Re: pic: Robot Attack!
 

Interesting -- I'd be remarkably surprised if it weren't somehow related to the KUKA Robocoaster, though. The Engadget article doesn't seem to have information about it one way or another.

Re: pic: Robot Attack!
 

I think this picture would make the best team shirt ever! Much better than our rolling, flaming balls of '06, or our burnt cheese doodle.

Re: pic: Robot Attack!
 

I read "Burnt Cheese Doodle" as "Burnt Cheese Diode".

I have a new T-Shirt design idea...

Re: pic: Robot Attack!
 

I read "burnt cheese doodle" as "burnt cheese dongle".

A cheese dongle? mmmm, 100% Wisconsin autonomous.

Re: pic: Robot Attack!
 

Right, that's just weird.

Re: pic: Robot Attack!
 

Seconded.

Re: pic: Robot Attack!
 

THAT IS SO NOT SAFE!!!!!!!

You realize when you 'ride' a robot, your putting your life in the hands of a servo loop which depends on just ONE encoder to give feedback about the motor's position. The loss of an encoder, with today's high high update rates (some high as 20KHz (standard yaskawa servo modulation frequency)) integrator windup happens in the blink of an eye.

So... that effortless power that lifts you up in the air and makes you giggle... could also just as easily slam you into the ground at ~50mph. I may stick my head in a CNC machine... but thats as far as i'm willing to trust a servo. Heck, 'fly by wire' steering still has a mechanical override... automakers know servos are too risky for something like steering. Its just that people who make these robotic coasters havent put the 'what if it hits a bus of nuns' test to their robot coasters like the automakers have.

Sorry to be all uptight... but i've seen an Adept 4 axis arm lose an encoder at work... JT1 (the main joint) spun around 2 times in about .5 seconds. If anyone would have been in the cell they would have been dead (not just dead, like DEAD)... and that was just with people in the vicinity of the robot, let alone RIDING it. I know its tempting... servos are so good anymore it makes the motion seem so serene and controlled, but remember, in free range, theyre just motors.

PLEASE don't do this... ok i'll get off my soap box now. :o

-q

Re: pic: Robot Attack!
 

Like you've never hitched a ride on one of your contraptions .... :ahh:

Re: pic: Robot Attack!
 

I've ridden our team's bot... As a demonstration of it's power. I'm easily the heaviest person on our team and while standing on the 'bot, and it accelerated just like usual.

But then agian, that was more me putting my safety in the hands of our drivers and not a program (well, a program too, but you know what I mean)

Re: pic: Robot Attack!
 

FIRST robots aren't as (rapidly) dangerous as industrial robots (Kuka, Fanuc, Adept, etc.) like there are in the videos previously posted... Where a first robot might have a total drive power of a couple horsepower, the six axis robots with a high enough payload to move people routinely have 5HP+ in its axes... not to mention the industrial robotic arms themselves weigh in in the multiples of tons, not 120lbs.

Well ok, just being a safety concerned person. I can't make you not do it, but if you do... I told you so!

-q