Sept. 1 - Sept. 7

Worked on designing a small operating system, called SMALL-WALK OS 1.0, which includes derivative code to achieve a series of fundamental walking motions. Introduced SMALL-WALK OS 1.0 as a new project.

Worked on the Exoskeleton Project. Completed two legs, and installed a head on Humanoido. Currently building arms. Moving placement of shoulders to compensate for head to shoulder displacements.

Worked on the Quad Servo Project and completed the design. Design/utilize brass mechanics mountings. Project moves to the assembly and testing phases.

At Message #20 you'll see a remarkable humanoid robot. Can anyone identify the owner? Contact mikegotis@yahoo.com

There are some very interesting robot photos published at Message #33

If you go down into the dark damp hot basement of the Time Differential Regeneration Plant where there are big leaky pipes, coils and converters, you'll find a lot of these robots, either regenerating or doing work like welding on craft propulsion frames. :-)

Enjoy!

Be sure to join the new Yahoo eGroup about the new Parallax Toddler Walking Robot, and all other cool walking robot creations! I'm the moderator and founder. We're posting a lot of information about walking robotics, motion control programming, hardware and photos. Be sure to stop by and join in - everyone is welcome. Take a look at those cool robot photos!!!

Homepage: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/toddler_robot/

Note: BIPEDAL WALKING Humanoid Project re: REDUCING OVERALL WEIGHT Today, replaced a lot of metal hardware, i.e. bolts, nuts, spacers, washers, with their nylon and phenolic equivalents. Nylon and phenolic materials are readily available at a local parts surplus store. The amount of weight saved is equal to one complete computer! This is good news, especially since the plan calls for another onboard computer, networked to the first. There are still some metal hardware pieces that could be replaced for more weight savings. This will allow mounting more of the exoskeleton, and reducing wear on the motion control servos for walking.</em>

Posted a new project called the EXOSKELETON PROJECT FOR HUMANOIDO APPLICATION. This skin EXOSKELETON covering is designed to protect the Humanoid from electrical shorts, prevent damage from falls, and serve as new mounting positions for additional sensors and parts. The overall Humanoid design is accomplished in metal, primarily lightweight aluminum, and thus, the skin will also contain the same material.

Project completed today: a USB to IEEE-1284 Bridge under Windows Virtual PC running Windows 98 within a Macintosh iBook. A USB device driver was installed (also under Windows 98) and configured for a cable, compatible with a parallel port device. The USB port is a Macintosh shared resource. Although originally designed for driving a printer (for computers lacking parallel ports), this device will serve as a parallel EEPROM interface for burning code into PIC processors.

Final parts are now in the lab to commence work on the Humanoido walking motion control system. This will have one full scale onboard computer dedicated to walking. Work has begun and the legs are now in place along with the driving servo motors. A new project is now established to develop the Exoskeleton for Humanoido. All primary exoskeleton parts are now collected. These light weight parts of metal strength will reinforce the Humanoido while serving as mounting platforms for conceiled electronics and mechanics.

I've added the Robotic Universal Language Translator PROJECT RULT, a language translator for humanoid/cyborg/android application, primarily communicating in any language. Work has progressed on this project since its conception in 1974, though now the project has taken on new focus. Recapping, since the project began, the following languages were studied: German, Russian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Tagalog, Sioux, Greek, and some Latin. I certainly don't consider my fluency in any of these languages to be significant, but rather have gained incredible insights conducive to continuing work on the Universal Translator. With the advent of worldwide web technology, learning and practicing a new language is made increasingly easy. Plus, you can chat in the language of your choice online. I believe there are romanized versions of most languages, making conventional computers compatible.

A glitch in the web server or connection caused all but the first few lines to delete and I've recreated the site information. I now have 3 backups of each page and saved in 3 formats. This has a positive side because all the material is now updated. The good news is diary entries remained intact.