Robotic Couch

[Drew Hopman]

Just recently the Space Coast Ballet approached our team about making a series of automated sets. Our mentors thought that crossing into the world of stagecraft would be a great experience to help expand upon our teams creative side. Our first task that we have accomplished was a robotic couch for a dream scene in their annual performance of The Nutcracker. So check out the pictures of the couch and tell us what you think.

http://www.mibot.org/gallery.htm

Drew Hopman
Team 801 President

That's really awesome, looks like a lot of fun to ride on. Congratulations to your team on being able to participate in such an original project.

On a side note, that kind of reminds me of Hedonism Bot from Futurama.

[AndrewMorrison]

That is really neat! You should make them and then sell them for a fundraiser. I mean, who doesn't want a robotic chair!
Also, when i was watching the first movie all i could think about was Dr. Evil and his chair from Goldmember!
Nice job guys!
Andrew m-

[Dorienne]

That...is...so cool!!!! Great job guys! Honestly, I wish our Nutcracker committee would ask us to do that! That rocks.

[Elgin Clock]

Can you say patent that sucker quick..

That would be something I would want in my house..
I may have to make the hallways a bit wider than the standard 3 feet though..

[Joshua May]

That's awesome, time to go down to the shop and take a few motors for my own couch.

[MOEmaniac]

That is totally knarly. All I wanna know is where can i get one, that would be such a good conversation piece and it would be sooooo much fun to have people sit on it at a party and then you start to move it and scare the crap out of people.

[Sully]

That is cool - My son is already trying to convince his mother to let him have the couch for "a school project". He however wants to build speakers into the headrests.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Very Cool!!!
I wonder what the audience reaction was, bet they were in awe.

[MasonMM]

That is really awesome. It's great that your FIRST team is able to reach out into the community and help with things that your acctually good at. I envy you so much. You have people that want you to use your ability of engineering to do more and help out. That's really a huge step in the entire mission of FIRST. Congrats on it.

[akachan]

hey, thats pretty cool! that is awesome that you guys created such an origional creation.

[Rocketboy]

Sooo.. parts and labor together, how much would you estimate that you spent (I'll say 10$ per human hour)?

The next thing to do is make it autonomous so you can "record" a drive pattern and then have your couch transport you back there by the press of a button.

Other updates could include audio speakers which can be wirelessly connected to an AV output, GUI with touchpad (not very unrealistic - my team tried to use one last year, but we didn't have enough time to get it to work properly. You guys have all the time in the world!), maybe a voice recognition device, and whatever else you come up with. But, that's all in the future.


I'll bet Dean's proud!

[Drew Hopman]

The total cost was around $800. It could have been produced for a lower cost, but were a first team so we like to buy unnecessary parts. We all know how that goes. The couch was actually donated by my parents and we totally striped it down and redid everything. We used the victor speed controllers and rigged up electronics from an rc kit.

[Eria4044]

Next...a motorized bed. That would be nice. But, seriously, patent that thing and sell it. I'd pay to have one of those in my house. Stairs could be a problem, though (two sets in my house). Well, it's not so much going down the stairs that's the problem; that's easy. It's going back up again that's the hard part.

EDIT: I'm not sure you could patent it, though, because it's basically a chair converted into a wheelchair. But it would be cool if you could sell it. Add some temur pedic and you'd have the most comfortable robot chair out there.

Just a note: I am not, in any way, sponsoring Tempur Pedic or any other thing related to or in possesion of Sweden.

[tkwetzel]

Originally Posted by Eria4044

Next...a motorized bed. That would be nice. But, seriously, patent that thing and sell it. I'd pay to have one of those in my house. Stairs could be a problem, though (two sets in my house). Well, it's not so much going down the stairs that's the problem; that's easy. It's going back up again that's the hard part.

That's what an iBot is for.