EPS 01 - The year of the robot

The year of the robot

… and automate everything

In 2019 I visited the SymfonyCon conference in Amsterdam, where one of the speakers, Fabien Potencier, held a talk where he released a new major version of Symfony (5) live on stage. He also had written a book Symfony, The fast track, that was covered by several automated tests and updated automatically with every new version of the software. I’m not easily impressed but roughly 4 years later I still take inspiration from that particular event. Throughout the talk one thing was clear, when you want to get a lot done in little time, automate everything. That thought stuck with me ...

Now, at the start of a new year I'm thinking about making some YouTube content about my machine shop, the projects I'm working on and hope to provide some tips and tricks on milling and turning.

As a broadcast automation veteran I should know a thing or two on how to automate audiovisual workflows. Video productions can be very time consuming when done incorrectly, so from day one I want to invest in automating the process, being able to focus on the creative side of things. Given that I’m a very technical and not necessarily a creative person it makes sense to invest my time in the latter domain.

Why 'The year of the robot'?

When I was a small kid I was a big Transformers fan, this late 80s series featured robots that could disguise themselves as common, real world objects. The Autobots as the name implies, took the shape of an automobile, the Decepticons mostly planes and other worldly stuff. Although the series took some liberties with Lavoisier's law of conservation of mass transforming a 4 tonne robot into a handgun.

Building a robot for me as a kid meant that you had to create a bi-ped that had a lot of similarities with human anatomy. C3PO if you like but with a little more bolt and nuts. As a teenager I spent countless hours drawing mechanical constructions but never got to a point where I designed something that was realistic to build. I lacked the engineering skills and not unimportant the equipment that was required to actually build a functional robot.

Looking at the amount of R&D that goes into robots that can walk I’m glad that with (my) age and a better understanding of what realistic or achievable goals are. A good motivator is also that you build something that is fun but also useful. (unless it is really fun, then the usefulness is irrelevant.

Definition of a robot

A robot is a machine — especially one programmable by a computer — capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be constructed to evoke human form, but most robots are task-performing machines, designed with an emphasis on stark functionality, rather than expressive aesthetics. wikipedia (Robot)

Etymology

Robot - 1920s: from Czech, from robota ‘forced labour’. The term was coined in K. Čapek's play R.U.R. ‘Rossum's Universal Robots’ (1920).

Fastforwarding to the here and now, I have changed significantly over the years, but I still have the same childhood dream of building amazing robots. It took me a while to realize that a major part of that dream was already fulfilled while tinkering with 3d printers, building CNC milling machines and converting my mini lathe into a CNC machine. All these devices are in fact robots, machines that can be programmed to execute tasks.

My Ýear of the robot'' is about learning more about the theory of robotics. I have read maybe two books and the rest of my knowledge comes from YouTube and creative searches also known as Googling.

Pure theory however is boring so I want to apply any new knowledge or skill to one or more of my robotized machine projects.

The primary targets are;

• a mid 90s Phillips R&D robot that was stripped by someone from all motors and electronics but has most of the mechanical parts in place. What makes this project interesting is the conversion from 3 degrees of freedom (DOF) to 4 DOF and using it as a 'crane' for a DSLR camera to record videos, being able to give an alternate viewpoint while building something or making a stop motion time lapse series.
• My Roland PNC-3000 Tabletop milling machine that needs a few full days of work to get it into a working state. This machine deserves a fourth axis but I would settle for making parts in the 3 axis planes to start with.
• My home built portal mill is probably my longest running project I have. I consider it a robot but I have no specific challenges for it, except for finishing it!!! Then being able to mill alluminum parts that are up to 600mm by 400mm in size.
• My Cube 3d printer has the same fate as the portal mill. It took so much time to complete that the reason for building it has been long gone.

These are the projects that I will work on this year and hope to have most of them completed at the end of the year. I will write about the projects and what I run into.

Giving back to the community

What very often seems to be lacking when looking for a solution is a step by step guide to get from point A to Z. All the 'if I would have knowns' that I encountered I hope to be able to give back as blog post advise to the community.

Coming back to automate everything, I will also report on my progress in audio/visual automation and the road to success (or failure) making short video clips. So much for my good intentions for this year. Hope it will be a productive one ...