Personal Robot Building

[Ryan Foley]

Building your own robot can be fun. Trust me, even a drive base will be impressive to those not in robotics. I built one over spring break. It's about 2ft wide and 20in long, wood frame. It uses the 2001 control system, and 2 Fisher Price motors (each one's hub is directly attached to an 8in skyway wheel) for it's drive. It's designed to carry a folding chair on top. No, not for carrying a person, but a full size toy skeleton my college roommate owns. The skeleton has a wireless mic reciever in the back of it's head, so when you talk into the wireless mic, the jaw moves and the eyes flash. It's pretty fun to play with.

Maybe at somepoint I'll add an arm if I can get my pneumatics working.

Always remember the key factor, SAFETY! If you plan to use your robot around people, make sure you have a remote disable switch (look in the whitepapers for instructions on how to build a yellow dongle for the control system, make sure you use the one by Joe Johnson, it's made for the older systems). Add foam bumpers around the frame and file down anything sharp. Don't forget to be careful with any arms or other mechanisms that move; you dont want to hit anyone.

My robot has foam PVC pipe insulation around the perimiter of it's frame, so that if it hits someone's leg it won't hurt.