Iteration engineering
Well yesterday, after four long years, I got to open up about the robot I built and it made me realize just how many design changes I went through to get the final product. Technically it’s not even the “final” product, it’s just where I stopped and the next person took over. There’s still a lot of work left to be done with the design, but looking through all the photos of the process, I realized just how much work that robot really was.
(more…)So you want to build a humanoid robot
IT’S ALIVE, ALIVE! Robot paper is live that is and to celebrate this achievement, I’m giving away all my secrets. My poor robot was two long years of work to get right and four years to publish this. But as of this writing, it’s possibly one of the most advanced platforms around, if not the most advanced. That’s a bold claim, so let’s talk about how I did it, why I did it, and what makes it so advanced. This was four years coming, so forgive me in advance for the long post. I’ve REALLY wanted to talk about this.
(more…)Robot troubles…
Sixty or so hours later and I somehow finished the robot assembly. It’s been a week and a half of 12 or more hour days to get it done and I’m exhausted. Still nothing feels better than when you finish, flip the switch and everything goes exactly how you hoped. Unfortunately I’m not quite at that stage… maybe?
(more…)Measure once, cut a dozen times
Okay that isn’t really what happened, it was more measure once, realize the piece is directional, measure a second time, realize that the direction doesn’t matter, and after about three times finally making the cut. Then freaking out because you’ve now marked the piece three different times, but you cut the right mark… right?
(more…)The robot resubmission
Sometimes life comes at you fast, other times you’re writing a paper and four years later you’re still looking to publish it. Publishing can be like that and while I’m not the only one with this type of story, I do believe we’re finally coming to an end of the robot paper saga. I’m really hoping I don’t have a whole ass PhD before this thing gets published, that would just be awkward.
(more…)Robot rush
Well we’re just a few days away from robot paper deadline and there’s still some work to be done! While robot-PI is still editing the paper, I had an unfortunate realization with some of the work I had done that requires me to go in and fix a few things. So once again, I’m doing things as hard as possible.
(more…)The robot paper response
Yesterday due partly to the house work I was having done, I got none of the data processed I needed to do, but I had a chance to address some of the comments I got from the reviewers on “robot paper.” The response is due in just a few days and one reviewer was very thorough with their feedback, so there’s a lot to address and not a lot of time to get it done. The good news is ~94% of the comments are addressed, the only bad news is that it isn’t 100%.
(more…)Return of the robot paper
Logically I knew I would get a response sooner or later, I mean you submit something to a journal and you’re going to get a response. Even if it’s just a screw you, you hack. Can you tell I’ve already had several of those? Well yesterday I finally got the email about the paper I wrote on the work I did in my Masters degree days, which feels like a very long time ago now that I’m almost done with my PhD. The news is good, but I’m going to be cautious.
(more…)Second paper submission
Well this is an unexpected post, but here we are. I’ve officially submitted my second paper, but it’s not the paper I was expecting, it was one that I thought was going to be a while. Instead I got an email from my former PI letting me know it was ready to submit and to go ahead and do it, thus as of yesterday afternoon, paper number two is now in review.
(more…)A wild collaborator appears!
It seems like weird stuff just keeps happening left and right lately! Yesterday out of the blue I heard from a collaborator I worked with from the UK. It’s been months since we last spoke and he had some personal issues due to COVID, so I wasn’t actually sure I would hear from him again.
(more…)Back again with 365 Days of Academia
It’s been an awful time. dusts off the cobwebs around the blog Things have been rough, but I figure it’s time to try and blog regularly again.
So what’s new?
Humanoid bipedal robot for balance testing, 100% designed and built by me!
Lunatic Laboratories 