adventures in making stuff with Daniel Higginbotham

Robots!

14 July 2008

I've been learning more about electronics, in part to get a ground-up understanding of computers. In the process I've become interested in learning to build robots.

My first attempt at building a robot, about 8 years ago, wasn't really successful. I was in high school and I wanted to build a robot that would turn off my light switch across the room because at night I would read in bed, and when I was done I didn't want to have to get up to turn off the light. So I got my mom to buy me Lego Mindstorms one Christmas and put together a robot, and it would just run into the wall and fall apart. I tried a little more and kept getting the same result, so I just said "fuck it" and I bought a lamp to put beside my bed. Incidentally, that's still how I approach problems most of the time.

Anyway, one thing I'd like to make is a little wristband with an LCD (like a digital watch) displays random words throughout the day. After that, a robot parrot which repeats words it hears often. It'll have Barry White's voice.

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