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On a scrounging trip to the University's Salvage Warehouse,
I found some old lab equipment: two 12"x24" trays with a base of 1/2" acrylic.
Total cost, $2.00. I cut off the sides, joined the two pieces together with
Weld-On #16 and laid out the shape with a compass and straightedge (based on
Dave Painter's plans). I roughed out the shape with the Rotozip and a
circle-cutting attachment, then took it to the belt sander and finally the
disc sander. Due to some overzealous cutting, I had to fill in the joins with
a paste of acrylic shavings and Weld-On #4, and sand, sand sand!.
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| Acrylic Waistplate | |
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I made my own microphone out of the usual batch of miscellaneous parts. Total length is 4-3/16", and the head diameter is 1-1/4". The head was made by taking a round, chrome-plated drawer knob and cutting the top off past the point where it starts to curve inward. The body is a 4" piece of 3/4" aluminum tube. I put a rubber grommet with a 3/4" inner hole inside the head. and inserted the top of the tube through the grommet to hold it centered in the head. Next, I mixed up a bit of Oatey's plumber's epoxy and used it to join the two pieces with sort of a conic section. After it dried, I milled the shape down, and finished it off with sandpaper. The mesh on top of the head is from a cheap dynamic microphone from Walmart. |
| Microphone | |
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I won the high bid on Ebay for a set of Bill Kendzierski's cast aluminum claws. |
| Aluminum Claws | |
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This is the plastic bubble from Planet Plastics, with the curved bottom plate. |
| Bubble | |
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This is the 2 piece neon from Dewey Howard. I haven't dared take it off the shipping cardboard! |
| 2 Piece Neon | |
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This is the 8KV neon transformer from Tech 2000. |
| Tech2000 Transformer | |
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These vacuum formed side panels for the tread section were made by Dana Covert. |
| Side Panels | |
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This vacuum formed neon backplate was made by Dewey Howard. |
| Neon Backplate | |
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I made the chest button bezel from .032 aluminum sheet. The rectangular holes were initially made with a Rotozip, followed by a nibbling tool and finished off with a file. |
| Chest Button Bezel | |
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I made the wristbands out of 1/16" x 1" aluminum stock: they will be painted the same charcoal gray color (Duplicolor Cast Coat Engine Enamel CT302) as the wrists. |
| Wristbands | |
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The Rockler 17.5" lazy susan for the torso. Part number #12451. |
| Torso Turntable | |
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Fiberglass donut from Dewey Howard. I will be cutting out the center of the donut to accomodate the torso rotation mechanism. |
| Donut | |
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A 9" lazy susan for the Radar Section. This one is from Shepherd Hardware Products, part number 9545. I picked it up at a local Woodworkers Warehouse. |
| Radar Turntable | |
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I found this knob in our sole local electronics shop. It's a 1.5" diameter Bar Pointer Knob from Caltronics, part number 50-151. It looks to be a close match to what many folks are using on their robots, but I wish it had a wider domed section in the middle. |
| Torso Knob | |
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The translucent resin cateyes for the brain from Mark Thompson. |
| Cat Eyes | |
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The button labels were provided by the Captain. |
| Chest Button Labels | |
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The flexible rubber bubble lifter from Dewey Howard. |
| Bubble Lifter | |
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I sprang for Dave Painter's excellent set of blueprints. Don't leave Earth without 'em! |
| Blueprints | |
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Flint Mitchell's You Can Build the Lost In Space Robot, third edition. Lots if interesting ideas in here. |
| HowTo Book | |
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I got a good deal on an IBM ThinkPad 380ED, and will use it for the brains of the robot. The 380ED has a Pentium 166MMX CPU, 48Mb of RAM, a 2.1Gb hard disk, CDROM, floppy drive, stereo audio and weighs 7 pounds. I'm going to install a Wavelan Wireless PCMCIA card in the ThinkPad and load the Linux operating system on it. With another Wavelan card in my main laptop, I'll be able to login to the robot via the wireless link and control him from the laptop. The possibilities boggle the mind - think of a webserver IN the robot, displaying shots from an onboard camera. :-) The wireless connection is fast enough at 11Mb/sec to support realtime audio and video, as well. |
| IBM ThinkPad 380E | |
Other parts I've collected include:
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| Last updated on Thursday, February 02, 2006 |
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