ProtoAndroid and Miscellaneous Robofest Progress Report 3/8/94
By David Santos / Robot Group

For simplicity Robofest planners lumped several activities under the ProtoAndroid (PA) Project tag. These includes old staples like Pit Bull, Varmint, Bipedal Onithopter, and the endless PA struggle, plus new stuff described below.

Programmers Tim O'Leary and Mike Wren have joined the PA personaeware effort. Gil, Tim, and I continue to expand the FaceSpace interface using FoxPro
to define logic and store the voluminous multimedia objects. Mike has been hunting down a long list of valuable resources and has made possible the
purchase of a Pentium PC to run FaceSpace in "realtime".

Austin Integrated Systems (AIS) has started funnelling advanced pneumatics to the project salvaged from their operations. So far 40 valves have been donated,
some of which are needed for PA. Excess valves are available for other Robot Group projects. AIS says that salvage cylinders are coming soon. It won't be
long before AIS's generosity adds up to thousands of dollars of savings to group projects. PA requires a network of almost 100 valves.

PA welding and machine work has been slow over the winter but is gearing up for display at Robofest. James and David Perez will be putting in the hours.
Overall construction will be about 70% complete. Ed Gonzales is interested in working towards the design and fabrication of PA's Hands. Several other RGers are
talking to him to provide input. Construction is a post-Robofest task.

A letter was recently sent to National Instruments asking for LabView software and add-on boards. A favorable response is likely. LabView is going to provide
us a complimentary vehicle for evaluation of control schemes compared with the microcontroller stuff we're used to. A potential hybrid solution is to create
LabView virtual instrument drivers for microcontroller modules. The new Pentium will allow us to see how "unrotten" LabView's performance can be.

Gerald Knight is visiting Robofest from Idaho and will be sharing his skills in animatronic skins and vacuum molded carapaces. Gerald fills a key gap in our
android building toolkit.

Rich Walsh is visiting from Colorado. He is the backer for the Martial Arts Robot being developed by Robot Groupers as an outside venture. Norm has
provided drafting of the Kickbot for the Robot group coloring book. Brooks is working on a full scale version of the arms for demo at Robofest.

Vidcall donated its software for video/audio/shared workspace communications over networks. It looks like Carlos was right about the difficulties of arranging a
robot telepresence link with Russian Roboticists but there's still 3 weeks til Rfest. Sprint pulled their uplink out of St. Petersburg but is otherwise supportive of a
stunt. Russian video equipment is almost nonexistent or incompatible. Video digitizers are not available and mercilessly taxed at the border. Mike has located
some sharp individuals in St. P who are becoming part of a Virtual Company that provides programming and other services.

The Counter-Intuitive Airforce to fly again- George Parks is reworking the Bipedal Ornithopter flight system. Due to an oversight in the first rebuild, for the last
two years the airship has only been capable of left turns, although this has been inconspicuous due to careful flying. The Flying Sphere will be displayed sporting a
new engine. A new flight videotape may be on display. Brooks reports that he has upgraded the thrusters on his Shark Blimp.

Enough for now.

dave

Thanks for flying PolyCosmos. Join us again.