DanShope.com: January 2009

Friday, January 23, 2009

Project SIGMO: Humanoid Robot

As you may have noticed, a few projects went live in the robotics playground this week. My pet project, SIGMO (synthetic intelligent mobility), an efficient humanoid robot, is one of those projects.

SIGMO uses a so-called passive dynamic design to accomplish bipedal walking. Instead of using motors to govern the kinematics of each joint, some joints are passive and thus energy is conserved. Walking is a complicated process but is largely controlled by mechanics inherent to the system.

A properly designed mechanism can thus walk with little power, getting closer to the walking efficiency of the homosapien. Robots like ASIMO consume lots of power to move around, whether they are walking on level ground, downhill, or up stairs. A passive dynamic robot is most efficent when walking downhill, requires a little more input when walking on level ground, and for the most part can never walk up stairs.

It's my goal to find a balance between the two -- essentially using two or more modes of locomotion. The motorized system rides along during flat and level walking, and engages only when directed power is needed -- such as in the event of stairs, uneven terrain, or if the robot is falling.

So far I am designing the new skeletal structure, a test bed of sorts, for the new components I will be adding shortly. The "old" SIGMO was a short (<2feet>

SIGMO 2.0 will retain this funcionality, add some more DOF, and still have room for the electronics box and power supply. The method of accomplishing this is to upsize the robot, which has always been a goal of the project. The new robot will be more lifesize -- it should be slightly taller than ASIMO, closer to 5 feet. I'm not sure on the exact size yet, but it will be several times larger than the existing model.

You can check out the project's humble beginnings at the robotics playground website.

Labels: robot, robotics playground, UPDATE

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Monday, January 19, 2009

Organizing Site Content Effectively

In an earlier post I discussed the balance that must be struck between template driven design and full on user-creativity. Below is the strategy employed by the robotics playground, which provides an array of templates to get you started on organized project documentation, fast.

General Layout
This layout encompasses all general publishing needs. The layout is flexible and allows you to document your project as you see fit. Use it to create unique layouts and present novel ideas.

History

The project history layout incorporates elements specific to documenting your project’s progress over time. Use it like a journal in realtime and get updates published to your project’s home page!

Meet the Team

Create a members page where viewers can meet the members of your team. Who knows, it could be a great way to get a job offer or put a plug in for your website/blog.

Materials/Parts List

One of the least actively documented facets of a project is purchasing. A few months or years from now you probably won't remember what's in a particular project without tearing it apart. Avoid the hassle and allow others to reproduce the awesomeness you created!

Assembly Instructions

The cousin of the parts list, assembly instructions can prove vital to continuing projects. Popular projects will encourage future development from other members by providing some instructions for reproduction. It's a great way to involve the community.

Frequently Asked Questions

A great way to involve users interested in your project is to provide a question and answer area where they can quickly learn background and supporting information about the technologies you use in your project..

These are just a few of the templates that allow you to create site content. There's more where they came from, and based on your suggestions I'm sure we'll create more. Again with the balance, there won't be so many templates that it's hard to choose between 2, or too many to look at...!

What templates would you like to see/use?

Labels: news, roborchestra, robotics playground, SIGMO, UPDATE

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Update: Robotics Playground Templates

The last few weeks have been focused on getting the robotics playground up and running for the beta testers. A big part of configuring the system is deciding how to organize and deliver the user content.

On one hand, we can take the MySpace approach and give users nearly free reign to post whatever they want. This is good, because it allows creativity and novel presentation of design. The bad thing is, general 'net users don't create very compelling designs -- even if you know what looks good/bad, you aren't always motivated to create good design.

Enter the Facebook/LinkedIn approach -- novel content, "strict" layout. This is good because it allows people to post content without requiring much effort in design. It appeals to a different but broader set of users.

The DanShope.com Robotics Playground paradigm finds somewhat middle ground. The software will provide some basic templates that expose targeted functionality for different facets of project documentation. There is also a more general template that allows for some level of customization.

While this is in no way a new concept, our approach feels very hands off while guiding the design elements into an aesthetically pleasing form. This balance is something that must be considered at both the user interface and the back end/supporting software phases of development.

If the platform is too restrictive, it doesn't inspire users to post their creative content -- but if it's too loose, viewers en masse might find it displeasing to hunt out information and won't feel comfortable on the site.

I'll be posting more about these templates shortly.

Labels: DanShope, roborchestra, robotics, SIGMO, UPDATE

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Sunday, January 18, 2009

I'm Back!

So, I sort of went on hiatus for a while over winter break. Now the new semester has started and I'm back with high-high-high speed internet versus that painful dialup connection at home.

I vow to start posting some new stuff again! My big focus for the past few weeks has been the robotics playground -- there are two sample projects to check out right now in the robotics section. I'm pretty happy with the layout so far and the design is fundamentally about information delivery.

That means form follows functionality, which for most website content, is a must. If you have any feedback on the design, let me know and I'll see what I can do! The robotics playground can't get off the ground without user feedback, so I'm all for lists of pros & cons!

d out.

Labels: refresh, returning, starting anew

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