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This first week building Bing, I got a fair bit accomplished:
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Created a little web site
to track my progress.
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Got a book on electronics
and started reading it. There are two things that make this
project difficult: first, I don't know anything about
electronics and second I don't know anything about mechanics and how
machines work.
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Regarding electronics, I am
quite confused by simple things, like why people stick resistors and
capacitors in little circuits. And other things too, like is
there one "ground" in a robot or is there one ground per
power source? It's a mystery to me. Fortunately, I will
mainly be dealing with digital electronics so it shouldn't matter too
much, but still it will be difficult for me to design a circuit when I
need to.
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Regarding mechanical
things, I don't know how a joint might work or what a bearing is
exactly, but I have been looking at some stuff on the web and I think
I am starting to learn a little bit.
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Cleared a little bit of
space in the basement for a "workshop". That felt like
progress!
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I have a basic idea in mind
for the robot's design. It will (hopefully) be a walking
biped. This seems like a challenging task that should keep me
interested. I have an unusual design in mind for the legs....
after some thought I can't figure out how a knee might work, and how
force could be delivered past it, so I think I won't bother with a
knee! More on this next week.
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Finally, I ordered a bunch
of stuff to get up and running and populate my now-clear basement
table. Once the stuff arrives, then the fun will really
begin. Until then, it is mostly web browsing. It gets
discouraging sometimes; this will be a difficult project for a newbie
like me.
Not much substance so far; once
I start doing something specific I hope to give more details.
Only seven months to go until
the contest!
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