Building a robot – Gathering and planning
That’s right I’m building a robot; a real one. I refer to it as “the robot,” because it remains nameless as of the moment, but its going to be cool and have a cool name too. I was thinking of making a plow-bot – more on what that is in a later post.
This winter I was shoveling snow and it damn near killed me. I don’t know if it the CP catching up with my 35 year old frame or the effects of a desk job, but It was painful. And like any (not so) young entrepreneur, I thought to myself, “How can I automate this process?” and the idea for “the robot” was conceived.
The idea died a short time later when I saw the price of everything I would need. But, thankfully it was revived again when I got an email from a search alert I setup through Google. There they were! Motors! Well, “through the trees” I saw the motors I needed in an old, dry-rotted, probably-sitting-in-a-puddle-for-five-years, crusty motorized wheel chair! Since I was the only one bidding on it, It was mine a short time later!
This is huge! These suckers can move 500lbs at a pretty good clip.
The motors obviously aren’t the only thing I need. And since the batteries in this thing were shot – I’ll need to source some of those. Ill be building the controller and chassis from scratch, but first I’ll need to learn to weld.
To be continued…