![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Idea for an Arduino robot...
Dec. 4th, 2012 10:24 amTwo, actually.
While I took care of some of The Routine Stuff™ yesterday morning, Galina was out front dealing with the acorns dropped by the live oaks planted by the developer oh, so many years ago. After sending off completed files, I joined Galina, and when all was said and done, five medium-sized bags containing mostly acorns were lined up ready to be picked up this morning.
I had initially tried helping out with by converting our electric blower—bought at a garage sale—to a vacuum. This appears to works great for leaves, but the physics of the design is not too useful for acorns (or, as it turns out, for "runners" of dry grass torn from the lawn by a rake).
Apropos of raking, the rake we have in our garage is not very efficient at getting acorns out of the lawn, although since they are so numerous, quite a few acorns were, in fact, dislodged onto the driveway and walkways around the house.
It occurs to me that a cool application for a small "hunter" robot would be to have it move around the lawn and identify and pick up acorns. A second class of "gatherer" robots would follow some kind of rule (stay close behind, stay in an established fixed location) and be capable of accepting acorns from the "hunters."
What would be required? In terms of hardware, a mechanical system for negotiating the lawn, a mechanical arm for gasping, raising, and releasing acorns, and a video system for recognizing acorns (and perhaps recognizing "gatherers"). In terms of software, I'd need to be able to guide the arm to a recognized acorn, grasp it, raise it, and then call a function that would move the hunter to a gatherer, where the acorn would be released.
Then again, perhaps I should consult the 'net first. Maybe someone has already worked something out along these lines.
Cheers...
While I took care of some of The Routine Stuff™ yesterday morning, Galina was out front dealing with the acorns dropped by the live oaks planted by the developer oh, so many years ago. After sending off completed files, I joined Galina, and when all was said and done, five medium-sized bags containing mostly acorns were lined up ready to be picked up this morning.
I had initially tried helping out with by converting our electric blower—bought at a garage sale—to a vacuum. This appears to works great for leaves, but the physics of the design is not too useful for acorns (or, as it turns out, for "runners" of dry grass torn from the lawn by a rake).
Apropos of raking, the rake we have in our garage is not very efficient at getting acorns out of the lawn, although since they are so numerous, quite a few acorns were, in fact, dislodged onto the driveway and walkways around the house.
It occurs to me that a cool application for a small "hunter" robot would be to have it move around the lawn and identify and pick up acorns. A second class of "gatherer" robots would follow some kind of rule (stay close behind, stay in an established fixed location) and be capable of accepting acorns from the "hunters."
What would be required? In terms of hardware, a mechanical system for negotiating the lawn, a mechanical arm for gasping, raising, and releasing acorns, and a video system for recognizing acorns (and perhaps recognizing "gatherers"). In terms of software, I'd need to be able to guide the arm to a recognized acorn, grasp it, raise it, and then call a function that would move the hunter to a gatherer, where the acorn would be released.
Then again, perhaps I should consult the 'net first. Maybe someone has already worked something out along these lines.
Cheers...
