Knewt on the floor of the Open Competition Arena

Thanks to Dale and Ann Hetherington for the fine photos.

Syndicated 2006-05-19 17:43:00 (Updated 2006-07-05 04:31:37) from Keith Rowell

commenting on the movements

Syndicated 2006-05-17 17:01:00 (Updated 2006-05-17 17:01:13) from Keith Rowell

Creative Loafing covers the Dorkbot meeting

creative loafing article

Putting the "bot" in dorkbot that evening was presenter Keith Rowell. Rowell screened video clips of robots, including robots walking, robots running, robots fighting one another, robots shooting flames, a stylish robo-rhino, and much to the amusement of the audience, a robot kicking a wastebasket down a set of steps. When finished, he fired up his own creation, a biped robot named Knewt. It looked like a robo-dinosaur.

Andisheh Nouraee

Syndicated 2006-01-21 15:04:00 (Updated 2013-01-04 15:48:37) from Keith Rowell

Knewt Presents at the first Dorkbot Atl meeting

Dorkbot presentation

Dorkbot is an art group that is making use of technology as a medium. Their motto is "people doing strange things with electricity". There were about 30 people there and they seemed to have a good time.

Knewt was 3rd on the agenda following Greg Kellum and Craig Dongoski.

Greg's endeavor uses a computer and midi dimmers to control lights. He did a very cool "layering" of control to add hand motions from a data glove, on top of a programmed sequence. It had an eerie "ethereal" effect, like dappled shade of trees in the breeze, or sun through broken clouds. He explained all the technical aspect pretty thoroughly.

Craig showed a system for reaching the "sound of drawing". He controls various electronic input with the user's input on a special piezo board that makes the drawing process "audible". The samples we listened to were very thought provoking. In the "nonsense" one could make out the scratching of a pen, breathing, barking, voices. The objective it seems is to evoke images from the listeners sub-consciousness. I'ld say it works, because you can't really discern the noises, but they are strangely familiar. Like a tool for getting into the creative "zone".

These are two fine examples of interface technology being used for creative purposes. Art being the motive. I wonder what it would look like to have art techniques being used for technological purposes? A cliche might be conductive paint used as circuitry. Any other suggestions?

In Knewt's portion of the show, I showed lots of the reference material that inspired Knewt to be built in the first place, and talked about what makes up the "robot aesthetic" in general comparing the "cute" factor in Japanese design to the "terminator" factor in American movie robots. The response was very good, I think it was a success.

Thanks to Jason Freeman for organizing the meeting and for having Knewt on the agenda.

Syndicated 2006-01-15 16:14:00 (Updated 2006-01-15 17:21:00) from Keith Rowell

Motion with Head

a short motion sequence with head on

I'm not happy with the way Knewt "leans" when shifting weight. This is one of the issues I set out to solve when Knewt was started. The change in 2.0 to add more weight shifting ability, has re-introduced this leaning. It's not so bad really, but I would prefer that the head was kept perfectly level. I'm going to have to look into this more closely.

Syndicated 2005-12-29 16:19:00 (Updated 2005-12-29 16:26:38) from Keith Rowell

Two Heads Are Better Than One

two heads are better than one

This photo shows the finished metallic head next to the un-finished white head. It was a couple of days work to get the head to the metallic state. I'll outline the steps here.

The STL process leaves a groved surface in random patterns as a result of the building process. I consulted Scott Washington who won awards at the IPMS/USA 2005 nationals modelling competition. Scott reccomended filling the gaps with Squadron white putty mixed 1:1 with Testors liquid glue. This is a pretty toxic smelling brew so be warned. The glue thins the putty to make it more spreadable. The pitfalls to avoid in using this on an STL model is to make sure you cover all the gaps. Since the entire surface is textured, it's easy to miss a spot. I put the putty on with a brush wich leaves brush strokes, creating a texture of it's own. I will try using a popsicle type mixing stick to apply the putty in the future to see if that works any better.

This putty dries pretty quickly. I began sanding after about 3 hours using successively finer grits of paper. 150, 220, 320, 600. This is the step when you find the spots you've missed. Stop here and fix these spots, then re-sand. The paint won't fill the gaps.

I sprayed the metallic paint on avoiding drips and runs. The next day when that was dry, I gave it a coat of Future Floor Polish. This makes the metallic finish have a slightly lighter color and smooth's the surface like glass, increasing reflectivity.

Notice the logos on the sides. These are custom decals made with Testors custom decal kit. The kit contains special paper, a spray fixative, and software. I wasn't able to get the software to even load, so I used photoshop to compose and print. The decal material is transparent. This fact slipped my mind and I was suprised to see that white areas on the logos were now silver when I applied them. This makes a cool effect though on the large red background area of the IronCAD logo, as the red is translucent and the silver highlight shows through. Another thing to be aware of is that the decal material is flexible. This is a big advantage to covering curved surfaces without wrinkles. But beware of sliding the decal around as the water dries. I pulled on a corner and stretched the decal material, slightly distorting the image. Be sure the decal is where you want it before drying away the water with a towel.

After the decals were dry I added another coat of Future floor polish.

I'm dissatisfied with the silver paint and am looking for a high quality replacement.

Syndicated 2005-12-13 13:29:00 (Updated 2005-12-13 16:08:13) from Keith Rowell

Knewt Beheaded

STL parts

I got the STL parts for Knewt's head this week. As luck would have it, two of them on the same day. Stuart Rolf prepared the STL file and Ken Apple ran the job in Dekalb Tech's CAD lab. Barry Smith of DrafTech provided a head and a great poster that's in the next photo. Thanks a million everybody. (this is a perfect opportunity to use the colloquial "y'all", and even "all y'all" in this particular case").

Barry Smith gave a bottle of "Ambroid Pro Weld" to repair and strengthen the parts. These particular ABS plastic STL models are held togeather by a slight fusing of a .013 bead of melted plastic. These small threads can be torn away from the part if you try, or if it takes a bad fall. Considering how much Knewt falls, that's bad. But by saturating the part with the plastic welder, the fibers are much more strongly fused togeather and become almost as strong as a single piece extrusion. I coated both heads with it inside and out and didn't even use 1/4oz. It's like water and doesn't smell "too" bad.

After brushing the part with this stuff, it becomes shiny. A new advisor to the project, Scott Washington, recommended a filler paste and sanding to cover the texture left by the machine. I tried this and it worked quite well. Lots of had sanding is required. The grits I used were, 150, 220, 320, 600. The errors I made were to leave small gaps in the sanding putty. These were most evident on the vent slots on the top of the head. So I sanded and painted it again. I think by the third time I paint this head, I'll be up to amature status.

Syndicated 2005-12-10 02:27:00 (Updated 2005-12-10 03:43:47) from Keith Rowell

head on

It was wierd seeing the head on for the first time. All the screw holes and bosses worked just fine. It's held togeather with #6 selft tapping screws from Austin Electronics. All the holes lined up ok. I had to cut an inconspicuos part off one piece to allow it to fit. There are several improvements I would make on the next pass. The're are ribs in the lower part that didn't print in both cases. But the intresting thing is that they weren't the same ribs in both cases. I reinforced those areas with plastic plates after ward.

Removing the part from it's building plate and extracting it from it's scaffold material is a pretty big deal. I've heard that the DrafTech office has a water soluable scaffold material and you throw it in a bath to seperate the two. Stuart said that part of his head broke just on scraping it off the plate, and again more cracks from trying to remove all the scaffold material. There was still a little of this light gray scaffold material left when I got it home and It was indeed difficult to remove, especially in small crevices and inside screw holes.

Syndicated 2005-12-10 02:26:00 (Updated 2005-12-10 03:50:54) from Keith Rowell

head on

It was wierd seeing the head on for the first time. All the screw holes and bosses worked just fine. It's held togeather with #6 selft tapping screws from Austin Electronics. All the holes lined up ok. I had to cut an inconspicuos part off one piece to allow it to fit. There are several improvements I would make on the next pass. The're are ribs in the lower part that didn't print in both cases. But the intresting thing is that they weren't the same ribs in both cases. I reinforced those areas with plastic plates after ward.

Removing the part from it's building plate and extracting it from it's scaffold material is a pretty big deal. I've heard that the DrafTech office has a water soluable scaffold material and you throw it in a bath to seperate the two. Stuart said that part of his head broke just on scraping it off the plate, and again more cracks from trying to remove all the scaffold material. There was still a little of this light gray scaffold material left when I got it home and It was indeed difficult to remove, especially in small crevices and inside screw holes.

Syndicated 2005-12-10 02:26:00 (Updated 2005-12-10 03:50:54) from Keith Rowell

silver head

Here you can see (or almost see, anyone want to buy a camera?) logo's added to the white head and circuit boards mounted inside the silver head. We've decided to build the second body up as version 2.0 also and work on motion routines in tandem.

I chose silver for the painted head to emulate the finnish on the aluminum. White and black and clear are the most common plastic colors on the body. There is a rainbow of colored plastic wires, other wise the silver on the aluminum is the most prevelant color. What color would you choose for the head?

Does anyone have a suggestion for how I might tint the white head from the inside surface. It would need to be a translucent dye or the like. Perhaps a blue dye added to the plastic welder solution would do the job. I bet art markers would do it. Does anyone have suggestions for a pattern on the head?

Actually this is a perfect time for a critique. I'll get some better photos up soon.

Syndicated 2005-12-10 02:15:00 (Updated 2005-12-10 03:53:48) from Keith Rowell