Anyone know where I can find a base something like this, but larger?


http://www.robotshop.ca/summerour-traxster-robot-kit-1.html

I need it to be about 2' wide and about 3' long. Needs to be able to carry a payload of ~100lbs.

5/26/2010 1:28:43 PM

Im no robotics person but I probably could build one with a microcontroller I have lying around. It cost me about 50 bucks i think.

You are also gonna want some sort of metal shell, maybe know how to weld to get it about the same. Probably of steel instead of aluminum if you want to to be able to reliably carry 100lbs.

Id recco a linked internal drive chain. Cant do axles unless you dont want it to be able to turn. have fun with mounting them though to support weight. Motors also strong enough to take torque of the weight.

5/26/2010 2:45:01 PM

Yeah, I can weld. I'll likely end up making my own anyway, but would much rather buy premade if I can find exactly what i'm looking for.

This is going to be the base, which will support a 37" LCD TV on it's side (robot's body) and an iPad as the "head". Arms will be fully functional as well. The main goal of this project is to promote our department/company at tradeshows, employee events etc.

We'll likely be running all controllers off a netbook for now. We'd like this to be almost fully autonomous with face recognition, etc.

Not sure what kind of motors/batteries to use to get a decent "runtime" out of this thing. Ideally would be an hour or more.

[Edited on May 26, 2010 at 3:19 PM. Reason : .]

5/26/2010 2:59:57 PM

build these instead

5/26/2010 3:50:30 PM

wtff is that?

5/26/2010 4:08:19 PM

Mystery Science Theater...

never heard of it I guess...

5/26/2010 4:52:00 PM

Eh, I've heard of it, but didnt know what it was.

So I've basically decided to build the base myself...already sourced some motors.

Where can I find the tank tracks that are large enough?? I want like 5" wide probably

[Edited on May 26, 2010 at 5:06 PM. Reason : .]

5/26/2010 4:53:27 PM

5/26/2010 5:20:32 PM

message_section.aspx?section=9

5/26/2010 5:38:20 PM

^^That is honestly one of the best comics I've ever read. Holy shit

5/26/2010 10:35:18 PM

You are asking for a lot. Batteries are gonna be large as this is gonna need a lot of pwr if you want to run a tv, a laptop the motors and all the sensors.

You are also gonna have to write a lot of needless code if you are gonna run it off a netbook, as you will have to write comm software plus run software plus sensor software. Lemme know who you buy the face recognition software off of. Knowing some guys here that have worked on recognition software, it takes a lot and a lot of tweaking just to get something simple.

Sorry Im a pessimist but like I said im no robotics guy. Ask around on campus with some of the groups, theres plenty of people who will give ya ideas on this. Hell Id bet some frat got bored and built a battle bot some drunk night.

5/26/2010 11:43:18 PM

Ive gotta be honest, I dont get that cartoon.

5/27/2010 6:58:20 AM

^^We've got the coding covered, as we'll have one developer basically going full-time on this thing until it's finished.

Also, we've been working on our own face recognition homebrew for a few months now and it's actually coming along nicely. We're not REALLY too worried about it recognizing and remembering people though, we mainly want it to be able to navigate through a crowd on its own without running people over. If it can say "Hi Bob! Good to see you!", that's just icing on the cake.

5/27/2010 9:43:52 AM

^ Then you arnt looking for facial recog, you are looking for object avoidance.

5/27/2010 12:44:07 PM

^both

5/27/2010 2:07:14 PM