Snow? In May? Give me a f*cking break, Mother Nature.
Snowbot
Arduino Button Implementation
LED. Check
Breadboard. Check
Bunch of wires. Check.
C++. Check.
What is that under my finger? A BAD ASSED BUTTON!
I’m going to have this robot up and rolling in no time. Everyone knows that every robot needs at least one button…the fricking kill switch. For, in case, said robot gains sentience and tries to kill the creator. And I’m not going down by robot death. Skin cancer, maybe, but no death by robot.
Arduino Robot
I’m not there yet, but let’s chalk this one up as a step towards the end goal…which would be the title of this post. A Damned Arduino Robot!
Granted, this is basically just my hello world (hola mundo) program with the addition of a solderlss breadboard into the fray. But, it is awesome and, I am going to be the coolest dude on the block when I come rolling out with a bad-ass robot.
I had better get back to work.
Japanese Humanoid Moon Robot. Whoa.
I might have to move to Japan. First, they have that food thing down. Secondly, and more importantly, they are BUILDING A DAMN HUMANOID ROBOT TO GO TO AND RETURN FROM THE MOON BY 2015.
That happens, and we have officially lost, my friends.
FTA:
Looking largely to inspire dreams of space among the Japanese, a manufacturing cooperative named Astro-Technology SOHLA announced on April 27th that they are planning to create and send a two-legged humanoid robot to the moon, have it draw the Japanese flag on the surface, and then hopefully get it back to the Earth, all by the year 2015.
Making inspirational ideas about space technology a reality is not new to the Osaka-based cooperative of six small and medium sized enterprises. SOHLA had previously built a small-scale satellite, named Maido-1, as a demonstration of the ability of SMEs to research and create short-term, low-cost space technology which could help improve local economic activity. Maido-1 was sent into orbit aboard a Japanese H-IIA rocket in January of 2009. Following that successful launch, the group asked people to start forgetting about the word “recession.”
SOHLA believes that there is a growing passion in Japan about space technology and exploration with recent national successes, such as two Japanese astronauts meeting on the International Space Station for the first time. However, the group also feels that the ISS’ highly visible robotic arms not being Japanese-made is a real letdown for a nation well-known for its robotic technology prowess.
Robotic prowess indeed. First the Gundham statue, now this. Fuck you Washington…we need MORE federal funding for space science. It will take a lot more than some accelerator problems on imports to spin this story into oblivion.
Come on…robotic astronauts…I am in awe.
Home Loan Modification Info
Times are tough. Tougher than stale beef jerky…and believe you me, homie, that is some tough stuff. Last year saw nearly 4 million foreclosure filings. December 2009 showed a 15 percent increase in filings from December 2008…which itself was no ‘smooth sailing’ time in the ‘being able to pay the bills’ game.
What’s a guy to do? What is the alternative to throwing in the towel? Write paid blog posts like this? Hardly.
Introducing Home Loan Modification.
Well, the government has made it easier to stay in your house. Say what you will about them, but they did something correctly here. The Making Home Affordable program, oddly refered to as HAMP, might be your answer. Meet some criteria (primary residence, under $729,750 mortgage, and at least a year old) and you are ready to roll.
How do you do this?
With the help of American Residential Law Group. That’s how. Getting an attorney is going to be key in this process. Said attorney will act as the negotiator between the lender agent and the holder of the loan. Speedier process, better results. Plus, an attorney can help you whip out the hardship letter, and advise you how to hit the 31% of gross mark that a healthy mortgage targets.
Don’t foreclose…hit one of those links and save yourself some trouble.
Applied Robotics
Let me clear the air before this one. There are four things to know about me. In no particular order…
1) I love humanoid robots.
2) I love androids.
3) I love drawing humanoid robots…and
4) I love Android OS.
Now that that is out of the way, let me say that this post doesn’t pertain to any of those four, for better or for worse. This post serves to shed some light on some custom robotic applications. As always though,
FTW.
While I am holding it down on Arduino and Lego Mindstorm front, there are, quite thankfully, people utilizing robotics to improve procedures in real situations. Nothing is better than robots, lasers, and gadgetry…unless it falls into another field dear to my heart. Quality assurance. I should trade in my twin monitors in for one of these bad boys:
Now that looks like some precision automation exemplified.
So the gist of my rant is that there are automated assembly applications all over the place. You name it, it can be automated…and with some crazy levels of precision… two tenths of a micron precision.
Take a look at a exemplary robotic setup.
I could color that sucker green, in an effort to appease my fan-base. Or, alternatively, I could throw up a pic of something slicker than green robots….
Could those be lasers? Yep…I’m talking about some 6-axis automated inspection system lasers…for the win. I’ll be the first to admit that high performance machine vision, 6-axis robotics, and bad ass software trumps my form of QA…even though our banking software is pretty sweet.
Regardless of the preferences, hit the bump to read about some real robotics applications. They are numerous…from automotive, clean room, fuel cell, medical devise, solar, and semiconductor implementations, to my already-mentioned QA…there is a ton to check out.
In the mean time, I’ll be horsing around with my robot drawings and laser pointers…pining for an Arduino.
Claw-bot is Claw-y
green robots…sigh.
Dumb Looking Robot
FTL FTW
Green Robot Overload
NAPKIN-BOT IS GLAD TO BE OF YOUR SERVICE IN REALMS OF ABSORBENCY
Green Robots Everywhere
Hastily drawn.