Dumpster Dive Electronics

The high school is getting a new STEAM center.  This seems to have prompted a general tidy up and updating of things in the Tech Ed department.  I've already posted about the magnificent manual mill that was parked outside the door.  As of January 6th it was still there.

And next to it.  Oh, the things they are throwing away.  I can pass on the dozens of desks and work tables that were stacked up.  Most of them are fine, just a bit old and scruffy.  Replacing them will cost a bunch.  But I don't have room for such things and am reluctant to bring semi-junk into our robotics work space.

But the dumpsters.  I shouldn't peek.  A bunch of metal parts bins, always worth grabbing.  And thousands of brand new electronics components.  Bags of resistors, capacitors, rheostats....and things I really could not identify with a cursory glance.

All being tossed.  Why?  Ah, kids don't want to learn old school electronics any more.

So I grabbed enough to half fill the parts bins that I was going to snag anyway.  And now for a bit of detective work.  What do we actually have here and will it ever be of any practical use?

Handfuls of stuff.  Some are easier to identify than others.  The SANGAMO bricks are capacitors, perhaps for sound amplifying systems.  They seem to be going for about 50 cents each on ebay as "vintage" electronics.

Hundreds and hundreds of resistors, the tropical fish of the electronics world.  Most of these are fairly big boys in terms of size.  Probably only worth a penny or two each.

A bit of an odd ball.  Why is it called Vitamin Q?  This is another "vintage" capacitor of a type that appears to be used in guitar amps.   Could this bag full really be getting $14.90 a pop on ebay?  This source  seems to hold them in high regard.  And they are only selling units that go up to 400 Volts.  The bag o' bad boys I salvaged run a head bangin', Led Zepp' caliber, 600V!

Neither starting a garage band, nor building my own amps has much appeal in retirement, likely to the relief of many.  So, what to do with this eclectic stash.  Above is my impression of nerd art.  "Still Life on Bread Board".  Hey, I've seen worse...

But maybe there's another possibility.  This sort of stuff turns up on etsy pretty often in jewelry.  Below are a couple of examples.  Maybe the robotics team can twist them together into robot charm bracelets for event give away items?

FIRST Robotics 2020 - Report 2.0

Progress, in its various forms and at its various paces....

Most years software lags early, having after all no robot to program on and being a smaller sub team.  This year we have a large and enthusiastic crew working on programming and sensors.  And we kept two drive worthy frames intact for them to use as test beds.

On the build side a somewhat different pace.  Every year we've gone further in the direction of CAD design before starting to slap stuff together.  That's good.  Great really, but does give one a lapse of several weeks where the builders have to have productive things to do.   Various logistics challenges had field element production set back a bit.  And pending final decisions on drive train specs we could only prep those components that we knew would be called for.

Still, for new members learning how to do quality electrical connections and where to actually find everything has some merit.

A few pictures from Saturday.  The long sessions on that day of the week fortunately have a tendency to get us back on track.

Until we have an approximate drive train to work with software has been working on various sensors.  This one tells the RPMs of a motor.  Others detect the revolutions of shafts, locate the source of reflected light or even - a sort of garage door sensor - can detect a beam break when a ball comes into the collecting system.  This is more than we were able to do all of last season.

Most of the robot only exists virtually at the end of week one.  There's some very interesting stuff being drawn up.

A couple of first time builders are making a practice drive base using the "H-drive" system we had going last season.  Always fun the first time you build a "big" robot.

It's too soon for teaser photos but I can share that the long silver device in this photo is a gigantic pneumatic cylinder.  The tank in front looks big...but what they have planned might need three of these!

And so it goes.  It took them six days to finally settle on build priorities, and they are taking on two major and one minor engineering challenge that will be new ones.  Fitting it all in the required space and getting the software able to semi automate all these bells and whistles is not going to be easy.

It's not supposed to be.

If they can pull this design off it will be a marvel.

Coincidence? I think not.

The robotics team does not do late night marathon sessions.  Nobody does their best work under those conditions although in our adult careers we often do highly necessary work that way.  But our gracious hosts and sponsors always have plenty of Mountain Dew on hand anyway.  It comes in cube shaped 24 packs.  

They remind me of this:

Caffeine, sugar and green food dye.  Resistance is Futile.

The Time Travel Alley

I mentioned in my meandering New Year's post that I've been thinking about Time.  So here's a little mental exercise.  Take five seconds to envision a scene where a time traveler comes to 20th century earth. 

Got it?

You probably set the scene in a dingy alley lined by brick buildings.  A wino/street person may have been involved.  The police turn up.  Why?  Well now.  It starts right here:

This is from a 1964 episode of The Outer Limits called The Soldier.  Written by the brilliant if mercurial Harlan Ellison it has a plot that involves two combatants arriving from a dystopian future.  And the arrival point is this dingy alley.  An encounter with the police ensues... 

Fast forward to 1967.  No doubt these guys are familiar.  They have just stepped through a time portal in the classic Original Series episode "City on the Edge of Forever".   The portal opens into a dingy alley.  And, since they can't go walking around 1930's New York City dressed like that, they've just stolen some clothes.

A beat cop shows up but instead of more vigorous measures Spock just gives him the ol' Vulcan neck pinch.  Of course McCoy had turned up in the same alley earlier and a homeless/hobo type person was accidentally vaporized by his phaser.

If you think these two scenarios look and sound quite similar, well you are correct.  The unifying link is that Harlan Ellison also wrote the much beloved "City on the Edge of Forever" episode.  And, as is only appropriate in a time travel scenario, let's jump again....to 1984 and the original "Terminator".  Here Kyle Reese, the human half of the pair coming from a dystopian far future, materializes.  In a dingy alley.

I can't actually claim to have "met" Harlan Ellison.  That would suggest that our brief encounter was enough to do more than confirm the conventional wisdom that he was a brilliant, talented....jerk.  But even a person of serene temperament might look at the Terminator plot and conclude that a teeny bit of idea swiping was involved.  Harlan sure felt that way.  He threatened to sue.  (To be fair, he was pretty notorious for either suing or threatening to sue people.  It was usually not about money...just ego.).  The particulars of the case are still debated among sci fi fans but evidently there was enough merit to his claims that a modest cash payment and a special credit at the end of the Terminator film were forthcoming.

Ugh.  I'd rather ignore any of the more recent attempts to reboot the Terminator franchise.  But the video above has a side by side comparison of Terminator and Terminator Genisys.   Of course the latter was a lame effort to reprise/reboot the original material but the same alley as a time portal theme is again front and center.

At first I thought the look of these Time Travel Alleys was so similar that they must be the same location.  But no.  The Outer Limits ep was filmed at Paramount Studios, the Star Trek episode on the now defunct Desilu lot.  Terminator went with an outdoor shoot, here's the alley in downtown Los Angeles.

I won't bother trying to track down the later versions of this scene.  After all, we've seen it time and time again.

Sure, We Can Build That - FIRST Robotics 2020 1.0 report.

(The first of assorted reports on the 2020 FIRST robotics season.  The 1.0 means week one of the season.  If there happen to be multiple updates in a week we might end up with things like 2.1 or some such.  It's hard to know what will be worthy of reporting and when.)

I led a contingent over to Minneapolis to attend the big Kickoff Nerdfest at Northrup Auditorium.  

This year's "game" was announced.  It involves various things a robot will have to do. Pick up yellow foam balls and deliver them to targets of varying difficulty.  Engage and spin a sort of "Wheel of Fortune" device to either turn it a designated number of rotations or make it land on a specific color.  (At FIRST tournaments you do see mascots and cheerleaders in all manner of crazy getups....will we see a few Vanna Whites?).  Here's the "reveal" video.

And the end game is to grab an elevated teeter totter and not only lift your robot off the ground but keep the bar level when multiple robots are hanging on it.  OK.  Not exactly what I had predicted.  In fact I'm giving myself a provisional "F" on this year's prediction but we did have three students - one a senior and two 8th grade rookies - that got enough details spot on to earn an "A".  Our team facebook page is worth a regular look btw, we hope for multiple updates and video each week.  You can see me go on record as being wrong, wrong, wrong on December 16th. 

Below is part of an ongoing series of brainstorming sessions.  The entire group of attendees (about 18 students) would meet, break up into three subgroups, come back together and present/react to ideas.  

Several observations.

I stayed out of this process mostly, it's their team, their robot.  So I was sometimes upstairs stowing gear for the process.  It was very encouraging to hear rounds of applause coming up the stairs.  This is a new thing this season and I like it.

Note the odd phenomena of young people who are happy to walk around outside in January wearing thin shirts but keep coats on when indoors.  This I do not understand.

They managed to break a white board.  I prefer to think of this not as an ill omen but as being akin to smashing a bottle of bubbly on the prow of a newly launched ship!

After six hours of this everyone was dogged.  I think 75% of the priorities are settled, pending the outcome of 48 hours to reflect before we meet again.  What they are proposing looks audacious....yet not too far beyond things we have managed in prior seasons.

So....can they build it?

They say yes.

Oh, and this year it's all metric, baby.

Updates on a schedule predicated on the unpredictable nature of things...

Dispatches from an Alternate Work Shop

My long years of involvement in student robotics projects have taught me a lot.  For instance, Sharpie markers....you never have enough of them.  They end up on the floor, in seldom used parts bins, in people's pockets.  So when you need one it is always a time wasting scramble.  

In fact, one question I pose to new roboteers is:  "Is it possible to ever have too many Sharpies?".  I have always held that the answer is, no, this is not possible.

But even in my dotage I am seeing new things, learning new things.  It may be that I spoke too hastily and from too narrow a mind set.  I mean, is it theoretically possible that in some peculiar alternate universe where things are similar to ours but also radically different, that there might be Too Many Sharpies?

Well, perhaps.  But since we are not living and working in the Alternate Star Trek/Bearded Spock Universe, there will never be enough Sharpies.  So a few days before build season I decided to make a little "shop warming" present for the team.

My scrap pile included this piece of 80/20 extruded aluminum stock.  Oh, I should mention up front that it is probably not a good idea to scrutinize odd corners of the workshop that might be glimpsed in some of these photos..

Next, mark it up with - of course - a Sharpie.  And onto the drill press.

It's a good sized drill bit and it tends to chatter going through the upper gap space.  So go slowly while occasionally adding needed lubrication for both tool and operator.

Final result: a 13 space Sharpie holder that can be mounted on any workbench, robot, wall that is desired.

So will a Baker's Dozen Sharpies actually be enough?  Oh, of course not.  In our universe there are never enough Sharpies.

FIRST Robotics 2020 - Setting Up Shop

We have our work space back!  The Spirit of Christmas program has finished their good works and left, hopefully the usual good karmic energies will persist for a few months.  Here's the space in which we set up mechanical and software work areas, practice field and so forth.

We had all the tools and materials jammed into a far corner, here joined by the robots and charging cart that I'm happy to have out of my garage.

On a blizzard afternoon (hopefully not a harbinger of the season to come) we still had nine students and three coaches turn up to get things set up.   The build team's area. Work tables in the foreground, drill press and saws set up back behind.

Since FIRST is about building quality robots I don't "dumpster dive" as much as I did back in the old days.  Except of course for scrap wood used to build our practice field elements.  You'd be surprised how much good stuff the recent middle school renovations work has generated.

And the software/electronics area.  More of an encampment or compound really.  Somehow they always manage to snare the best furniture and the most comfortable chairs!

Everything is set.  Tomorrow we find out what we get to build.  It's going to be a wild, wild ride for the next two months.