I thought I’d raise the question.
If any of you who is going would care to meet in person, I’ll be in the FIRST LEGO League/FIRST Tech Challenge booth most of the time.
Eric
PS: Before flaming me for posting this here, rather than in “Chit-Chat”, please consider that that place is defined as being for things unrelated to robotics. Maker Faire hardly qualifies.
I’ll be there - I’ll swing by mid-afternoon to say hi.
For those of you that aren’t familiar with Maker Faire, it is a huge fair/convention for folks that like to make stuff (artistic, technical, or ideally both). It is kind of like a Woodstock for geeks.
Cheers,
Dean,
Thanks for responding!
FWLIW, I was thinking more along the lines of “the product of the wonderous mating of Burning Man and Science Fair”. 
Eric
I can allow that mental image into my head only by imagining all the out-of-shape hippies who get naked at Burning Man have to wear fully-buttoned-up Science Fair lab coats. Otherwise - Yikes! 
Where can I buy safety glasses for my mind’s eye!
Blake
Where is the maker faire??? I really want to go! I’ve seen it in Make magazine! I’m in New York, btw.
Thanks!
-FutureInventions
Judging by the location 0of those who are going i am going to say that it is on the west coast. And i seem to remember hearing that that is where it is as well.
~DK
Aww man! Thanks
-FutureInventions
Good inference! San Mateo, CA (~midway between San Francisco and San Jose)
Eric
Haha Robotics is on the list twice. I feel like it is a sign.
~DK
Haha cool! Thanks so much! Can’t wait! Maybe I could build a 'bot and bring it! lol
-FutureInventions
Dude you should but i have to say there are some pretty intense robots at these things. I remember seeing some clips of one on discovery a few years back and they had a whole segment about robosaurous. He weighs in at 30 tons, is 40 feet tall, eats cars and breathes fire.
Having a vex booth may be dwarfed by a beast like robosaurous however it would definitely represent the more realistic robotics opportunity out there for hobbyist without room for a 30 ton robot.
~DK
XD Thanks for pointing that out! Hahaha then maybe not… Oh well. Do you think they’ll like a (approximately) 3x2x1 foot Vex robot that I can ride on with a powerful robotic arm? Do you think that will qualify? After hearing about robosaurus, I don’t think anything can compare…
Thanks,
-FutureInventions
I don’t have a clue. That sounds cool though. What are you using to drive it? Because as Jamie Hyneman put it “humans ar big heavy things” so i would assume you need more umph than vex motor (yes even the new ones) could provide and still drive at a reasonable rate.
~DK
I’m using 4 motors each geared so the motor drives a small gear and that connects to a medium gear which moves the drive shaft. (Forgot how many teeth) It’s powerful enough, but the bottleneck is the treads. Sometimes the treads skip and occasionally gears too, but on a flat surface it can carry me. I only weigh 100 lbs though. It can also carry wood and bricks. I’ll have a picture up soon. (I’m still working on the drive; the arm will come later)
Thanks,
-FutureInventions
I’ve given my little sister a ride on one of our early clean sweep robots.
It was only 1:1 gearing with 4 motors, but it could drive quite well, and the arm could even lift with her sitting on it:D
That is cool but i think it screams that you weren’t pushing things far enough. If you are able to add a persons weight to a bot and still have it drive then you may be better off gearing for some more speed or putting some of the drive motors elsewhere and make you drive strong enough to just move the bot and it’s cargo plus a little bit just for safety. But if you can drive around with a person on it i think you have WAY too much power in your DT that you aren’t really using in a normal match.
Same with the arm. If you have that much torque you may want to take away some of the reduction and gain some speed.
Now in a contact game i may not make this argument but for clean sweep i think this applies.
~DK
Actually, the robot needed 4 motors to move. It only carried my sister on the kitchen floor which is very smooth, and the extra weight didn’t add much friction. The way we made the arm (actually a box using 4 slide rails at the corners) meant it was difficult to adjust the gearing - the slide rail lifter did not work very well at all, and gearing it up 3:1 with the 36 tooth gears meant it would not move at all. This was a very early robot though, and I can’t remember if it was even used in a competition. My sister probably weighed about 20kg (40lb?) at the time.
I remember another test bot we made, it used 8 motors geared 1:1 and 8 4" wheels, and could push the orange balls under the wall easily, but only if it had about 20-30kg of weight on it to stop it slipping (actually it still slipped a bit even with all the weight!).
pushed orange balls UNDER the slots???
thats alot of torque!
and your sister is 40 pounds…
thats the same weight as 4 goals…
I went on Sunday, I wish I’d thought to check here first. It would have been nice to meet some Vex people in real life. I wish Vex would send a dude out with some prototype and/or product, I’d totally impulse buy some stuff.