HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: protocom@DMI.USherb.CA (protocom-Laurent turcotte)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: looking for heathkit hero 1 or hero 2000
Date: 23 Jul 92 20:12:56 GMT
Organization: Universite de Sherbrooke -- departement de Mathematiques et d'Informatique


Does anyone know where I can purchase new or used Heathkit Hero robots

please reply to my e-mail address since I don't read the news that often.
-- 
Larry Turcotte                           Internet:protocom@dmi.usherb.ca
computer science student/consultant
consulting company:Protocom              Is there anybody out there.....
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: wongl@vccsouth18.its.rpi.edu (Lance Andrew Wong)
Subject: Ultrasonice Sensor
Reply-To: wongl@rpi.edu
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 04:10:25 GMT

I saw a message in this newsgroup about a commercially availible ultrasonic
sensor.  does anyone know/have that message or any other information about
that sensor?  thanks!

Keywords:
From: archive@arb.uucp (CARL  L  SAGE)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Non-Motor Linear Motion
Date: 26 Jul 92 19:49:56 EST
Organization: Not an Organization

  I recently recieved some information regarding "memory wires"
and their use to provide linear motion.These wires consist of strands
of an alloy of Nickel and Titanium refered to as either "Nitinol" or
"Flexinol".This substance contracts under electrical stimulation,much
like human neuro-muscular tissue.
  If anyone has any expirience with this material/technology,please e-mail 
me at the address below.
  Thanks.

"Any sufficiantly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
-Arthur C Clarke-
"It's kind of fun to do the impossible." -Walter Elias Disney-
C.L.Sage-Disney University(Class of '90)
jwt!arb!archive@peora.sdc.ccur.com     <INTERNET>
peora.sdc.ccur.com!jwt!arb!archive     <  UUCP  >
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: mds@iastate.edu (Mark D. Smucker)
Subject: Re: 6 legged beast
Organization: Iowa State University of Censorship and Repression
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 22:18:54 GMT

In article <1992Jul27.174110.5064@trantor.harris-atd.com> dwilliam@jabba.ess.harris.com (David Williams) writes:
>
>   Somehow I think I'm going to get flamed... "what?  I've got eight
>3" by 4" six-leggers munching on my ankles right now!  All are powered
>by watch batteries, and use a 4-bit processor!  You're an idiot"
>
>   Seriously, a six-legger that had been stripped down to reduce it's
>complexity seems like it would just not be that much fun to fiddle with.
>On the other hand, I couldn't come up with any mechanism for a six 
>legger with each leg having two degrees of freedom that wouldn't cost
>an arm and a ... leg?  (uuupppphhh!  pun not intended)
>

This is not a flame, but a reference to a really neat small six legged
robot. 

Reference 1: Brooks. Rodney A.
	     New Approaches to robotics
             Science v253  p1227-32 Sept 13 '91

	In this article there is a picture of Genghis, a six legged
robot and the caption reads:

	"Genghis is a six-legged robot measuring 35 centimeters in
	length. Each rigid leg is attached at a shoulder joint with
	two degrees of rotational freedom, each driven by a model
	airplane position controllable servo motor.  The sensors
	are pitch and roll inclinometers, two collision-sensitive
	antennae, six forward-looking passive pyroelectric infrared
	sensors, and a crude force measurements from the servo loops
	of each motor.  There are four onboard eight-bit
	microprocessors, three of which handle motor and sensor signals
	and one which runs the subsumption architecture."

There are many references in the article, some of which are specific
to Genghis.

Almost certainly, Genghis is not an ``inexpensive'' or ``stripped down''
robot, but it is impressive.
 
If I remember correctly, there is also a group at Case Western Univ. (
led by a Dr. Sterling? ) that has created a neural net that runs a six
legged cockroach.

Perhaps the six legged insect approach should be placed in the FAQ?

Mark D. Smucker   ----   mds@iastate.edu
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: micro-plungers
From: pun@cui.unige.ch (PUN Thierry)
Date: 21 Jul 92 11:08:43 GMT
Reply-To: pun@cui.unige.ch (PUN Thierry)
Organization: University of Geneva / Switzerland
Keywords: blind Braille compressed robots

In article <kkoehn.711581003@sfu.ca> kkoehn@fraser.sfu.ca (Kaari David Koehn) writes:
>For a possible challenge project, I'm thinking of a
>display device for the blind.  
>Don't laugh: my concept is a grid of small plungers that can be
>raised and lowered via computer control to show readable braille.

I worked on the computer vision aspects of a similar project in
1979-1982. At that time, there were quite a few papers describing
such output devices, with vibrating rods, electrical sensors, even
proposing direct stimulation of the visual cortex ...

A starting point could be: IEEE Trans. Biomedical Engineering,
Special Issue on Electronic aspects of modern prosthesis, 29, 4,
April 1982.

In my thesis, I also had collected quite a few references. It is
available (by regular mail).

Good luck! I hope you will succeed.

	Prof. Thierry Pun, Computer Vision Group
	Computing Science Center, U-Geneva
	12, rue du Lac, CH-1207 Geneva SWITZERLAND
	Phone: +41(22) 787 65 82; fax: +41(22) 735 39 05
	E-mail: pun@cui.unige.ch [or pun@cgeuge51.bitnet]
From: baylissb@topaz.ucq.edu.au
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: help wanted : programming UMI RTX robot
Date: 31 Jul 92 11:37:15 AET
Organization: University of Central Queensland, Australia


Hello,


i am tring to contact anyone who has experience in programming the UMI RTX 100
or any previous versions.  if so could you please contact me, as i am having
trouble with the protocol, and programs supplied, mainly due to poor
documentation.  

email address :: BAYLISSB@topaz.ucq.edu.au


thanks in advance











Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: rungun@sun-ra.rsip.lsu.edu (Ranganathan Ramanathan )
Subject: Re:my previous posting
Organization: Computer Science Dept., Tulane Univ., New Orleans, LA
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 14:49:33 GMT
Nntp-Posting-Host-[nntpd-13564]: parker.rsip.lsu.edu

Hi friends,

I am sorry that my previous posting had my node address in the from address.

The address it had was parker.rsip.lsu.edu, and mail posted to this will invariably bounce 
back.

Please mail replies to the newsgroup or  rungun@sun-ra.rsip.lsu.edu

thanks and sorry again for the mistake.

rungun

===============================
rungun@sun-ra.rsip.lsu.edu
csrang@sn01.sncc.lsu.edu
===============================
From: hb0t+@andrew.cmu.edu (Henry W. Borysewicz)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Robotics Labs
Date: 29 Jul 92 11:04:08 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.EeRiicm00h7bQE70RU
Organization: Sophomore, Social & Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

I would like to tap the vast source of knowledge, experience, and
expertise on the net for suggestions and comments on the best way to
implement the following project...

Carnegie Mellon University is in the process of putting together an
undergraduate / graduate student robotics lab.  It's purpose is to
provide the space and equipment for students to perform excersizes,
experiments, and assignments that will illustrate and reinforce concepts
learned in the classroom.

Areas of study will include control, manipulation, vision, AI, 
perception, and mobile robots.

In specific, I would like to hear about ...
	1. Descriptions of facilities
	2. Equipment recomendations
	3. Sources for equipment
	4. Overview or syllabus of the academic courses taught in the Lab
	5.  Recommended assignments and experiments for those courses
	6. Anything else I should consider
	7. Anything I should avoid

Does anyone operate or use such a facility?  How is it used?  What
courses are taught  there?  Are there any particular assignments and lab
excersizes that you can suggest? 

I appreciate ANY and ALL suggestions and information.

Thanks!

Henry Borysewicz
Robotics Edu. Lab.
Carnegie Mellon University
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: jak@cs.brown.edu (Jak Kirman)
Subject: Re: Climbing robots
Reply-To: jak@cs.brown.edu
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Brown University
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 02:35:29 GMT

At the 1991 IEEE Robotics and Automation conference, I saw a talk given
by J. Billingsley from Portsmouth Polytechnic (England).  The title was:
"Robug II: An intelligent wall climbing robot".

The robot used some type of suction cup and force-sensing feet to move
up walls.  It had been tried out on real buildings, and apparently did
pretty well.  It was pretty interesting, but more emphasis was placed on
the engineering aspects than the high level control considerations in
which I was more interested, so I don't remember all that much about it.
I could get the proceedings and send you a proper reference if you are
interested. 

                         Jak Kirman                        jak@cs.brown.edu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Every now and then when life gets complicated the only solution is to
load up on heinous chemicals and drive like a bastard from Hollywood to
Las Vegas.
                                                         -- Hunter Thompson
Xref: sparky comp.robotics:1458 sci.bio:2774
From: connolly@rabbit.cs.umass.edu (Christopher Ian Connolly)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics,sci.bio
Subject: Re: 6 legged beast
Date: 29 Jul 92 15:48:22 GMT
Followup-To: comp.robotics
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <1992Jul28.233010.11281@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> rwmurphr@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (Robert W Murphree) writes:
>I'm still waiting for the arthropod neurology textbook:
>
>   "Everything you need to know about insect brains and locomotion to
>     be a mobile roboticist"

From what I can tell, there is a great deal more a) interest in, b)
money for, and c) literature about mammalian nervous systems than
insect nervous systems. 

For instance, a recent issue of Neuroscience lists I think 2 or 3
articles dealing with insects, out of about 20 total.  The rest are
pretty much devoted to mammals (rats and cats, normally).  I haven't
actually done article counts in other journals like Brain or J.
Comparative Neurology, but at least in my wanderings, the majority
seem to be devoted to mammalian CNS. This isn't surprising, since
human neurological disorders are probably better studied through
mammals than through insects.
-- 
	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Christopher Ian Connolly			connolly@cs.umass.edu
Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics		wa2ifi
University of Massachusetts at Amherst		Amherst, MA 01003
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: petesk@microsoft.com (Pete Skelly)
Subject: Re: micro-plungers
Date: 21 Jul 92 04:25:56 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation
Keywords: blind Braille compressed robots

>In article <kkoehn.711581003@sfu.ca> kkoehn@fraser.sfu.ca (Kaari David Koehn) writes:
>>For a possible challenge project, I'm thinking of a
>>display device for the blind.  
>>Don't laugh: my concept is a grid of small plungers that can be
>>raised and lowered via computer control to show readable braille.
>>
>

You may want to try using vibrating pins.  I believe this has
been used successfuly in some systems already, but expanding
this field would be hightly useful.  I believe that the sense
of touch responds quite well to vibrations.

petesk@microsoft.com
From: mds@iastate.edu (Mark D. Smucker)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: Climbing robots
Date: 21 Jul 92 23:55:49 GMT
Organization: Iowa State University of Censorship and Repression

In article <1992Jul20.145557.26830@cs.hw.ac.uk> guanghua@cs.hw.ac.uk (Guanghua Zhang) writes:
>Does anybody know if there are any robots that can 
>walk/climb on walls, i.e. something like the spiderman ?

In an article the Smithsonian did on Dr. Rodney Brooks and others at
the MIT mobot lab, there was a picture of an undergraduate that had a
climbing robot.  

It looked like it was designed to climb smooth surfaces like glass
only.

If you would like, I'll find the article ( it's at home ) and send you
his name ( it was in the caption ).

Mark D. Smucker  ---  mds@iastate.edu
From: bleck@theta.ai.mit.edu (Olaf Bleck)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: 6 legged beast
Date: 29 Jul 92 20:45:35 GMT
Reply-To: bleck@ai.mit.edu
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

|> Yes Ghengis is neat, and I have alot of respect for the folks at MIT
|> who built it. 

|> However, it doesn't carry it's own power supply...

Actually, it did for a while--it had a few silver-zinc cells on it, but they
leaked potassium hydroxide all over Genghis one night while we were charging
them up.  Pretty caustic stuff...

-Olaf
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: pkenny@ADS.COM (Patrick Kenny)
Subject: Help!! Need to borrow robots!
Organization: Advanced Decision Systems, Mtn. View, CA (415) 960-7300
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 19:20:24 GMT

Can someone help me find robots!

The Tech Museum of Innovation is a hands on museum that displays advanced
technology to the general public. Similar to the Exploritorium in 
San Francisco.
There are six areas that the museum is currently exhibiting, these are;
Astronomy, Material Sciences, Bicycles, MicroElectronics, Biotechnology and
Robotics. The Museum is located in Downtown San Jose, Silicon Valley.

Every so often the Museum has fund raising events. This time they will be 
putting on a theatrical show. One part of the show will be to use some
industrial robots in a choreographed ballet. 

The problem I am faced with is that I need to find out where I can borrow some
robots to help put on the show. The person who is choreographing the show
is Margo Apostolos, she has about 10 years of experience doing this sort of
robot dance, but she does not have access to any robots. 

Generally, I would summarize the robot needs as follows:

1. Three or Four industrial robotic arms with teach pendants and computer.
2. Robots should have five or more degrees of freedom.
3. Robots should be electric.

The specific type of robots that I am looking for are PUMA 760 or 560,
U.S. Robot Maker 110 or 100, Robotics Research Corporation robots K1207 
or K2107. But any robot with the above constraints will work.

If any one can loan these types of robots, or knows somebody who can, please
send e-mail to pkenny@ads.com or call me (Partick Kenny) at 415-960-7537 or
(Dick King) at The Tech Center, 408-279-7167 to discuss this in more detail.

I would prefer that any robots be located in the Bay area, but that is not 
a limitation.

The relationship I have with the Tech Museum is that I volunteer my time
to help promote the technology amongst the people. This is not an advertisement
to go to the Tech Museum, but it is a lot of fun.

Thanks for any help or leads!
-pk (Patrick Kenny)

--
! -Patrick Kenny (pkenny@ads.com)    (Advanced Decision Systems)     !
! Ich bin ein Virus. Mach' mit und kopiere mich in Deine .signature. !
Newsgroups: comp.robotics,sci.engr.mech
From: dlabonte@morse.waterloo.edu (Daniel Labonte)
Subject: Robot Wrist Actuator
Organization: University of Waterloo
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 07:23:59 GMT

I am a fouth year computer engineering student currently working on a 
project which involves the design of a eucentric stage for a Scanning
Electron Microscope (SEM).  This stage will have full eucentric
(wrist type) movement; flexion, rotation plus standard linear 
positioning in X, Y and Z planes.  A computer will control the stage.

I came across a book by M.E Rosheim titled Robot Wrist Actuators.
Studying the different models presented I concluded that the wrist
component should be a Pitch-Yaw-Roll type wrist. In his book
Rosheim talks about the Robot Wrist Actuator and the Compact
Wrist Actuator he invented.  Also introduced is the Omni-Wrist.

I think I can base my design on one of these three models.
At this point in the project I am still studying kinematics and 
thermodynamics (the stage is located in a vacuum chamber) and
preparing a feasibility report (detailed with model, operating
specs...).

What I need to know 
     Are there any manufacturers that commercially produce and 
     sell one of these wrists? I am not interested in the entire arm
     assembly but just the wrist. The name Ross-Hime Designs was
     mentionned to me.  

     What are the price range for the different models?

     Where can I obtain mechanical drawings and design specifications?

Thanks in advance for the info.

Daniel Labonte
dlabonte@sunee.uwaterloo.ca
From: rwmurphr@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (Robert W Murphree)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: Correlation devices for measuring velocity
Date: 21 Jul 92 20:23:27 GMT
Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

mvr@mlb.dmt.csiro.au (Vaughan Roberts) writes:

>I am interested in getting information on correlation devices which
>are used for measuring velocity.  I believe that they have been used for
>some time for measuring the velocity of cars by looking at the road surface
>at two points a fixed distance apart and performing an correlation between
>the two signals to provide an estimate of the time.
>I believe there might be product called something like Corrovit available
>commercially.  Has anyboby used such a device, or know who makes one?

A group at the mechanical engineering department at Georgia tech made
an optical correlator for usage in mobile robotics.  I believe it is
reported in the SPIE conference Mobile Robots III.              

Incidently, it was never actually sold-Industry wasn't interested at
the time.  It was developed as an alternative to odometry.
Supposedly it was potentially quite accurate.
From: sphillip@nyx.cs.du.edu (Steven Phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Computer controlled robot
Date: 21 Jul 92 06:11:59 GMT
Distribution: den
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix @ U. of Denver Math/CS dept.


Hello all, I was wondering if I could get some prices on small hobbie type
computer controlled robots that I can hook up to my 286 computer and
control through software commands with out haveing to learn a programming
language of some sor?
From: verdier@aar.alcatel-alsthom.fr (Franck Verdier)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Looking for geometric algorithms on polygons
Date: 29 Jul 92 07:34:32 GMT
Reply-To: verdier@aar.alcatel-alsthom.fr ()
Organization: Alcatel Alsthom Recherche (Marcoussis)


Does anybody know where I can find C source code (on a ftp site) about
geometric algorithms on polygons ?

The polygons may be non convex, may have holes, may be only lines or
points and even may be non connected (may consist of several disjoint
polygons).

The algorithms must perform the following geometric manipulations:
	- symetric
	- complementary
	- union
	- intersection
	- geometric sum (Minkowski sum)

Thank you in advance for any information.


===================================================================
Franck du Verdier
ALCATEL ALSTHOM RECHERCHE, Route de Nozay, 91460 Marcoussis, FRANCE
Tel: 33 (1) 64 49 15 73  Fax: 33 (1) 64 49 06 95
Email: verdier@aar.alcatel-alsthom.fr
===================================================================
From: OCONNELLWR@VTCC1.CC.VT.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Newbi Question
Date: 21 Jul 1992 22:57:54 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu
X-Unparseable-Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 23:57:32 -0400 (EDT)

$ Run NewbiNews.exe
Loading NewbiNews....
Welcome to NewbiNews, the latest in anti-flame news-readers for the
Newbi who has everything but doesn't want scorch marks on it!
NewbiNews (tm) v1.3
System check...
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All systems operational at 100%!

> Post to comp.robotics
Status being raised from:   Alert level 5
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Status message: Alert level is now at 1
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All systems armed;  Posting is now safe.

>	I am not a professional programmer, nor will I be if someone out
> there on the net sends me $50,000.  Nonetheless, a news item percolated
> to the front of my consciousness and I was interested in following
> it up.
>	A while ago (more than a month, I think) I saw a clip on NBC news
> about engineers/scientists at MIT (?) building a flying robot that
> worked through carefully controlled blasts of compressed air.
>	Is there an article in a journal that gives a "fuzzy" treatment
> of the design?  I am but a Junior at Va Tech majoring in Math and
> Physics with a minor in CS, so an article crammed full of circuit
> diagrams is useless.
> 					Thanks in advance,
>					Richard O'Connell
>					Va Tech
^Z
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Thank you for using NewbiNews (tm) !



{For anyone who is interested, _this_ is how you make a humorous
post.  But the question is serious.}
From: kevins@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Kevin Stanton)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: Fluxgate compass
Date: 23 Jul 92 18:04:55 GMT
Article-I.D.: pdxgate.5929
Organization: Portland State University, Portland, OR

In article <pwgxncm@rpi.edu> weisee@aix.rpi.edu (Elizabeth A. Weise) writes:
>In article <l53rt7INNhbk@news.bbn.com> koolish@BBN.COM (Richard M. Koolish) writes:
>>
>>Has anybody had any experience with any kind of machine readable compass?
>
>I found that Radio Shack was discontinuing their automotive compass, which
>uses fluxgate technology. Not worth $50 as a toy, but for the $30 or so
>closeout price, I found the last two in about 5 stores around me... one for
>a guy at work. Looks like it shouldn't take much more effort to make it
>interfacable, and I think I've heard about an article in Radio Electronics
>describing how to do that, though I haven't seen the article.
>
>-- tom moeller, under the guise of
>-- 
>****************************************************************************
>Beth Weise / PhD Student / Dept. of Language, Literature, & Communication
>Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute / Troy, New York
>Weisee@rpi.edu / Beth_Weise@mts.rpi.edu

Yes it is pretty straight forward.  Inside there is a dual op-amp (I don't
recall the part number) which is used to drive the coils to point the front
dial.  The two outputs are 90 degrees out of phase (find the heading by taking
the atan2(x,y) of the signals) and swing from about 2 to 6 volts, though the
levels change linearly with the calibration knobs on the side.  Your only
concern then, is reading the analog values into the computer.  I
normalized the x,y values so they each had a range of +-1, though I'm not
so sure why I did it now...

Good luck,
	Kevin
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Kevin B. Stanton			Internet: kevins@eecs.ee.pdx.edu
Portland State University		Dept. of Electrical Engineering
(503) 725-5422				Box 751, Portland, Oregon  97207
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: zelek@macondo.mcrcim.mcgill.edu (John S. Zelek)
Subject: request for behavior simulation software
Organization: McGill Research Centre for Intelligent Machines
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 92 15:44:36 GMT

re: behavior based mobile robot simulators

Does anyone out there have simulation software for experimenting
with mobile robot behaviors, using approaches like Brook's
subsumption architecture.  Is there any public domain 
software that allows visualization of the emergence of the
collection of simple behaviors?
If you have any information with regards to these topics,
please send me e-mail.  I can provide a list of available
software, to those that are interested, if I get any responses.

please reply to:	zelek@mcrcim.mcgill.edu

-- 
===============================================================================
John Zelek       		McGill Research Centre for Intelligent Machines
zelek@mcrcim.mcgill.ca          McGill University, Montreal
===============================================================================