It has been a really long time since I posted anything (and maybe longer since posting anything interesting).

Work has been really, really busy including a number of evenings at home to finish up the day’s efforts. I’ve been busy with planning the start of a new version for the Sophos Web Appliance. The successful launch of version 2.0 in January caused a fair amount of new investment in the product line. So time for robots and other hobbies has pretty much been suspended because of that, which explains why the Joint Strike Minisumo project hasn’t progressed any further.

Eileen and I have recently seen two movies worth mentioning though: In Bruges and The Other Boylen Girl.

In Bruges is basically the same type of film as Pulp Fiction, except it is set in Europe and has a strong European flair (and without the great dance contest). It is a really well-made film starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes and probably a bunch of other great actors I didn’t recognize. It was shot in the fantastic city of Bruges in Belgium, and we recognized quite a few scenes (we’ve been to Bruges probably six or seven times or so from the time when we lived in Brussels).

The Other Boylen Girl is quite different. We debated the film quite a bit and I’d say that the set decorating and costumes were the best part. The script follows the historical facts quite closely but is generally an uninspired tale. The film plods along without a strong central storyline. I’d still recommend seeing it though but don’t get too excited – it isn’t quite the same scale as Elizabeth.

The one bright note for my robotics hobby is that I’ve finally invested in a CNC set-up for my Sherline mill. I decided on a package from Xylotex. I’m still waiting for it to arrive in the mail but when it does I’ll document the conversion, including the Sherline CNC conversion package. I haven’t purchased software yet but I’m strongly leaning towards Mach3. I really like the g-code generator wizards for common operations.

I’ve started work on a new minisumo robot. Unlike all of my other projects, this one is a collaboration between a Danish fellow and myself. He and I have never met in person but we found a common interest in building a new, faster design via the online forum Minisumo.Org.UK.

My first part (the brass wheels) is now complete and I’ll be sending them through the mail to my collaborator. He has already finished his first part (aluminum side panels) and sent them to me. It has been very interesting to build a robot this way, we’ll see how it comes out when we are done.

Since this is a collaborative project I decided to document my machining in greater detail than I’ve done in the past for The Thin Man. I wanted to create a “photo tutorial” that would be simple enough for anyone with a little machining experience could follow and create their own parts for this same minisumo design. Feedback about whether this captures enough detail for you to make your own parts is welcome. Any future parts I make will also be documented in a similar way, making it easy for people to “clone” my work if they would like to.

I just finished uploading some more photos of the most recent minisumo project The Thin Man. You can see the whole project here.

This was one of my more ambitious projects and I’m really pleased with how it turned out. There is more work to do though. I’ve got to find a new, stronger battery that will still fit in the same form factor as the original one is just too weak for the latest GM11 motors I installed.

And I will probably make a new circuit board, those wire patches just look too ugly and I want to improve the layout of the line sensors and will probably raise the forward-looking sensors slightly.

And I really, really need to write some good software for it. I never did figure out what was wrong with the sensors at Robothon, but I’m sure its a software problem.

Hope you find the project as interesting as I did. The next likely competition I will enter will be the Western Canadian Robot Games, typically held in May every year in Calgary. I went out there this past May (pictures here) and had a great time but next year I will have a really cool minisumo to show off!

My latest minisumo project, The Thin Man, is coming along nicely. The two slots in the front scoop will hold sensors and behind that is a small cavity for the electronics and li-poly battery.

I’m going to have to put in some extra hours this coming week, as I’ve only got ONE WEEK LEFT until Robothon. It’s going to be very, very close but I think I’ll make it.

Check out the new pictures here and let me know what you think.

I uploaded more pictures of my latest mini sumo robot project The Thin Man this morning. It’s coming along quite nicely. At this point there are two major milling operations still required: remove the material where the wheels will go, and remove the material from the bottom where the circuit board, sensors and batteries will go.