Industrial Robot Arm Becomes Giant Catapult 149
wintersynth brings us a story about a group of enthusiasts who made a catapult out of a 2,800lb industrial robot arm. They used it to launch bowling balls, fireballs, and cans of beer toward a stationary target, and they controlled the catapult's aim with a graphical UI on a laptop.
"I wanted to be able to control the rotation of the robot so we could aim the robot from the laptop, but I quickly realized that since the desert is so flat, we could do some basic ranging on the target too. I also wanted the targeting to be overlaid in 3d over a photograph of the target area. The software needed to control the robot like an MMO or RTS game. I suspect that video games, in general, have some of the most optimal control interfaces. I wanted to try a control scheme similar to the area effect spell targeting in World of Warcraft."
It's not a catapult. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's not a catapult. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's not a catapult OR a trebuchet (Score:2, Informative)
Re:HD Camera (Score:3, Informative)
Re:double entendre (Score:3, Informative)
Uhm, in the US, neither the Constitution nor government "grant" rights; they eixst and are the people's independent of either. The people give the government certain powers; and we can argue what those are and how broad they are, but that's different than teh people's rights.
Re:Graphical UI (Score:2, Informative)