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.

IMG_1970The 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!IMG_1971

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…

How did you like this post? Take a second to support Cerebral Dad on Patreon!
Become a patron at Patreon!