Welcome to the Summer '08 update.

The past year has found me as busy as ever on many different projects. You might notice some new pictures posted in the Robots section of the website. I have built two entirely new robots this year. One is a tracked tactical robot built for law enforcement/surveilance, EOD disposal, HazMat entry, and other such tasks. This robot's purpose is basically to be able to go where people shouldn't.

The other new robot is my Robotic Lawn Mower. Taking inspiration from the Friendly Robotics RL-1000, I built my own 3-blade 22-inch deck robotic lawn mower for the very practical purpose of...well...mowing my lawns. My next task is to get pictures and video posted. As one who has visited this website before might notice, I tend to spend more time actually working on projects than I do posting information about them. I will continue to try to improve in this area, seeing as how someone out there might actually be interested in seeing my work.

I am still (again) looking to post more pictures and video to our DARPA Grand Challenge/Coyote UGVs pages. Now that the bulk of the work with the project is complete, I have time to get some of this material posted to this website. I have posted several new pictures of my other robots on the newly reorganized Robot Pages. Take a look there for pictures of the Javelina test vehicle- the downsized cousin of the Coyote UGV.

My R2-D2 replica is soon to have a "baby brother"...(or sister?). I am currently tooling up to build a new R2 to replace my current one. My activity with the R2 Builder's Group has provided me with plenty of resources to build a newer, more functional, and more accurate R2 replica. I do not intend to get rid of my original one, though. That one is to get a "color change" and a redesignation as "R4-G9", an Astromech droid from the Star Wars prequel trilogy. R4-G9 features a striking copper-on-bronze color scheme that should work very well on my weathered old 'droid. I will certainly post pictures when the conversion is complete.

Aspiring robot builders might want to go to the Robot Tips and Tricks page. I created a new tutorial on basic switch logic, relays, and motor control circuitry. This is a good place for those with only minimal knowledge of electronics to start to learn how to simply turn things on and off, or to make a motor go forward and backward.

I will continue to work on this site to make it easier to navigate. All the robot related material is now in its own section with its own photo gallery. I have done short write-ups on each of my robots, but I hope to turn each of those into their own more detailed web pages, as I have done for my R2-D2 replica.

Till Next Time - Rob

Updated 28 Jun 08