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TimWilborne

Cool Impementations of Automation to Attract Students

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Trying too help the local college recruit more people to our profession. They have really invested in their Mechatronics program (mechanical, electrical, computer, and control engineering. Enrollment is up, but we need some devices to take into the schools that just shout "THIS WOULD BE A FUN PROFESSION TO BE IN!" to really make the program successful His first thought was to build a segway. Great idea, but I've been trying to think of other things that we could use. Things that the current students could build...just remember it has to be portable so it can be taken from school to school. What would grab a high school students attention when deciding what curriculum to sign up for?

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TW the coolist thing I have seen lately was a small robot that the rep had on a 2 wheel dolly. He had a trunk that has a CompactLogix and 3 axis with a gripper. I was impressed in withthe Compact doing robot controls. Today I installed Ver 17 and a lot of the cool went away.

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You guys need to do what I do: http://www.usfirst.org Come on! Check out all the kewl projects we do: Police Bot: http://www.flickr.com/photos/teamthrust150...57621845641233/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/teamthrust150...57621928195365/ 2009 Robot http://www.flickr.com/photos/teamthrust150...57614958581531/ etc... http://www.flickr.com/photos/teamthrust1501/collections/

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No doubt, First Robotics is kewl, I wish we had more of it around here, but what as some things that you could build initially grab a student attention? Even take the robot for example. It is neat if you are already interested in our industry, but to a student who isn't unfamiliar, they will have no connection with a robot. It would be the same as trying to show me the latest fashion designs. I have no connection with it. I think that it needs to be fairly simple so that they can have some understanding of it with a short presentation, something that they have some familiarity with, be hand made so the student can realize that this is something that they can do.

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Fanuc still uses Legos frequently to build prototypes for their automation/robotics equipment. Some universities use them, too. It's not too hard with a couple kits to build a Rube Goldberg "marble" type thing which looks very cool and complicated, although the logic driving it might fit in a "pico controller" grade of PLC (smart relay stuff). Another angle would be to build any of the hexapod type walking robots, or even more interesting, a delta-type pick-and-place robot. Lots of the shows have them doing simple tasks like picking up candies (Skittles or M&M's) and lining them up on a conveyor belt or some other similar demonstration task. The good thing about Delta robots is that they are fairly inexpensive, and unlike the hexapods, actually require quite a bit of mechatronics knowledge to pull off successfully. I realize that things like a single legged jumping robot, especially with one or more free joints, are very neat to see if you are a controls junkie but high school students wouldn't understand the tricks necessary to do this.

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When I was in high school and in Tech school we had a simple robot that we could program with a DOS program. Basicly MOV 60,120,40 type deal and we programmed it to take little metal barrels out of a holder and stack them into a pyramid. It took a lot of trial and error but it was a good learning experience and it looked cool when it was done. A lot of people liked it when we had an open house. Of course, it would be a lot cooler if you actually built the robot but I don't know if that would be too advanced or not.... I don't think it would be too hard and it would give the kids a good lesson in PLC programming. Everything contols is done with PLC or PAC units now so you might as well start teaching them young. I wish we would have done some of that in school, I would have loved playing around with it back then and it would have helped a lot now as well.

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You could use a PAC, HMI, simple robot, control via text message from cell phone, or from Twitter to cell phone. I bet if you incorperate a smart phone it might get their attention? Set up the PAC controlled robot play Guitar hero? Lots of timing. Could be fun. Edited by robh

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Now that's what I'm talking about. Texting and Guitar hero, what student couldn't relate!

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I saw a video online of a guy who showed tracking finger motion with a Wii remote. Maybe you can do that with your robot, make it follow the human hand holding the Wii remote. Or better yet, make it do Wii bowling...

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That would be interesting. Keep the ideas coming!

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Anymore super fun ideas TW?

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underwater remote operated vehicles or ROV There is a student ROV building competition, students can win scholarships and find jobs offshore if they want to be doomed to spending all their time travelling...better to do it young prior to families, or they will just end up divorced like all the other offshore people. Oops, not too motivational. But the ROV competition is. http://www.marinetech.org/rov_competition/ www.schilling.com has the big ROVs to show what is possible. For younger students or old kids (up to 50 or so years), Lego makes a small robot kit. They use Labview and have a lot of open source stuff available to promote sharing of ideas. Quite affordable really, with servo controllers, light sensors, etc. http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx

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Funny you should mention it. I'm meeting with them to do a little brainstorming on it next week. I'll keep you posted

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Did you meet with Adrian DeGroot by chance? Or Jason Stanley? Schilling seems like they keep pretty good company! What are you working on, if you are allowed to say?

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Bump Just read this thread, any update TW on what the outcome was.

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No I'm afraid not. My schedule got a little hectic and I had to put it on the back burner. Hope to get back with him soon and see how it has evolved

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