Re: Trash-Bot

["Steve Moulding" <fti1983@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Bill Kearney" <wkearney99@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:vMqdnZg8YZ7Ta03eRVn-iw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> > My suggestion is that your idea's stupid.
>
> Or more that your posting is stupid.  I mean, really, why be such an ass
> about it?
>
>> Not all us Americans are fat...  some are disabled and can't walk, so
>> this
>> device could be quite useful.  The problems are that you need a buried
> wire
>> or some means of guiding it, or an expensive differential GPS system.
>> The
>> thing has got to know where it is, and you can't do it by dead reckoning.
>> Another problem is that the unit might get thrown away with the trash, or
>> that someone would steal it.  Also, if a baby is lying on the ground in
>> front if it, and its litigious mother is nearby watching, are you
> confident
>> you'll remain financially solvent?  All these are common problems to
> robots
>> you send away on errands and expect to come back.
>
> You could hack the brains out of one of those robotic lawn mowers.  I
> don't
> recall them needing buried wire.  Likewise a radar sensor could deal with
> unexpected obstructions.  Even machine vision would work. Since it's
> following a regular track it'd be simple comparison against a known-clear
> path, not actual pattern recognition.
>
> Dealing with someone stealing it isn't technological, but some sort of
> "I'm
> too far from my base station, scream like a banshee" feature might be
> entertaining.  Heh, have it scream "help, help, I've been stolen from..."
> and start frantically running it's drive wheels.
>
> Hmmm, if they're cheap enough one of those robo-mowers might indeed be a
> cool starting point.  Teach it to traverse a fake lawn path and then hack
> it
> onto something with enough drive motor horsepower to move the weight.
>
> You could start the experiment by building the cart and using a radio
> controlled car circuit to operate it manually.  Prove that the drive
> hardware works and then cobble up the brain for doing it automagically.
> Hmm, an R/C car design using a gas motor and some sort of battery operated
> starter would probably get around the rather hefty battery requirements
> that
> moving several cans of trash might require.
>
> -Bill Kearney
>

"....scream like a banshee...." reminds me of a problem we once had in a
medical
center setting.  The facility consisted of multiple buildings spread over a
wide
campus area, and were essentially freely open to the public.  Thieves kept
stealing
tv sets from various locations, and security was unable to patrol open areas
effectively (this was before the advent of camera surveillance and other tv
security devices).  We decided to install a sonalert in series with a 9v
battery,
a tilt switch, and a key-operated switch to arm the system and allow the
technicians
to install the sets without activating the sonalert.  For the next six
months or so we
would almost daily find squawking tv sets in hallways or classrooms, but we
didn't
lose a single tv after that.

Steve