Somthing to talk about.

[I D Miller]

This is a spin off on what's your age post.

I wanted to talk about what is everyone's experience with robots. Your back ground what kind of work you did or still do. How it has influenced your life your designs? You don't have to post if you are not comfortable delving into your life on a public forum.

[I D Miller]

I'm 28 years old. In that time I have seen and done alot that some people will never experience. I'll start with saying that I love science I've always dreamed of being a bio chemist and solving the worlds hunger and racism problems by incorporating plant dna wiht our own human dna. Food from the sun and everyone is green. What a better way to live huh? Anyway. First mechanical job was working in a photo center at walmart. in that time i learned electronics and the importance of micro measurements. at that time in my life i though a mm was precision. I learned so much that I made my hobby a business building custom pc's which i learned at 13 when super fast was a 33 mhz and that was almost 3 thousand dollars. and i remember when computers didn't have multimedia capability and sound was a series of beeps :). Witht hat knowledge i steped into the fiber optic and learned fork lifts and machines that spool the cable so working on all the equipment facinated me. Thats when i got an offer to become an osha inspector for an over head crane company. I told them i was scared of heights they said no problem we can work with you. well after my first job i was no longer afraid of heights though i still have a fear of ladders which is odd. I've worked on the underside of cranes that a lift could not get to and you had to wear body harnesses with 4 pt tie off's 300 and 500 ton cranes are amazing and elevators cable and gear racked. Well the company folded and i went and learned a new skill grinding working a t a tapered roller bearing company. This being a blast to learn standards and realising that there was a new tolerance in my life and it was the thousandth:) no longer a mm. I was offered a few years later to work for a company that works on steam turbines. i jumped at that. I worked in 2 power plants and then went to pull data cable systems in the north east at naval and marine facalities. I am now working back doing the turbines i think that form of mechanical thought labor is what i'm here for. All of my jobs have put me in places to experience machines and mechinism that otherwise most people would never know existed. They are constantally influencing my life and designs every time i see a new piece of quipment.


Also I left out an important part of my life. My childhood. My father was a mechanic for his younger years and later became a nuculear engeneer. So i was always surrounded by mechanical objects and watching my dad who as well as i have add must be taking something apart or fidgeting with something in our hands.

my bots reflect some of the items i see that intregue me.

[Rover]

As I mentioned with the age post, I'm 30. I've got degrees in aviation electronics (avionics) and aviation maintenance and currently work in the aviation industry. I've always had an interest in robotics even as a kid but I've never pursued it. When I saw the Winter issue of Robot at Books A Million, I bought and am now I'm hooked and would like to get into the hobby side of it. I would like to see the hobby side become just as popular as rc aviation.

[Kevin Berry]

Well in my real life I don't do much with robots as such. I do happen to have the best job in the world, tho. I work at Kennedy Space Center on the Shuttle, Station, and now the new Constellation programs. I've been on all the Orbiters (including Enterprise, Challenger and Columbia), sat in the firing room for a launch, work with former and current astronauts sometimes, and especially the totally incredible people who make it all go. Today I happened to spend time in the Space Station Processing Facility, with the Japanese, European, and American modules and trusses. Let me tell ya its PD cool to turn on NASA Select or even the network news and see a bracket, cable, camera, or whole payload I worked on when it was on the ground a few weeks before.

Outside my day job I write for Robot Magazine, Servo, a local newspaper; coach Odyssey Of The Mind & soccer; do home improvement projects (rather badly); and build & fight combat R/C machines. I also read a lot of SF, military history, and study the politically hot areas of the world (just finished A Year On China); and clean up dog poop. I also have two books half written. I expect to start my third first-half of a book soon. Then a fourth first-half ...

I also like long walks on the beach, sunsets, and am a Virgo. Sorry, that last line just seemed to follow.

[dporter]

It has been interesting to see what kind of background people have. Thanks for starting this thread.

As far as for myself, I am a high school science teacher. I have taught for 14 years now. While I agree that working at NASA would be a terrific job, teaching science has had some perks too.

Over the years I have a chance to write grants and be involved in all kinds of projects. I have built and raced solar powered bikes with my students. I had the opportunity to race solar cars across the United States with college teams as a judge/observer and I’ve coached science Olympiad, robotics and aerospace teams with my students. A few years ago I even had the opportunity to apply to NASA to be an Educator Astronaut teacher. While I didn’t get selected as an astronaut, I have had the chance to go to Johnson, Kennedy, Ames and Glenn centers. As part of NEAT (Network of Educator Astronaut Teachers), I have had the chance to try out new software and be involved in engineering challenges and research projects. During my spring break this year, I even get the chance to go on a research expedition in the Mojave. We’ll be doing some astrobiology research on microbes in desert conditions and develop experiments that might someday be used by rovers on Mars to look for life.

All in all, I feel very lucky, and look forward to each new opportunity.

[Auckland Neil]

You guys make me feel OLD (^_^)

I am 46 and I have been working in IT and electromechanical engineering - what we now call mecahtronics - since I left college.

I grew up in England, took a degree in mechanical engineering and started work in the induction-heating industry - using radio-frequency magnetic fields to heat steel for hardening/tempering/annealing and suchlike - mainly components for the car industry.

At that time the machines used in the process were very dumb - controlled by micro-switches and relay logic or maybe early PLCs. This was when robots were making their way into car-assembly. I thought it would be cool to have a robotic hardener, but there was no way we could afford to buy one and the induction application machines were slow and had no loads to speak of - so I didn't need the bandwidth of a normal CNC system. So I hacked a small PLc that used a Z80 processor, using my Sinclair Spectrum (anyone remember them?) and lashed something up. It was very cheap. It worked OK.

Things evolved over time, the systems got better, my hacks got less messy and I ended up building laser-cutting machines and other things of that kidney - then got head-hunted by a machine manufacturer to do machine 'concept design' and marketing of bespoke machine tools going into flow-line manufacture - which was fun. The systems used CNC/SPC/SCADA systems and so-on. Fieldbus was just coming in then and that was cool. You cannot conceive how much wire that type of machine used to contain before FIP and profibus came along. Digital servos were a big advance too.

Around then I joined the IEE as a Production Engineer - now the IET - and ended up as a Chartered Electrical Engineer. Just goes to show - there really is only one sort of engineering (the sort that works!)

I then married a Kiwi and emigrated to New Zealand and worked as an engineering consultant for a few years (tedious) before joining a company doing plasma cutting. Six years later we have a couple of Trumpf cutting lasers and a CIM system I put together and maintain. It uses an expert profile quoting database, some middleware to feed won orders through to the ERP system and a CAM system database, a finite-capacity shop scheduler, an expert nesting console to allow just-in-time nesting at the machines and a few other tricks. The CIM system makes a lot of money - life is good.

Cheers

Neil Hawkes

[dutch]

ID Miller, your link at the bottom is broken as of 7:47 9/16/07

[Taerzik]

I should be busy writing MySQL queries right now but, well...
Anyway, I'm in my early 20s, don't have much in the way of experience, but I used to play with legos, technique (sp?), erector sets, etc. and i used to tear apart anything electronic or mechanical to examine it - never managed the re-assembly though. That's where a little of my constructive exp. comes from - add in that my mother imparted artsy-crafty exp and that I'm accustomed to picking up new technical knowledge w/out formal assistance.

I was one of those dangerous little kids that didn't just think aircraft and lasers and nuclear reactors were cool, but wanted to try building one, in the living room - and might have succeeded (to my own injury I'm sure) if my parents hadn't refused to let me... that was around 4 years of age. I used to mix house-hold chemicals just to see what would happen - no I never managed to mix the ammonia and bleach together - thankfully.

Anyway, that should give you an idea of how my brain works. Thankfully the only contraptions I've succeeded at so far were a couple hand-crafted bows, but I've got plenty of future left to burn, if the Lord tarries that is.

Given my lack of experience, I'm starting closer to my realm of understanding (mechanics)- I've acquired an RSV1 (not much of challenge...) and intend to entirely redesign it, starting with the leg structure and how it operates and ending with...??? Eventually, I'd like to complete a working flight-capable humanoid design that requires minimal human maintenance. I know my dreams of the finished form are waaaay out there, but technology progresses further each year and slowly but surely, the pieces of the puzzle are coming together.

I'd spell out my planned future but my opinions of what lies ahead always seem to be either entirely wrong or at least not when I anticipated.