Bubba: Ordnance Removal Bot on a BudgetPosted 29 Nov 2004 at 16:22 UTC by steve 
Kevin Webb writes, "My company, Tackle Design, put together a do it yourself ordinance
disposal robot for use by one of the partners in our company,
currently serving in Iraq. It is a very simple solution costing only
about $1,000, but it performs the same functions as the super expensive
robots issued by the military." The robot, named Bubba by the
Marines who use it, is based on an off-the-shelf Traxxas
E-Maxx R/C vehicle chassis with a modified tranmission that provides
a 3:1 gear reduction. For more on Bubba, see the related articles on Slashdot
and Gizmodo.
This sort of thing could be key to EOD robotics. My experience is that
the robots are big clunky and expensive, cost is always a major factor
in widescale deployment. What I think we really need is affordable EOD
solutions that can be used on a large scvale in the third world where
a lot of the problems are.
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