July » 2007 » The Electronic Replicant

Follow Up

So, as you saw yesterday, I and some friends (one from out of town) went to the Comic-Con. We all had a pretty good time, although I left feeling almost unsatisfied. I don’t know exactly why. I did get to see the cast of Futurama do a reading to announce their new DVD feature-episodes. Apparently, there will be four movie-length features, which will be released on DVD and then aired on Comedy Central in half-hour segments.

I also met the members of the Babylon 5 panel at a signing just before they announced their new DVD feature. I joined a Star Trek fanclub. I admit, I did it mostly for the chance to win the DVD set they were raffling off. But since I ended up winning an enhanced membership, I might as well use it. I wonder if it would be against any sort of rule to join a Star Wars club also. I think I want to be a member of the Imperial Fire Department.

RED originally uploaded by BEY CHUA

Oh, and the Sci-Fi network has a reimagining of the Wizard of Oz coming (I think) this Fall, called Tin Man which looked… interesting, to say the least. I’ll give it a chance when the time comes.

The day ended with us on the steps of the Convention Center identifying costumed conventioneers on their way to the Masquerade party. By that point, the out-of-towner had such a good time that he vowed to return again next year, with reinforcements. (He also pointed me to a review of Transformers that I wish I’d written.(Warning: MySpace.))

But… I still can’t pin down this vague sense of dissatisfaction I’m left with. Was it because I didn’t go on Thursday or Sunday? Was it because I didn’t even buy a tee shirt? Maybe to both of those, and maybe it’s because I didn’t really see much that was new. Maybe I was just looking in the wrong direction. I guess there’s always next year.

But until then, I have Toorcon to look forward to.

Weekend Update

Friend visited. Went to Comic-con. Conned-out. Enjoy the photos. More later.

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q+=a

Here’s something we haven’t done for a while, but someone did submit a good question, and it deserves a good answer.

Q. Where do you find the best parts to scavenge for robotics?

A. Just as the best food for fish is fish, the best parts for robots are robot parts. However, finding a dead robot from which to scavenge parts can be difficult under normal circumstances. So I have prepared this list, based on my own experience, of things one is likely to find in normal circumstances, and of what useful things one might find inside those things.

Computers

Power Supply: Not worth scavenging parts from as it contains large capacitors whichcan be quite dangerous. However, AT/ATX power supplies are quiteuseful to the experimenter as they deliver a useful range of voltages:+12, +5, -5, -12, and 3.3 volts. If you’re using an AT power supply,ensure that the switch is adequately insulated to avoid anelectrocution hazard. You will also need to supply a load for thepower supply to work properly, such as a large resistor. Perhaps youmight consider building an enclosure for the switch, load, and powersupply with spring-loaded terminals for each voltage. Although I donot recommend opening the power supply, this page is still helpful. And here are some other ways to get power from a PC.
Motherboard: Very old motherboards are treasure troves of 7400-series chips,kilobytes of memory, and some specialty chips like UARTs andprocessors. However, unless the board is bad, first consider whetherit might serve you better as the brain of your robot.
Expansion cards: As with motherboards, very old expansion cards are even bigger trovesof 7400-series chips. People are usually happy enough to get rid oftheir old modem cards, and these usually have relays, which are usefulfor controlling motors, especially larger ones.
Floppy disk: I don’t get too excited about 3.5" floppy disk drives as the steppermotors are pretty small and haven’t proven that useful when removed.On the other hand, 5.25" drives, if you can still find them, have muchlarger steppers. You may find a stepper motor driver on the board ifyou’re extremely lucky, but in my experience, the steppers are drivenby the drive’s CPU either directly or via a transistor array. Youmight also, with some research, be able to get the pancake motor (thatspins the disk) to work. On the oldest 5.25" drives, the flashing ofan infrared beam shining through a hole punched in the disk was usedas a timing signal to keep the motor spinning at 300 RPM. Otherpancake motors use magnets instead of a beam of light to accomplishthis.
CD-ROM: You can usually find two to three DC motors in a CD-ROM drive: one tospin the disk, one to move the laser, and one to move the tray. You’llalso find some gearing assemblies in conjunction with the tray thatmay or may not be useful in making a linear actuator. If you look onthe board, you could find a few audio amplifiers, a DC motorcontroller, or a microcontroller.
Hard disk: Unless it’s very old, there won’t be a lot of useful parts except forthe neodymium magnets. These have all sorts of uses, particularly inattaching heavy objects (like bulletin boards) to metal objects (likeyour refrigerator.)
Mouse: You’ll find a few microswitches, and either a pair of rotary encoderswith infrared emitters and phototransistors, or a tiny camera.
Printers, fax machines, copiers*: Here’s where you’ll find a few motors and loads of gears, cams, rods,springs, and pulleys. In inkjet and dot-matrix printers, you’ll alsofind a screw or belt that drives the print head back and forth. Therewill probably also be an encoder disc or even a strip that theprinter’s CPU uses to ensure that the print head is in the righthorizontal position.

Entertainment

Stereo*: Loads of analog components. If it’s got a CD player, see CD-ROM. Ifit’s got a tape player, there will be at least one DC motor andperhaps a belt system. You may also find a DC motor controller.
VCR*: You’ll probably find at least one DC motor and motor driver. You’llalso find a few gears and belts, and an infrared detector.
Televisions (and monitors)*: Not much besides a few analog components such as resistors andcapacitors. In fact, old televisions often have especially largecapacitors inside, which can be dangerous if not properly discharged.I would avoid these entirely.

* Take care when opening such devices. Unlike your friendly neighborhood PC, the power supply in one of these devices is unlikely to be shielded, and even if the device has been turned off and unplugged, large capacitors can store a hazardous amount of voltage for a surprising amount of time.

Link-O-Rama

Hack-A-Day brings us this interesting Cell-Phone Door Opener. It’s a neat hack, but the question on my mind is, does it make this door more secure? To enter, one must know two things: the door’s phone number and the entry code. As both of these items are information, they can be copied much more easily than a metal key can. On the other hand, revoking one of the codes (either the phone number or the entry code) is theoretically less costly than changing a lock and reissuing keys to authorized personnel.

Have you ever wanted to build your own computer as they did back in the day? If so, check out these Vintage Computer Kits. You can build a KIM-1, an ELF, or even an Apple I. And I’m happy to assume, based on the photos, that they haven’t simply copped out and emulated the entire machine on a PIC. Or, if you’d rather have a machine with more power than a scientific calculator, but simply must have that retrocomputing look, you can disguise your PC as an Altair.

Finally, there’s the Human Brain Cloud.

This new take on the old Word Association Game, allows you (and everyone else on the Web) to free-associate words and phrases. As you go, it will tell you how many others have made the same connection. Or, if you’d rather see it for yourself, it will draw a web of words for any word you choose.

The world of tomorrow!

Here’s something I’ve wanted to see ever since my days on the wrong side of the food service counter: a "vending machine" interface to a fast food restaurant. This one has a point-and-click interface (or perhaps it should be called a "see-and-paw" interface, as it uses a touchscreen) that even a five-year-old could use…well, a five-year-old with a credit card, anyway.

This particular machine was installed at the Jack-in-the-Box in Murphy Canyon. According to the San Diego Business Journal, these kiosks were installed in three San Diego locations in December. That two were installed at this particular location isn’t surprising, as the Jack-in-the-Box headquarters and test kitchens are only minutes away.

This has to be a win-win solution for customers and restaurants alike. The customer can place an order exactly as desired, with no possibility of miscommunication due either to an inattentive cashier or an inarticulate customer. The computer’s digital voice is always unflinchingly polite and it never will come in with a hangover, nor will it get irritable at the end of its shift or chat with its friends when it should be working. I assume this will mean that restaurants in the future will all be impeccably spotless, as the remaining employees will have no excuse not to clean the tables and restroom. Unless, of course, the excuse is that they have a self-cleaning restroom. But why stop there? Why not have self-cleaning booths? Of course, periodically heating the entire dining room to five hundred degrees does pose some interesting challenges, but nothing that a little ingenuity can’t fix.

Link-o-Rama

Conductive Glue: Now circuitry can be extruded from a home-made dispenser! We are another step closer to a true RepRap.

Flixster: As with the chipotle-flavored chocolate bar, I’ve developed a love-hate relationship with this site. On the pro side, one can spout one’s endless cinematic opinions all day and all night (curse this human need for sleep!) One can compare one’s taste in film with that of one’s friends. One can then seek new friends whose taste in film is more compatible with one’s own, and when that fails, one can ask the computer to suggest a movie to be watched alone with a pint of premium ice cream. On the con side, well, it might best be explained as IMDB meets MySpace. Not that I have any first-hand knowledge of MySpace or anything.

And on that note… here’s a quiz!

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Reality-Based Intellectualist,also known as the liberal elite. You are a proud member of what’sknown as the reality-based community, where science, reason, andnon-Jesus-based thought reign supreme.

Take the quiz

I Dig Giant Robots

Some people just don’t get "reimagining." For example, I once knew a certain old grouch who wouldn’t watch Battlestar Galactica once he found out the new Starbuck was a girl. It doesn’t matter if Starbuck is a girl, a cylon, or a consensual hallucination. It’s a different, separate story, not a sequel. Er, probably.

Anyway, the same is true for this new Transformers movie. It’s got very little to do with the animated series, the earlier movie, or the comic books, except for the names of a few of the characters. That shouldn’t matter, since it’s a different story than the ones I treasured as a youth.

However, I must say I’m not a fan of the new character designs. When I first saw the still shots, I thought they looked messy, but I decided to wait until I saw them in action to pass judgment Well, I can’t say that improved my opinion much. There was a lot of jumpy camera work that gave the eye little time to focus on any one detail, leaving instead the impression of a blur of moving metal bits. Perhaps this was an intentional decision by the director, but I can’t say I was thrilled by it.

Another thing I wasn’t particularly thrilled by was the dialogue. Somehow, everyone in the movie seemed to babble at each other as though they were in a Monty Python film. Not all of the babbling could be attributed to panic, although there was plenty of that to be seen, particularly at the end. That was the giant robot smash-’em-up that I’d been waiting to see ever since Sky Captain. I must also give a nod to the "aggressive marketing" by Mountain Dew and Microsoft during one scene.

Strangely enough, most of the trailers shown with the film were for juvenile comedies I’d have no interest in seeing. Perhaps this was due to the movie’s PG-13 rating. However, there were two science-fictiony trailers I’d give a solid maybe to. The first was what appeared to be a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The other trailer that piqued my interest is apparently for an as yet untitled movie. I’ll describe it for you. Apparently some partygoers document a huge explosion in New York City that causes the Statue of Liberty’s head to come plunging from the sky ala Spaceballs. During the commotion, someone screams, "It’s alive!" So, it sounds a bit like The Blair Witch Project will meet Godzilla. And why shouln’t it? Movies often come in pairs. We already have one giant-robots-smash-up-a-city movie. And what’s Mechagodzilla been up to lately?