For those of you going to the Karthik and JVN show (robotic conferences), I will be the warm up act for their show.
I will be doing a presentation on Pneumatic Power. It is at 5:30 on Wednesday in room C203. I will warn you that my presentation is not about how to use pneumatics and is a bit technical. But I think many of you will find it interesting.
Have you ever wondered how much power you get out of a cylinder? You know how much you get out of a motor because it has a power rating at a given voltage – right? So, how come pneumatic cylinders are not rated for power? Come to my presentation to find out and warm up your seat for the Karthik and JVN show, or at least take a nap there before their show…
I saw this talk last year and it was great. All the the analysis of the compressor performance (or under performance :rolleyes: ) was very interesting and explains why our calculations based on the compressor spec were so far off of observed robot performance. Nice to know that we were in good company with the all pneumatic manipulator issues. If I had heard the talk earlier, we might have been able use some of the more advanced air saving techniques.
The presentation should come with a warning that attending it may cause you to use pneumatics for all the actuators on your robot. I think Raul’s first presentation was in 2007 and look what he did in 2008 :ahh: I hear he’s thinking about driving with pneumatics next year.
I caught this presentation on Wednesday in Atlanta. It was EXTREMELY informative.
In my FIRST experiences, I’ve always had problems with pneumatics behaving not quite like I expect. Raul provided me with the “missing link”. It was really cool to learn about his experiments and conclusions.
In my mind, this presentation is a MUST SEE for anyone wanting to use pneumatics in an “intelligent” way on their robot. It is easy to over-power a mechanism if you get into trouble (that is what I usually do – refer to 148’s crappy 2007 wrist joint) but if you want to be more efficient with your pneumatics usage you should definitely attend this seminar.
I also need to add…
Raul is a legend in this program, and one of my heroes. I will jump at any chance to hear him speak. Don’t pass up any opportunity like this!
Would you be interested in coming to Indiana for our annual IndianaFIRST Forum?
It’s open to all teams who want to learn.
Right now it looks like it will be October 10th.
Raul,
I’m definitely sorry I missed the Wednesday evening presentations. We got to Atlanta early and set up and bought tickets in time and then I got caught up talking about control system changes with the NI people.
One of my all time favorite mechanisms is your 2005 Tetra handling system. I remember watching it in the pits at Boilermaker that year in awe and every time I could get close (like when everyone went to lunch) I would study the structures and motions. It was a work of art.
I think it was a lot of the inspiration to use pneumatics last year for our ball manipulation.
