Happy new year!

Remember back in the summer when I posted a lot of questions about welding
up a frame for a halloween prop? Well, here are a few pics of what was
accomplished by the time halloween rolled around. I did all of this with a
$100 AC buzz box and a lot of cursing. Santa just delivered a Thermalarc
185TSW and a turnpro 7x12 bandsaw, so maybe there will be a little less
cursing eventually. (Santa, you forgot the damn argon bottle!).

Anyway, here are the pics:

It is a fully automated 2 seater halloween ride we built to run in our
garage (rather large garage). This past year it worked, but we didn't have
much time (read like 1 day) for decorating. NEXT year though...

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doomb...uggyMoving.jpg

In this pic you can see an unwired but fully welded base (notice how black
paint makes everyone a good welder):

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doombuggy/doombase1.JPG

A little more wiring:

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doombuggy/doombase2.JPG

Top swivel plate mounted (yes, the top section with the passengers can
rotate independently of the base, so you can be traveling foward while
viewing sideways, or even rotate your view as you move along the path.)

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doombuggy/doombase3.JPG

And here is a very short video of me looking very dorky riding in the
doombuggy. The method of linefollowing (5 sensors on a UHMW plastic pad
mounted to a small linear slide that rides along the ground and registers
the black line on white) will be changed this year to machine vision using a
video camera.

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doombuggy/Doombuggy.wmv


I am sure I will have many many questions about my 185TSW. Thanks for all
your tips last year during my buzz box woes.

Rick

"Rick" wrote in message
news:NKduf.5203$aB1.1265@trnddc02...
Happy new year!

Remember back in the summer when I posted a lot of questions about welding
up a frame for a halloween prop? Well, here are a few pics of what was
accomplished by the time halloween rolled around. I did all of this with
a
$100 AC buzz box and a lot of cursing. Santa just delivered a Thermalarc
185TSW and a turnpro 7x12 bandsaw, so maybe there will be a little less
cursing eventually. (Santa, you forgot the damn argon bottle!).

Anyway, here are the pics:

It is a fully automated 2 seater halloween ride we built to run in our
garage (rather large garage). This past year it worked, but we didn't
have
much time (read like 1 day) for decorating. NEXT year though...

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doomb...uggyMoving.jpg

In this pic you can see an unwired but fully welded base (notice how black
paint makes everyone a good welder):

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doombuggy/doombase1.JPG

A little more wiring:

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doombuggy/doombase2.JPG

Top swivel plate mounted (yes, the top section with the passengers can
rotate independently of the base, so you can be traveling foward while
viewing sideways, or even rotate your view as you move along the path.)

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doombuggy/doombase3.JPG

And here is a very short video of me looking very dorky riding in the
doombuggy. The method of linefollowing (5 sensors on a UHMW plastic pad
mounted to a small linear slide that rides along the ground and registers
the black line on white) will be changed this year to machine vision using
a
video camera.

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doombuggy/Doombuggy.wmv


I am sure I will have many many questions about my 185TSW. Thanks for all
your tips last year during my buzz box woes.

Rick



Very cool project!

But, your video sucks!

Did you do the electronics yourself?
I would like to put an automated targeting system on the new paintball tank
that I'm building, but it's way beyond my capabilities. Basically it would
auto adjust the elevation of my main gun to compensate for range. Any chance
you'd like to help out with that part?

On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 17:51:41 GMT, "Rick" wrote:

Happy new year!

Remember back in the summer when I posted a lot of questions about welding
up a frame for a halloween prop? Well, here are a few pics of what was
accomplished by the time halloween rolled around. I did all of this with a
$100 AC buzz box and a lot of cursing. Santa just delivered a Thermalarc
185TSW and a turnpro 7x12 bandsaw, so maybe there will be a little less
cursing eventually. (Santa, you forgot the damn argon bottle!).

Anyway, here are the pics:

It is a fully automated 2 seater halloween ride we built to run in our
garage (rather large garage). This past year it worked, but we didn't have
much time (read like 1 day) for decorating. NEXT year though...

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doomb...uggyMoving.jpg

In this pic you can see an unwired but fully welded base (notice how black
paint makes everyone a good welder):

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doombuggy/doombase1.JPG

A little more wiring:

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doombuggy/doombase2.JPG

Top swivel plate mounted (yes, the top section with the passengers can
rotate independently of the base, so you can be traveling foward while
viewing sideways, or even rotate your view as you move along the path.)

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doombuggy/doombase3.JPG

And here is a very short video of me looking very dorky riding in the
doombuggy. The method of linefollowing (5 sensors on a UHMW plastic pad
mounted to a small linear slide that rides along the ground and registers
the black line on white) will be changed this year to machine vision using a
video camera.

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doombuggy/Doombuggy.wmv


I am sure I will have many many questions about my 185TSW. Thanks for all
your tips last year during my buzz box woes.

Rick

Neat!

What did you use for motors?

Very cool project!

But, your video sucks!

Did you do the electronics yourself?
I would like to put an automated targeting system on the new paintball
tank
that I'm building, but it's way beyond my capabilities. Basically it would
auto adjust the elevation of my main gun to compensate for range. Any
chance
you'd like to help out with that part?



Thanks!

Yes, I built the electronics myself. My wife did all of the programming and
set the system up with a manual control system application that operates
over 802.11 wireless.

Hmmm, auto targetting paintball..been there, done that :-)

I worked for 5 years at Newton Research Labs where we developed a
"shootback" system for police training which consisted of a machine gun
firing nylon paintball size balls at 10 per second out of a cannon that
could autotrack police officers in a large training room while they were
watching a video. For example, when a bad guy on the video fired a gun at
the police officer in training, the auto cannon would also fire one of these
nylon balls at him. Oy! did they hurt too! Left a nice red whelp. A friend
of mine developed the pan tilt and the rapid fire gun, and I worked on the
electronic servo system. We did an impressive demonstration where we shot
holes in a large piece of cardboard 20 feet or so away spelling out Newton
in about 20 seconds :-)

Ah, fond memories...


Certainly I can offer you tips/suggestions.

Rick

Neat!

What did you use for motors?



http://www.surpluscenter.com/item.as...444-R&catname=

On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 18:11:48 GMT, "Dave Lyon"
wrote:




Very cool project!

But, your video sucks!

Did you do the electronics yourself?
I would like to put an automated targeting system on the new paintball tank
that I'm building, but it's way beyond my capabilities. Basically it would
auto adjust the elevation of my main gun to compensate for range. Any chance
you'd like to help out with that part?

How will you determine range? What sort of sensor will you use
to determine gun elevation angle?

Would you use a laptop computer, or a microcontroller or
microcontrollers? I see that Rick used a laptop.

I'm gearing up to work with PIC and Atmel AVR microcontrollers, but I
have a ways to go yet before I'll claim any capability with them.
I'm retired, just doing it for the hell of it -- as for projects like
this and simpler projects.

Part of that involves learning to program in C to do things involving
math and trig -- like gun angles and autonomous navigation. I'm
still just getting started with that.

Wow - now that is what I call learn by doing!

Good job!
Meek and mild 'battle' bot!

Martin
Martin Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
NRA LOH & Endowment Member
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder



Rick wrote:
Happy new year!

Remember back in the summer when I posted a lot of questions about welding
up a frame for a halloween prop? Well, here are a few pics of what was
accomplished by the time halloween rolled around. I did all of this with a
$100 AC buzz box and a lot of cursing. Santa just delivered a Thermalarc
185TSW and a turnpro 7x12 bandsaw, so maybe there will be a little less
cursing eventually. (Santa, you forgot the damn argon bottle!).

Anyway, here are the pics:

It is a fully automated 2 seater halloween ride we built to run in our
garage (rather large garage). This past year it worked, but we didn't have
much time (read like 1 day) for decorating. NEXT year though...

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doomb...uggyMoving.jpg

In this pic you can see an unwired but fully welded base (notice how black
paint makes everyone a good welder):

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doombuggy/doombase1.JPG

A little more wiring:

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doombuggy/doombase2.JPG

Top swivel plate mounted (yes, the top section with the passengers can
rotate independently of the base, so you can be traveling foward while
viewing sideways, or even rotate your view as you move along the path.)

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doombuggy/doombase3.JPG

And here is a very short video of me looking very dorky riding in the
doombuggy. The method of linefollowing (5 sensors on a UHMW plastic pad
mounted to a small linear slide that rides along the ground and registers
the black line on white) will be changed this year to machine vision using a
video camera.

http://www.skyko.com/halloween/doombuggy/Doombuggy.wmv


I am sure I will have many many questions about my 185TSW. Thanks for all
your tips last year during my buzz box woes.

Rick



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