Robotic Priest Post

I saw this today on a blog called Ration Reality and couldn't resist posting it here...

When I was a child, someone showed me the Chicago Bulls logo, upside down, and pointed out that it was, in fact, a robot sitting on a park bench reading the bible. My little mind was blown. 20 plus years later, I look at the logo and no longer see the bull. Just an upside down robot priest…

You, dear reader, have seen the proselyting robot menace, haven’t you?

I’ve made an art to clarify the danger we face:

I prefer to think of "it" as standing at the altar. Pretty funny, huh?

The Path of Innovation

Last night, I was sending a message to erco, one of my Parallax Forum buddies. I used the term Robotier, which is misspelled and misused because that is actually the level on the Love Boat specifically for robots. It should be spelled Roboteer (like muska- or mouseka-).

Later I wondered - Is that a commonly used term? Perhaps it should be added to the robotic vocabulary. Was I perhaps the unique person to coin the term? Could it be that I would find a nitch the the history of robotics?

I wrote erco back to see if he had ever heard the term used. Then, I decided to google it...

Never mind... See - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roboteer Crap! Its hard to be an innovator.

P.S. I really do like this term, even though somebody else thought it up and gets the credit in the great and storied history of my beloved hobby.

Just for Fun...

Stingray with Pings)))

Here is the latest picture of my Stingray Robot. I have added three Ping))) detectors and three rack handles for bumpers (like Parallax's Chris Savage did on his prototype). Parallax has a kit to do this (less the rack handles) and you can see it here. A video is also at this link.

The test code that I am using is giving me some problems and I haven't figured it out yet. The left motor spins in reverse when it should go forward. Some people are correcting this by reversing the connections, but I want to understand what is going on first. I will post my own video of it roaming when I get it working.

Update: I have it working now! I've made a lot progress understanding the code and how it works. Thanks to all the Parallax Forum members who helped! Video will follow...

Louisiana Tech Robotics' Club

The Louisiana Tech Robotics' Club is up and running and off to a good start this year. Their new blog can be found here and will include meeting times, activities and other info.

I tryed to attend these meetings last year, but the meeting schedule was irregular and so I only made a couple. I hope they have a great year! I also hope that  I can make some of the meetings too. I know I can learn a lot!