Continuous Community Learning
Would anyone like to work on a Robotics project?
Since I don't have the personal time to build everything I want to these days, I was wondering if a project group would like to work on a robot? I would sponsor all expenses, I just want to see the idea tested out and I have no time/energy to do it myself.
Over an year ago, we established a new Limca Record category for domino cascades in India (you can watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi4PgybW1pc). We want to break the record again next year with a 100,000 dominoes, and the prototyping effort for that is underway.
As you may imagine laying down dominoes is a risky and painstaking effort. If we could automate this, we could achieve massively larger scales.
For this purpose, I am looking for teams who are interested in doing something new, crazy and different. I want to explore just how effective a domino laying robot might be. If anyone is interested, please respond and we can hash out how to go about it from there.
Please note, this will be a personally endorsed project - my company is not sponsoring it, and don't expect any certificates (I doubt certified by 'Archis Gore' has any value.) However, if we do attempt the Limca record, you will be credited as being part of the team and will have your name published in the next edition (this is a big 'if', but that's how anything ambitious starts; if you want guarantees, I'm not the guy to talk to).
For those who know me, the sky's the limit so far as your technologies are concerned. I care about the problem and it's solution. You have full reign on everything else - use whatever language you want, use whatever boards you want, use whatever controller you want.
Tags: dominoes, electronics, mechanical, robotics
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Aniket Deshmukh on -
archis i would like to be a part of team. have no experience in such kind of projects but i will be in no short of enthusiasm and efforts.
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Permalink Reply by Archis Gore on -
Thanks for the enthusiasm Aniket. Welcome onboard. I will be in India in January, and would love to sync up in person. If you need any college approvals/persmissions, I can help you get those too.Don't worry about experience. We don't even know what "such kinds of projects" really means at this time. It's the first time it will be done in India, so quite literally nobody else in the entire 1 billion population has any experience. Let's gain the experience together.
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Permalink Reply by Aniket Deshmukh on
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ok not an issue..thanks anyways..contact me when you will be here
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Permalink Reply by Kaushik on -
This seems like a great idea and i am sure you will find a group of interested folks on this. We will definitely talk about this during our sessions in colleges as well starting next month. I had an additional suggestion, once we have an identified group it would be of great value if you could execute the project live on the community. We could do a couple of things to plan this out, have a discussion thread focused on the project and have the group post their progress and issues on the thread. Maybe create a group for the project and allow the group to co-ordinate for specific face to face meetings. Also plan a live online chat on a weekly basis to discuss issues and progress ? I can see huge value in doing something like that so that the rest of the folks can follow the work being done by the group and learn a lot in the process. What do you think ?
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Permalink Reply by Archis Gore on
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I would totally love that! I actually had that in mind as well. The more the eyeballs, the better for execution - considering I'm going to be remote all the time. It would also be a good case study on how to bootstrap into a new area and ramp up quickly on your own, and execute. In fact, I would also like it if those who worked on this could be given the opportunity to address their peers and present their learnings (whether we succeed or fail.)
It's also a good case-study on how to evaluate the tools/technologies/methods that we want to use when we have no prior knowledge to look for. Students, if you're the ones who've been complaining about how everything has been done before, and how you'd like to build something new, this is your chance!
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Permalink Reply by Vicky Dhas on -
Hello Archis,
Would give an overview what kind of requirement the Robotics project could have.
Thanks,
Regards,
Vicky.
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Permalink Reply by Archis Gore on
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Glad you asked Vicky. Let me give you a first-iteration of my requirements as a client. Naturally these will change over time, but it's a good starting point.
At the very root node, I want a robot that will lay down square-sections of dominoes at a certain distance on the X and Y axis and can place them with an ideal speed of 1 domino per second, and minimum speed of 1 every 3 seconds. Each domino will be different based on the color of it's face, so the robot must know somehow which domino falls on which part of it's grid. Either through a pre-programmed map, or some other means of identification.
One level below that:
1. It must fit my budget of Rs. 5000 if repeated (first prototype may go higher, but once you have a final product, to build another copy just like that must not exceed Rs. 5000.)
2. It must be completed in a 4-5 month time span.
3. It must be easily repeatable. If I want another copy, that should be a 2-day job at most.
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Permalink Reply by Vicky Dhas on
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Thanks for the reply Archis, Do you want to make both the hardware and the software model for this, As I am not much aware in mechanical part but could help you out with the software section , and some technical aspect regarding the project.To be more clear , shall get back to you ASAP with some firm plan.
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Permalink Reply by Archis Gore on
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I want the whole deal. End-to-end. Today I have nothing. 'Success' is defined as having a robot that fits the parameters.
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Permalink Reply by Jagannath Patil on -
hey archis,
i am also interested but got no experience in this area...i just got ample of curiousity, readiness for working hard and a creativity of my own..
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Permalink Reply by Archis Gore on
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Welcome Jagannath, glad to see you sign up. I think we have critical mass.
We have enough people signed up to get started and start exploring. I'm sure others are still performing a risk/benefit analysis on this thread, and they'll sign up as we start making progress.
We could play this in two ways. Either I can give you my brain-dump of what I have in mind or where my starting point would be (thus, depriving you of possibly the most exciting part of any project), or I could let you folks find out and report back daily progress here? I know I do sound very... fuzzy. Why don't you just "explore the space" for a couple of days? I'll give you the weekend. I'm in India from next week, so would like to see some research done, before we meet up. I'm trying very hard to not throw in keywords here, because then I'd bias you and the whole point of you figuring out something I haven't thought of would be defeated.
And as always, feel free to ask.
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Permalink Reply by Vicky Dhas on
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Hello Archis,I appreciate your patience , well I have not yet discussed this with folks that would be interested on working over this , Also I am in process to gather some suitable information that I can post it out here to work further, As soon as I get success over it I shall get back to you.
Regards,
Vicky.
Archis Gore said:Welcome Jagannath, glad to see you sign up. I think we have critical mass.
We have enough people signed up to get started and start exploring. I'm sure others are still performing a risk/benefit analysis on this thread, and they'll sign up as we start making progress.
We could play this in two ways. Either I can give you my brain-dump of what I have in mind or where my starting point would be (thus, depriving you of possibly the most exciting part of any project), or I could let you folks find out and report back daily progress here? I know I do sound very... fuzzy. Why don't you just "explore the space" for a couple of days? I'll give you the weekend. I'm in India from next week, so would like to see some research done, before we meet up. I'm trying very hard to not throw in keywords here, because then I'd bias you and the whole point of you figuring out something I haven't thought of would be defeated.
And as always, feel free to ask.
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