prosthetic_mind ([info]prosthetic_mind) wrote,
@ 2006-03-15 23:44:00
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Current mood:geeky

Robot
So, I have acquired a robot arm which is an older version of this one: http://www.labcentraal.com/webinventory/Zymark_Zymate_XP_Robot.htm

What should I do with it? It has 4 DOF: vertical (Z), radial (r), spin around middle axis (theta), and wrist rotate (phi).

The only ideas I can think of are a robotic bartender or an automatic fish water changer. But I don't like liquor, and it is kind of a complex way to do an automatic fish water changer - I could probably do it better and simpler some other way. Like a big water clock, which doesn't require electricity to work.

So, any other good ideas? I'll be sure to take them all under consideration, and then proceed to keep this robot arm for 10 years until I finally get rid of it. probably. Or I might do something with it, as long as it isn't a huge project.

Jonathan


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[info]xerotope
2006-03-16 07:26 pm UTC (link)
Automatic CD-Ripper (pick CD from spool, insert into CD-drive, remove from drive, put onto spool). I'd like to rip my CD collection to FLAC, and this could remove the tedium of doing so...

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[info]prosthetic_mind
2006-03-16 07:28 pm UTC (link)
but you can just buy a CD changer that would be better, can't you?

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[info]stepleton
2006-03-17 02:37 pm UTC (link)
I doubt you're going to find anything practical to do with this arm, since you're not conducting chemistry or microbiology experiments in your house.

You might see if you can get it to shake out fish food once a day, every day. Pretty boring and probably something you'd rather do yourself.

You know how police scanners scan radio freqs? You could use the arm for "spatial scanning". Get a powerful parabolic microphone and have the arm sweep it slowly through different asimuths and elevations. Have it remember where it heard interesting things, e.g. voices.

You could use it to sort things---if you have a 50-gallon drum full of white and black Go pieces, for example, this might be worth the effort.

You could go for something artistic, like having the arm hold a small houseplant and slowly positioning it throughout the day so there's a straight line through the sun, the center of the window, and the plant.

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