I have repaired computers for many years and dealt with many users and I don’t know how many times I have told someone its not a good idea to hard power off your computer. Fast forward to Windows 7 and now I guess its okay to do. I usually have a lot of applications and browser tabs open so I dislike restarting and get annoyed when I forced to for updates or stability. Good thing Chrome is really good about restoring tabs! I think computers should be able to update and restart parts as need so you don’t have to ever full restart. I am one who keeps my system on 24/7. You never know when you need something. Last …
Finally Some Pictures
I am finally getting around to posting some pictures of the first Security Robot. I am posting as much detail as possible as I find other blogs don’t post enough for people who want to get ideas and build something similar. For the videos I used my phone via a webpage to control the robot. I also have a Windows app that can control it. I haven’t decided if I wanted to writing a Android app to control it. It would be a good learning experience for developing Android apps, but the web page is much easier to update and runs on any device. The robot has 2 layers, bottom has gearbox, step-up and charger. Second is the top with electronics, battery and …
Help name my robot!
One of my biggest issues at the moment is coming up with a good name. I have never been good at coming up with names and this is proof. There will be two versions of my robot but both with similar purpose; the first one being much simpler of the two. Should they have similar names or different names? The idea is for them to be a security robot so I can monitor the house while I am away and collect data from the sensors. Of course this includes annoying the Girlfriend when I am not home. Currently, “Security Bot” is the temporary name. It’s simple, to the point but not at all very clever/creative. What should I name it? Post your ideas …
Security Robot 1 Progress
Since I started this blog after I started building my first robot I wanted to “catch up” on my progress. My first robot has turned out quite well and I have learned a lot along the way. I started designing my second one and can use what I have learned. Most of the parts are from Sparkfun.com and some Adafruit.com. I will list the parts and links to them soon. As with most projects they start of small and grow to much more. The same happened here. I started with the Arduino Starter Kit, just to play around with a microcontroller and then I needed a project to build with it and decided that a robot would be great since …
WiFi/Xbee Robot Background
I have always wanted to have a WiFi controlled R/C car of some sort. The idea started when a coworker sent me this one, Roboteq VIA WiFi Robot. If he reads this I think he will know it was him. This was about early 2000 and I added it to the list of projects I wanted to try, another one being a GPS controlled glider. Upon research I realized it would probably cost close to $1000 to build. I didn’t think the cool factor was worth that much. Flash forward to 2008 when I moved to Monterey, CA and became an NGC employee. Upon getting to know a few coworkers I came to hear about the Maker Faire. For the past 3 years …
Another Blog on the Interwebs
After some time of resisting, I have finally succumbed to my first blog. For a while I had resisted some of the online services such as Twitter, Facebook, and blogging. Most of them were created out of necessity to access something or follow something for an event. The same happened for this blog. I have always been into projects at home and more recently have wanted to share them with friends, so my GF, suggested I created a blog. I had thought of other ways like Facebook or my own site as I am the DIY yourself type and rather create/host my own stuff. Problem is exposure and uptime. So I decided to go with the blog option. A few …