On 23 Dec 2004 13:40:49 -0800, "AJ Quick" wrote:
"Id suspect a good redneck backyard bot (made from a riding lawn mower)
would use a homebrew thermal lance made from a rusty piece of pipe
found in the back 40, and Grandmas O2 bottle and turn your bot into
$10,000 worth of smoldering scrap in right short order. Or simply
bludgen it to pieces with the differential from a 62 chevy pickemup
truck."
It would never pass safety inspection.
Safety inspection? For a varmint thats designed to destroy another
varmint? What the hell for? You clear the area, the designated
starters fire em up and then run like hell out of the Zone of Robot
Death.
"Nasa approach...does that mean yur bot will explode as the start
signal is given or someone will screw up a measurement and your bot
will miss the arena and wind up heading out of the solar system on a
course to eternity?"
Yeah.. Good ole' NASA. But I'm not thinking of that NASA.. I'm thinking
of the ones that make that wonderful memory foam materess. I figured
someone would have something to say about NASAs errors in the past..
Your welcome. G
"Just one quick comment on that. The higher the precision, the quicker
it will jam. The military learned that 50 years ago with weapons."
I think that has to do more with the tolerances. I know there were
quite a bit of guns and weapons that weren't made with the same
precision each time, so none of the parts were ever interchangable..
and the guns jammed and blew up in their hands.. so I don't know if
that really holds true.. I know, for example, when they put the turret
of a tank on its platform, it has to be so percisely aligned that even
a thousandth of an inch will not work out right. Same with all the
calibration and alignment to fire.. but once you get down to it.. pull
trigger and shoot.
Evidently you are not particularly familiar with weapons. The AK-47
was designed to be cheaply stamped out of sheet metal and then handed
to the first thumb fingered turd world savage you managed to coax out
of his cave, told the rudiments of sight picture, how to load the
magazine, which end the round comes out of and turned loose on your
enemy(s). It likes its forebearer, the SKS etc etc all perform
magnificently at this task. Tolerances are loose, the weapon may
rattle when shaken, but does the job no matter if its been just drug
out of the swamp, the mud hole, the sand dune or the manure pile in
which it was stored or fallen. The M-16 will puke its guts out and
become a large ungainly paperweight long before the AK/SKS etc notices
its filled with yak ****. This is called Design for the Real World.
The KISS Princible is a great one to stake your life on. The US
trifold military entrenching tool..is no more than a simple, folding
shovel that sucks big time. The wooden handled Russian shovel works
first time, everytime, no matter what you do to it. This is called
Design for the Real World (AKA...Murphy was an optimist)
If the turret requires .001 tolerences before it will traverse, the
first time some gomer with an AK manages to put that lil 127gr peanut
into the hull/joint..it would become a very expensive tomb for its
crew. Or dirt, etc etc. Thats called Over Engineering for the Fantasy
World.
I was under the impression that this group dealt with high percision
and CNC type metal working. I guess I will have to try
rec.crafts.watchmaking instead.
It is. However..there is a huge difference between building things
like clocks that need tiny clearences and other things that need big
clearences to not only work properly, but to continue working in the
Real World. The trick is knowing what and when. Ive seen many prints
that the dimensions are spec'ed in 4 digits. When 2 or three would be
fine, and preferable. You build your Bot to 4 digits precision, and
the first bot with a flail comes along, gives your Swiss watch a
healthy bash..and suddenly your 4 digit tolerences become a
hinderence, rather than a help as the mechanism locks up tighter than
a virgin aunt. There is a huge difference between Tolerence and
Practical Working Clearance. Engineers tend to forget this. Dirty
fingernailed technicians understand this very very well. Thats why we
make the things the Engineers build, work in the Real World.
Shrug. Be anal when you need to be, but "Keep It Simple Stupid", the
rest of the time. "Simple is good". "Complex is easy". "Works
everytime no matter what", is best.
"Frankly I was surprized to leard that you'd spent $7,000.00 on a
project that hadnt been tested with at least one "bl;ade"."
We have $7000 in parts.. motors, gearboxes, batteries, controllers. No
materials yet to actually make the chassis or weapon. Hence my presence
here.
Cool, so pay attention to the really fart smellers here and learn to
build your varmint so it works every time, no matter what.
Err..smart fellers. G
Gunner
"To be civilized is to restrain the ability to commit mayhem.
To be incapable of committing mayhem is not the mark of the civilized,
merely the domesticated." - Trefor Thomas
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