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."
double entendre (Score:5, Funny)
And it's all thanks to the second amendment.
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And it's all thanks to the second amendment.
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Re:double entendre (Score:5, Insightful)
[1] [wikipedia.org] [2] [wikipedia.org] [3] [wikipedia.org] [4] [wikipedia.org]
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"The right of the people to keep and bear arms." implies personal firearms.... not the sort that would be solely used in large-scale warfare.
Landmines, on the other hand, would seem to fall into the same category as handguns, as the victim more often than not has no idea that his opponent is armed, or that he's even in danger. I fail to see a reason for those to exist.
Although I do respect the fo
Re:double entendre (Score:4, Insightful)
Does "the president" need to DROP NUKES on The Continental US of A before people WAKE UP and DO SOMETHING?
Or do you all think that "having a vietnam war" in the middle of the desert is in the interests of the general populace?
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Exactly specifically WHAT EXAMPLE OF "government ceasing to act in the interests of the general populace" are you all waiting for?
Until people see more serious effects in their daily lives, they'll mostly continue to be apathetic. Thanks to deficit spending, the war doesn't really even affect our tax liability, and given the small number of casualties, relatively few people know someone who has died over there.
Thus, most people are too busy living their lives to care enough to even put much time into fighting it, much less risk their lives.
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Landmines by themselves will usually kill only wandering civilians and stray dogs. The enemy is clever enough to figure out that landmines exist and might be planted somewhere, and as soon as they discover a minefield they'll find a way to avoid being killed by it.
Landmines, in conjunction with other defenses, are extremely effective. For example, if the North Korean army were to swarm south across the DMZ, they would come under heavy machinegun fire, and would lack the time and ability to safely go throug
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As long as kids and farmers will keep loosing limbs or worse in past conflict zones, no I won't understand. It's not because in one case they are used in a well defined DMZ that their existence is justified.
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http://www.armedforces.co.uk/army/listings/l0066.html#MINE%20CLEARANCE [armedforces.co.uk]
" The Python has the ability to clear a much longer safe' lane than its predecessor. It is also faster to bring into action and far more accurate. It can clear a path up to 230m long and 7m wide through which vehicles can then safely pass.
The system works by firing a single rocket from a newly designed launcher mounted on a trailer which has been towed to the edge of the mined
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Try living right next to Stalinist/Soviet/Putinist Russia for a while and the idea of putting booby traps between them and you starts getting a certain appeal.
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I suggest you read "Common Sense" [gutenberg.org] by Thomas Paine.
"If premiums were to be given to merchants, to build and employ in their service ships mounted with twenty, thirty, forty or fifty guns, (the premiums to be in proportion to the loss of bulk to the merchants) fifty or sixty of those ships, with a few guardships on constant duty, would keep up a sufficient navy, and that without burdening
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Sure it is easier with more advanced weapons, but that makes people equal, rather than the weak being subject to the violence of the strong.
This is the best argument for having a gun. I'm a trained martial artist. I have friends who train using swords and all kinds of "old school" weapons like swords and knives.
In a world without guns, I can come into a home and kill people with impunity. Even with my bare hands it is easy to a) get into a home, b) access every part of a home (have you ever tried kicking down an inside door? it's easy!) c) kill everyone in it.
Sure, the cops may have guns, but by the time they get to a house, I'd have killed ev
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All laws are subject to interpretations, that's wh
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Personally, I think it was in a different historical context, but the appropriate response is not reinterpretation of the constitution but amendment, for which there is a proper procedure.
I agree wholeheartedly. The problem is that at this point, laws limiting gun ownership being left to stand as constitutionally sound isnt reinterpretation, its the standing interpretation. Thus begins the debate between the Plain Words Doctrine folks and those who favor judicial review and the dominance of precedent. Its a mess, and I find neither the gun-nuts nor the anti-gun-nuts to be entirely logical on the subject.
It is two separate points being (1) It is silly to fear inanimate objects, and (2) prohibition of firearms does not prevent murder or mass murder. Point (2) is not opinion, it is demonstrable fact. Sure it is easier with more advanced weapons, but that makes people equal, rather than the weak being subject to the violence of the strong.
Ok, that makes more sense. (1) people fear silly things all the time and are otherwi
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People knowingly living with irrational fear have no valid case to introduce legislation on the subject of their fear.
We're not talking about an agoraphobe introducing legislation to ban crowds. I listed several irrational fears of things that one may also rationally be wary of. I should have been more consistent in the second part of my first post. I do not have a fear of guns, that was GP. I have a rational wariness and healthy respect for devices created solely for the purpose of killing. Your statement that this is irrational is an empty statement of opinion. I dont mean to be a dick about this point, really, but I
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However, if the national guard rolled tanks into town because of anti-war protests and started illegally detaining and torturing protesters, that minigun would potentially be a lot more useful.
Look at the DC sniper... They used a
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My point was simply that nobody in their right mind would defend ownership of nuclear arms as a constitutional right, so there must be a line i
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Doesn't that sound silly?
As for allowing people to have nuclear weapons, I don't see how making guns illegal has gotten rid of them, or how all the campaigning against nukes has stopped countries from trying. If we make them illegal they'll still make them, but we won't know. Making them will only get easier. Controlling radioactive materials would help prevent it, but ignores the *
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You honestly believe that a branch of the government-run armed forces is the intended protection against an abusive government? Doesn't that sound silly?
I'm not saying anything of the kind. Nowhere in the 2nd amendment is any manner of language regarding protection against government tyranny. A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state has nothing the fuck to do with armed resistance of the government. Clearly, the national guard is not 'the intended protection' against abusive government, as it is in fact part of the government. The revolution was necessary because of both abusive government *and* the lack of an internal
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If you think that owning a nuclear warhead is justified by their presence in the U.S. military arsenal, then I really have nothing more to say to you. Get some perspective and rejoin the discussion when you're capable of something deeper than meaningless polemic.
You lack the ability to turn printed words into the correct ideas - you then project your incorrect ideas onto other people and then attack them. Truly, it is you who should pay more attention to avoid being ignorant. Moreover, your tendency to dismiss people when they appear to disagree with you is childish.
I didn't say that I don't care if nukes get proliferated, just that I don't think passing a law will help. Can you see the type of person or group that wants a nuke stopping because California has a la
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I don't think you could seriously argue that the second amendment covers cannons, mortars, bombs, and landmines.
Please don't jump to conclusions that I never stated. I never claimed that people should be able to own landmines or bombs; The GP stated that the 2nd ammendment was from the "age of muzzle loaders" (personal weapons), and then compared that to nuclear warheads (state of the art military weapons). My point was that the founding fathers were aware of a lot more weaponry than he is representing, and thus were more informed than he was representing.
It's fine to argue the policy points of what people should
Re:double entendre (Score:5, Funny)
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Of course the scare about nuclear anything is going to be a major problem when argued before certain human judges and you almost can't legally procure the materials (although it is possible) but I don't think you should be held back from making your own nuclear weapons as long as you use them to protect yourself on your own grounds. If your neighbor should be affected then it becomes a problem.
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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.
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This is a big cause of the confusion between the constitution giving rights and you having them with the constituti
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I believe we are in agreement here, my concern was with the parent's "government granting..." statement. Enumerati
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Yes, but can you give up rights if they are inherent to people? I
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Rights are not granted by the constitution or any government, they are supposedly protected by the government.
Hackaday had this (Score:1)
It's not a catapult. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:It's not a catapult. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's not a catapult. (Score:5, Interesting)
There were non-counterweight trebuchets as well, called "traction" trebuchets. Instead of a counterweight you had a number of people tugging on ropes. I had one based on this model built for me for SCA combat as the result of a siege engine competition (Stormhold) some years ago. 60-90 metre throws with a cargo of softballs was customary with a 6 metre composite rattan arm. One advantage of a traction trebuchet is it's more mobile as you don't need to score or drag a tonne or so of counterweight along to the launch site.
So to stay on topic, I think you could call the robot arm a form of trebuchet. I've not seen onagers with slings in my researches though, will look for that. Onagers btw were so named because of the bucking motion they make, mitigated by curved ends of their foundation rails. Onager = Donkey in Latin. They were also called "rocking donkeys".
And another name for Ballista could be "ZOMG Look at the size of that effing crossbow!". They didn't always use rocks, some of them used mucking great iron bolts.
Onagers with slings (Score:1)
Re:It's not a catapult OR a trebuchet (Score:2, Informative)
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Those are AC servo motors. From the colour of the robot and be blurry photos I think it's a KUKA KR 150-2 K [kuka.com] or something similar.
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P.S. Can I come over to your house and launch a piano from your trebuchet? (I assume you have a few)
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AWESOME (Score:1)
Let me be the first (Score:4, Funny)
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I can see the future now, and you DON'T want to be (Score:5, Funny)
Graphical UI (Score:5, Funny)
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HD Camera (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure some people will defend this tactic, but its stuff like this that causes awesome return policies at stores to be restricted, and prices to go up. (as recently happened at CostCo)
I can't believe they posted that tidbit on the site...
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Re:HD Camera (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I was pissed at them when I read this too. I hope that when Fry institutes a 20% open-box charge on returns, that everybody look this guy up and send him a thank you note. Wrapped around a bowling ball.
Re:HD Camera (Score:5, Interesting)
I felt absolutely no remorse returning that thing. I know, that still doesn't make it right, because we didn't know that going into it. But I hope it is at least a mitigating factor. Plus, I give Fry's tons of (non-"rented") business, and their awesome return policy is a big part of the reason.
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You don't exactly see them sitting out on the street every day....
surely, once you've *got* an industrial robot (Score:2)
Re: Budget? (Score:2)
What, they needed the HD camera to make their YouTube posting look better?
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Calculon proves even robot arms can move up (Score:4, Funny)
Omg (Score:2)
Oh I can see it coming... "OMG fsking WALL HAX N00BZ!" ...shouted right before you get shelled by 16 pound bowling balls. :(
No wireless. Less range than a trebuchet. Lame. (Score:1)
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yes but can it fling.... (Score:2)
Catapult? (Score:5, Funny)
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Now all we need to do... (Score:1)
Why waste beer? (Score:1)
Build your own! (Score:1)
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I like the vision-control guidance system too. Some MAJOR geek points in all of that in my book.
Get 2 Of These.. (Score:1)
correct timing of motors (Score:2)
Ah, memories... (Score:4, Interesting)
But that incident, among others, spurred work to develop collision detection. They finally got some software running on the DSPs that'd estimate what the current to the motors should be, and measure what it actually was; too big a difference and the robot would halt. And then comes the fun part...
I got to test it.
For six months, my paid job was to take huge industrial robots and bang them into things.
I'm pure software now, and it's fun and pays better... but I still think about those days with fondness.
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Not the first robot to fling something. (Score:5, Interesting)
The way you protect workers from getting killed by a robot (and these things are way stronger than you think, even after seeing it fling rocks) is to put up light curtains around the robot.
The OSHA safe stopping distance calculation is used to prove that the hazardous motion will stop in the time it takes the person to traverse the light curtain and come into contact with the equipment.
So, the safety folks find the robot with the biggest, fastest moving load on the line--the floorpan skin transfer robot. A floorpan skin is basically a sixty-pound razor blade.
The end effector held onto the floorpan skin with suction cups, which are a cost-effective and reliable method for the process.
The robot guys set up a test, where they got all 6 axes of the robot moving in such a manner that the end effector achieved its maximum possible speed.
Not something you'd normally do, but a worst-case scenario for use as safety systems challenge.
We all wanted to see this robot haul ass, so the safety folks had us all standing back...
Robot dude picked up the TP and initiated the path at 100% speed...
Somebody waited for the arm to get to full extension and speed...and stuck their hand into the light curtain.
The robot stopped almost instantly--well within the expected stopping distance.
No way that person would have been injured by the robot.
The skin (remember the sixty-pound razor blade) stopped a couple bays over.
Hard clamps were added to the end effector and the test was repeated with improved results.
Too late (Score:2)
rj
Seen one already. (Score:2)
Re:I for one... (Score:4, Funny)
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Unless you are a very small shell script.
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