One year ago today: June 13, 2014, no women navigators.
Five years ago today: June 13, 2010, bicycles everywhere.
Six years ago today: June 13, 2009, bopping with BB (King).
MORNING
I intend to spend the day working on my model flight simulator. The whole project kind of arose randomly, so there is extra satisfaction from solving the unexpected problems that arise. Shown here, I’m fitting one of the joystick axes onto a home-made base plate. Some of the components shown are not part of the assembly, they are present only to confirm there is room for them if needed.
What’s even better is the structures you see here are much stronger than they look. A year ago I would have used considerably thicker lumber to achieve this goal. Once again, I must point out the huge return in value of that full eight-hour day I put in studying the theory of drilling pilot holes.
Do it. Don’t underestimage how important that aspect of construction is. It makes such a difference that I now find it negligent the way most instructions don’t mention the significance of properly drilled fittings. There are stainless steel screws from the underside of the base plate as shown that exten 2/3 of the way up into the wooden flanges.
And to any noobs out there, don’t be afraid to move directly to learning power tools. Particularly saws and drills. I can tell you straight out that any “carpenter” who tells you that starting with hand tools is the only route to tradesmanship is nothing but a bullshit artist. I wonder how many young people over the centuries have been discouraged from pursuing a skill by uneducated old farts who come up with such nonsense—the same lazy old coots who want you to apprentice by sweeping their shop floor. To them I say get your mother to sweep your damn floor. You cannot start learning power tools soon enough.
NOON
“I’d rather be a fencepost in Texas than the King of Tennessee.” --Chris Wall
Here’s that private island for sale on jimmyr, (Jimmy Ruska) that carries no location or price tag. Buy now, before somebody proves global warming is real. Seems okay, at least those are palm trees. Don’t laugh, most of the “private” islands for sale in the world today are located in Canadian waters. So not only are there no palm trees, you don’t really own it, and privacy in Canada has always been a standing joke.
The Zimbabwe dollar fell to 35,000,000,000,000,000 to $1USD which itself fell to 10 cents in my lifetime. The Romanian transport minister called Romanian wives whose husbands worked overseas “whores”, not my quotations. And I mean, the friggen transportation minister? The Malaysians deported some “Westerners” who stripped naked atop a sacred mountain and were held responsible for a earthquake a few days later. And a man's chewed off hand was found on a sailboat with only his dog alive.
And a Nobel scientist spoke out against women in the lab, saying they cause love affairs and cry when criticized. What a chauvinist, said thousands of women worldwide, who immediately went on to “spur global backlash” and stamp their feet. It's an outrage he said such a thing! These broads know damn well they ain't never gonna find love in the lab.
So, in answer to my question, what’s new? Nothin’.
NIGHT
Here’s what I was up to. It’s a progress report on my joystick project. It reveals the origins of this blog to document details I’m otherwise likely to forget. The working parts are all wood, my chosen robot material due to cost of both materials and tools. The rough design was drafted on a bar napkin and warped itself into what you see here.
The lower photo shows the old radio potentiometers being fitted. In the original, the swivel blocks on the center pot were meant to be under the base plate. The relocation to the top is entirely cosmetic though it also proved easier to get at the wiring. Here’s where you can use your imagination.
The base plate controls the pitch like the real thing. Pushing forward makes the airplane dive, pull back and you climb. The tilting mechanism controls the banking left or right. The wheel will actuate only the rudder. Although the feature is not [yet] installed, it is designed to allow the attachment of light springs that return each piece to its center position.
And that is where programming comes in. Each of these controls has to be calibrated, both mechanically and electronically. The potentiometers have to be set at a center position. Conceptually it is easy and we’ve already discussed this means a setting of 127 (half of 255). In turn, this controls a servo motor. I have not designed that part of the project yet, but it will likely resemble the control column shown here, but with servos instead of potentiometers.
One constraint on the operation is the maximum speed of the servo motors. The servos don’t seem to be as accurate as claimed in the literature. All of this had to be found out the hard way. I can program to any degree of accuracy so if it comes to that, better servos are available for a price. The on-line instructions don’t come close to telling enough about the countless things that inevitably go wrong on even the easiest contraptions. It took me several hours to figure out to use the steering wheel for the rudder and not the ailerons.
In all I’m happy since I was not sure I’d get this far. Of course, I’m tempted to make a surprise visit to Nova, since I see they are still advertising. When I look back on that crowd, they are mostly your average Gen Y. They’ve got their degrees, but can’t do anything with them, except maybe get more degrees. Robot club, my eye.
Author’s note: I took a look at the new advertisements for what the fat guy is now calling the “South Florida A.I. and Robotics Club”. He still loves catch-phrases like “open source” but you can never be sure he knows the right meanings. Like my brothers, he’s always slightly out of context and often stilting the conversation so he can use them. That will be the day when any of those people build anything, but he is announcing a “3d printed life size robot”. I’m sure he means “3D printer life-sized robot”, but that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about.
I see he’s returned the 3D printer, but since last August it looks like the only thing he’s managed to print has been some of the parts for the [robot] hand. He downloaded the software, so it’s not like he even did any actual work on the hand himself. I see he is still using the same printer spool. He also claims 104 “creators” but there were never more than five or six in attendance—most people never came back.
He lists Arduino products and lofty learning goals, but I guarantee you none of those topics were ever discussed. And just like real life, show me somebody who hauls out his laptop in public and I’ll show you somebody who’s getting nothing done. Most of the meeting consists of him talking nonsense and pulling up websites that “explain everything” on the overhead. You don’t need a club to surf the net, dude.
That's the guy who dislikes me because I kept trying to talk about actually building robots. Nobody told me it was a bullshit session. And he's still implying he is affiliated with Nova.
Last Laugh
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