NortHACKton

Over the weekend I hit the next goal of actually constructing that paper model to see if it would assemble correctly. There were a few minor issues and I learnt some useful things about where tabs should/shouldn’t be placed. I’ll go back and move a few things around and probably scale it up again for the next version of the paper model. The eyes were way too small to make so this version of the model is eyeless, other than that is was a very successful attempt.
Full size photos can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/msraynsford/NortHACKtonSpider# but I’ve added a teaser photobelow.

Spider Bot

The votes are in and counted and Jonathon Turners Spiderbot was the most popular of all the entries. So congratulations to him. The Spider design will make an impressive and imposing bot when scaled up to the full size and will hopefully create a talking point wherever we end up taking it.

I’ve already begun assembly and the conversion process to a paper model. For anyone that is interested in following along and working out how this will all go together you can download the paper cut from the following link. Consider this a draft, page 7 doesn’t need to be printed at all and you’ll quickly see that the boxes on page 6 are pretty wonky too. It’s still quite a good exercise in the conversion process and I already found half a dozen things I would change in the pattern from cutting out 2 parts.

https://sites.google.com/site/msraynsford/SpiderbotSeperated.pdf

Finally I’d like to say a very big thank you to all the people that entered designs into this competition, it wouldn’t have been a competition without you and stay tuned, we may have some more news for you once I’ve had a discussion with NortHACKton on Wednesday.

Thanks to all who entered into the competition, we’re going to close it as of now and we will try to get back to you all asap with the results. In the meantime perhaps you’d like to enjoy some of the other amazing robot designs that can be found here http://conceptrobots.blogspot.com/

Very last thing last night I received a competition entry from Christopher Burman. His Promo bot covers everything we requested in a bot and also encapsulates the spirit of the competition, suggesting maker type ways we could actually make it functional. A great entry here with style and design and from a technical viewpoint the extra legs for stability make it rather practical too.

Perhaps we should call this the Jonathon designs a robot competition? He has really got the hang of shapes we can build and is putting them to good use. Although I think I see some repeated parts in today’s entry from him. A 4 arm bot, proving that robots can be more versatile than humans, just by having more appendages.

A combination of late posting from me and late delivery of  images (not that we’re going to complain about that) means that today’s entry from Jonathon nearly didn’t make it today. Here they are though, another impressive and interesting design, 3 separate bots to form a 10ft tall stack, a very nice idea.

Jonathon is back again and he’s producing some top quality designs. I like this design from functional point of view, it incorporates the boxes that we intend to make the bot from as part of the robot (it being designed to carry boxes around). From a construction view point I could see the legs folding down into the previous leg section making long legs fit nicely in the back of a vehicle. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with tomorrow

Jonathon Turner just keeps coming with the surprises. This time he has produced a gorilla type robot. A massive design of this kind would certainly create a nice talking point. It’d be a complicated design but we’re up for a challenge. Jonathon says he’s also working on another design but with only 4 days left he better be quick.

Only a week left to run on the competition and things are a little quiet around here. I’m hoping for a flurry of activity in the last week but I’ve never been that optimistic really so it was quite a suprise when I found this little entry in my inbox this morning.

The design comes from Jonathon Turner, no associated email or details, just the goods. I like the chunky nature of the bot. At 10ft tall this guy would prove quite an intimidating figure but the complete lack of weaponry also indicates it could be for heavy lifting or industrial work so rather unagressive at the same time.

Today’s entry comes in the form of a much more family friendly bot and has been entered into the competition by Beeftor and Johnky5.

It’s called Vector and it’s a recycling robot with paper shredder mouth and a large recycling compartment. The original sketch was done in photoshop and the 3d model created in sketch up. It’s great to see entrants coming in with 3D models already it gives us a real idea of what a cardboard model would like like from all angles.