the entire time we were there on my VCR, and will show clips from it at the next meeting if anyone is interested.

Don't forget that our demo for Girl Scout troop 1380 in Garland is on April 9th. We'll be reviewing our demo plans at our main meeting on the 8th. Current plans are to demo a Hero 1, a Hero 2000, and our little Movit robot. We'll then have a question and answer session that everyone can help out with.

April 1st was our last scheduled user's lab meeting. The meeting was held at Highland Park High School with only three in attendance. At our main meeting, we'll discuss the future of these user lab meetings. Our next scheduled lab date is April 22nd. Should we move user labs to Sunday, or is Saturday still okay? Should we cease to hold user labs? Hope to see you at the meeting on the 8th.

Hackers and Homebrewers: My Homebrew Project

by Victor Sturm
To give a short background on myself, I have been interested in robots and robotics since an early age. My first robotic interests were spawned by that robot in Lost in Space, and then I saw Robbie the Robot. My first attempt at homebrewing was with cardboard boxes and lights and batteries. My second was with wood and sheet metal. (I was still very young at the time.) I had taken apart almost all of my electronic toys when I was young and subsequently tried to put them back together again in an effort to learn how they worked.

It wasn't until I was in high school that I learned what electronics was all about. After that I just marked time until industry caught up with my imagination, and my dreams of building a robot from scratch that could see its environment as well as communicate verbally with people in that environment could be realized. Although some of the equipment and parts are not the latest and the greatest, it will help in construction costs in the long run if some of the parts were "free" and of use to the overall system.

The framework is nearing completion and with that I will submit a copy of my frame deisign with dimension details. The frame is made from 1/8 x 1 x 1 right angle aluminum, which is light yet strong enough for me to stand on. (I should know, I stood on the lower frame assembly to test it.) Although it (and I call my robot "it" because I haven't decided on a name yet) is no where near being complete, I can safely say that it will be a little more education than building the HERO 2000.

Now before the HERO 2000 owners start calling me names and beating their chests I would like to take this opportunity and state for the record that the HERO 2000 is by far the best robot (learning aid) on the market to date, but (and here's the catch) it would be very hard to install another arm and the physical size of the HERO 2000 makes it hard to do large combination experiments involving a lot of hardware. But don't get me wrong, I support the purchase of HERO 2000's even though Heathkit, the manufacturer, does not support HERO owners and has taken the HERO out of the catalog this year. I do think the HERO 2000 is a good, semi-user-friendly robot with a lot of potential. It's just not what I want at the moment, and that's why I decided on homebrewing my own robot. But I'll still be willing to use certain parts and features in the HERO 2000 as long as the parts last, ie. drive train assembly and other non-CPU based parts.

As you may have suspected, I'm not a big IBM fan even if they control the market with parts and software, and even if the only good robot on the market (HERO 2000) is based on IBM also. Well, that's my personal opinion of the situation, so don't slap Stan on the hand if he prints any of this article.

Back to the subject, Homebrewing is or can be just as expensive as going out and buying a ready-made kit form robot, of which I don't think there are any left on the market with any real meat to them. So if you want to build your own or modify your HERO series, more amperes to you.

If that's what you want but don't know your diode from a transistor, don't be discouraged. I'm sure most of you are software specialists, so if you can learn to program you can learn at least the minimum in electronics hardware. Go by your nearest Radio Shack and pick up a book on Basic Electricty, read it first to get an understanding of it, and then read Basic Electronics. It will take time to learn, so don't get discouraged if you can't understand it the first time you read it. That's the whole point of the club, to help you, so ask questions!! Then read it again to make sure you understand it all, and before you know it you'll be brewing or modifying your own robot too.

I'll try to keep you updated on my progress with my own homebrew, and maybe throw in an article or two about the History and Future of personal robots.

Back to my robot, it might be based on the Motorola 68000 CPU, but as of yet I haven't made up my mind. It would be a good choice and a well-defined difference in software capability as compared to the 8086 style programs. Please note I did not say 'better than', because I don't know and I don't think anyone else does either, unless they work with both systems. I would like to hear your opinion on the advantages, if any of the 68000, and I would also like to hear about the disadvantages.

Let's talk about the base construction. As I'm sure you can tell, there are some basic differences between my robot and the HERO 2000.

The upper and lower torso are built together so if it needs to turn to pick up something the whole body turns, which may not be the best thing, but it's a start anyway.
Two arms (one on each side) with separate slave CPUs to control them while monitored simultaneously by the master CPU.
The hands will have two fingers with an opposing thumb capable of gripping anything, with multiple pressure sensors. I hope to have a tentative design available soon.
Physical size.
Both sight and sensors to guide it.
Double the battery storage capacity.
Space for multiple drives (Hard, floppy, or C.D.) for data storage, which will help when it starts to learn what objects are in its environment.

I know what you are saying to yourself - "It will take years to get that robot to that point." Well your're probably right, but to someone who has waited this long, a few more years will just open more doors of opportunity in the electronics industry to meet my goals with this robot.

Well let me say in closing for now that I hope this article has at least stirred your imagination, if not inspired you to rethink the process of homebrewing.