The Mythbusters Construct a Kit Bot

A reader wrote in to mention a writeup of a really great Mythbusters project. Hyneman, Savage, and Imahara went out and purchased a 'Vex' robot kit from RadioShack, and constructed the bot to see what it was like. They were pleasantly surprised. From the article: "Jamie Hyneman: I must admit I was expecting to turn up my nose at a do-it yourself robotics kit from Radio Shack. But guess what? The VEX System kicks butt. In a total of about 12 person-hours, Adam Savage and Grant Imahara (my cohosts on MythBusters) and I were able to build a functional, if somewhat basic, prototype equivalent of an iRobot's PackBot."

Comments

Vex Robot stuff is 50%off at Radio Shack

[jasonw61]

http://www.radioshack.com/search/index.jsp?kwCatId =&kw=vex

Radio Shack is going to be selling a ton of them

[cavalierlwt]

Good break for Radio Shack, you can't pay for that kind of advertising.

Person Hours?

[Salo2112]

They actually said "person hours?"

Re:Person Hours?

[Secrity]

In TFA, Jamie Hyneman is said to have used the words "person-hours" in a sentence. The term is totally appropriate and it is not out of character for him from what I have seen on his television program.

A person hour is a measurement of effort. One person who works for one hour will have performed one person hour worth of work. This measure is often abbreviated as PH. http://www.spc.ca/resources/metrics/glossary.htm

This information was obtained by reading TFA (I searched for "hours" in the page) and by googling for "define person hours".

Re:Person Hours?

[Salo2112]

Sounds very similar to what we normally refer to as "man hours" when we are not trying to bend over backwards to appease the goddesses of political correctness. ;-)

man hour

Re:Person Hours?

[Anonymous Coward]

Similar, but not identical.

You gotta figure one man-hour is about equal to two woman-hours. So that means 1 man-hour is approximately 1.5 person-hours. Of course these figures are a very rough sort of average. The actual time it takes to complete a project varies widely depending on which individuals are involved, and it often will not scale in a linear way with number of participants.

Re:Person Hours?

[brunes69]

I love mythbusters too, but if you really think Kari and Scotti are hot, you gotta get out more. They're not ugly, average sure, but far from a "hottie" classification.

Re:Person Hours?

[gstoddart]

I love mythbusters too, but if you really think Kari and Scotti are hot, you gotta get out more. They're not ugly, average sure, but far from a "hottie" classification.

Are you kidding me? Kari has that whole Earth-mother, freaky San Fran chick action going on, and Scottie is a tatooed hippy chick who can weld and build stuff.

Hell, in some of her outfits, Kari looks like a friggin' Anime character, and in a bikini she's amazing -- she's hot like Willow was hot.

We're talking two protypical geek-girls if I've ever seen 'em. Except they're artists and techicians.

Are they the protypical fashion hottie? Nope. Does the total package of coolness transcend all of that? Absolutely. They're hot in a counter-culture way that's way better than what Vogue tells us is hot. Like I said, tank girl not fashion model.

But, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So your mileage may vary.

Re:Person Hours?

[rob_squared]

Political correctness is bad enough, political correctness without thinking about it is downright scary. George Carlin said it best:

"I think mankind ought to be human kind, but they take it too far, they take themselves too seriously, they exaggerate. They want me to call that thing in the street a personhole cover. I think that's taking it a little bit too far. What would you call a lady's man, a person's person? That would make a He-man an It-person. Little kids would be afraid of the boogieperson. They'd look up in the sky and see the person in the moon. Guys would say come back here and fight like a person. And we'd all sing "for it's a jolly good person." That's the kind of thing you would hear on late-night with David Letterperson. You know what I mean? So...so I think it's an exaggeration and I like to piss off any group that take's itself a little bit too seriously."

Re:Person Hours?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"she's hot like Willow was hot."

Erm, I'm into midget porn as much as the next guy, but Willow...?

Science fair projects?

[scooter.higher]

I know my son will love this (OK, me too). He has been asking me to get him a robot kit. But I'll probably have to get two kits so I don't take over his project :-)

Then robot wars!

Oh, yeah: I for one welcome our robotic overlords...

Re:Science fair projects?

[gstoddart]

I know my son will love this (OK, me too). He has been asking me to get him a robot kit. But I'll probably have to get two kits so I don't take over his project :-)

Of course, once you've got two, then you'll need a third so you cannibilize more parts without taking apart his science-fair project. But then he's gonna want another one so he can get a better grade 'cuase little Billy is making a robot too. Then it'll get totally out of hand.

Then, soon you'll have a houseful of robots doing all manner of silly things. Stop yourself before it's too late, you're playing into their hands and creating our own overlords!

Run. Run for your lives ... must resist shiny robot mind-control technology ... must resist temptation to go to Radio Shack ...

Re:Radio Shack is going to be selling a ton of the

[TheHawke]

Or else they actually did pay for them to do just that.

You have to understand that Radio Shack is teetering on the edge of self-destruction due to piss poor management tactics and poor product placement.
They are shuttering between 400-700 corporate stores (I don't think this will affect franchise owners, but who knows) and reevaulating where they stand on what products they need to be pushing.

The robotics kit was a safe bet to do a little advertising without getting wrecked because of shoddy materials or lousy manuals.

Stairs

[Anonymous Coward]

Adam Savage: Our goal was to see if we could get it to climb stairs. As far as I know, there are few (if any) toys that will climb stairs; and only a few high-end robots like the PackBot and the humanoid Honda robots that can perform this task.

I guess climbing downstairs doesn't count? :-)

it's FIRST, Radio Shack is the front...

[jpellino]

There was a mini-FIRST made of VEX robots this year. We saw the demo at FRC Hartford last week. Very impressive, makes it more accessible to middle schoolers and they "play" with it less than Mindstorms. The electronics comes from Innovation FIRST, the folks who make the brains for the FIRST robotics teams, and they're also VEXLabs. We're using it for the Trinity College Firefighting Robotics Contest, and we've gotten a chassis built and running under program control and effectors prototyped in record time.

One thing better than Mindstorms is that you can more easily add other materials, parts etc., and make it more bombproof without resorting to toxic adhesives or plastic-eating tools...

We're still wondering why RS is having a fire sale - two local stores were cleaned out as of Friday night - we just loaded up the last ultrasound and light sensors we could find. Some have said they're just dropping the retail line at RS, some have said it's just a sale, an eMail to the edu & gov rep at RS Fort Worth is yet unanswered. VEXLabs is still selling at full price. Hope they're just switching horses, but with RS no longer selling electronic parts, this was the sweetest thing they'd had in a while.

Two heads-ups: the pushbutton inputs use negative logic (thanks, VEX - that was a half hour of "stump the chumps"...) - and there is no "run" switch on the bot - programs (and the wheels they control) run once they complete the download - so either mold some tiny cinder blocks or grab an extra bumper button (or other sensor) and create a latch as the first step in the program...

Re:it's FIRST, Radio Shack is the front...

[Emeye]

In our rookie year in the FIRST Robotics Competition usfirst.org we got a set of this VEX stuff, but it was labeled a llittle differently, as this was before the stuff was released at retail.

Basically, it's some really useful stuff for fun little project bots, with a lot of components that are very similar to RC parts. It shares a lot of similar traits to the base chassis and components that we use for FIRST, the only differences being that VEX stuff is smaller and less powerful (The main battery we got with our kit is the same as the backup battery we have on our FIRST bot, which prvides just enough power to keep the controller running.) And whereas our FIRST robot uses motors pulled from a Fisher-Price minibike, the VEX bot we have uses servos and motors from Hitec.

From the kit we have, they improved the wheels and made the pieces a little more colorful. It didn't help us much with our bot construction, but it's a fun little thing to play around with, or to build smaller robots with.

Open Source Robotics?

[Narphorium]

Could this be the start of mainstream Open Source robotics? I know this isn't the first DIY robot kit, nor will it be the last but if this really catches on I could see an open source community developing around it.

Also, I can definately see people developing their own components for these things. Paying $9.99 for a phototransistor is a little ridiculous if you know how to set one up on your own.

Re:Radio Shack is going to be selling a ton of the

[Mr2cents]

Erm, yes they can. It's called product placement. If you see a person drinking Pepsi in a movie, do you think that's a coincidence? No, it's someone only job to contact companies and ask for money. Favorite targets are cars, beverages, guns (USA), fast food restaurants, ....

Anyway, mythbusters has gone infomercial it seems.. Not that it was such a great show, they repeat the same thing over and over again (next we're going to do this .... now we're going to do this .... we're really going to do this .... we're doing this .... we've finished doing this .... we have done this ....). Like if we're idiots with the memory span of a goldfish.

I don't get it

[carpe_noctem]

What myth are they busting here, exactly? That everything from RadioShack sucks?

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

What myth are they busting here, exactly?

You're right and this really doesn't make any sense. Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage were put on Earth with the sole purpose of busting myths. God is really going to be pissed when he finds out that they reviewed a product with no myth involved.

Sure it is. For further enlightenment, read TFA.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Vex System is no more a robot than a remote controlled model airplane or my car is.

A remote controlled device is NOT a robot.

A robot is a mechanical and electronic device that performs a function(s) under its own control. It is capable of making its own decisions.

An android (NOT "droid") is a robot with the appearance of a human or animal.

For further enlightment read "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov.

Did you read TFA? "Also available is a programming module that will allow you to hook your robot up to a computer and download a program for adding autonomous capabilities . You can use the remote control only, let it operate autonomously , or have some combination of the two," and "When an object is sensed, the robot takes over and initiates an automated climbing sequence... " That qualifies as "performs a function(s) under its own control". It has sensors and a controller on board, and you can program it. It doesn't say how much programming you can fit in there (I doubt it will be opening the fridge and bringing you a beer), but it DOES qualify as being capable of performing some functions under its own control. It can decide which climbing algorithm is appropriate for the sensor inputs it has, and it can respond appropriately.

And finally, the whole thing sounds like it fits very well into both the American Heritage and Wikipedia definitions, which (by the way) do appear to allow remote control devices.

Vex IS a robot (from TFA)

[Derivin]

From TFA 'Also available is a programming module that will allow you to hook your robot up to a computer and download a program for adding autonomous capabilities.'

I used this for a robotics class at my college...

[yellowbkpk]

My robotics class here at school used a few Vex kits and accessories to build robots. We came out with three cool robots that all were quite successful in 3 weeks. Check out pictures here:

http://flickr.com/photos/yellowbkpk/tags/vex/

Also, we spent a lot of time making custom sensors and modifying the ones that Vex gave us. They are all very easy to get in to and examine (like this one) and interface with (like the switch debouncer that I made). Although the metal parts are just a little "different" then everything else, meaning you have to machine or buy new pieces, some Lego pieces will mesh with the Vex pieces quite nicely (as in this home-made shaft encoder).

Oops, misread that one a bit...

[What'sInAName]

I seriously misread that as "The Mythbusters Construct a Kill Bot." I was thinking that maybe Radio Shack was prepared to do anything to restore their former glory...

Re:Radio Shack is going to be selling a ton of the

[bill_mcgonigle]

and reevaulating where they stand on what products they need to be pushing.

That's good. My local Radio Shack only sells 40-conductor IDE ribbon cables, not the 80-conductor kind that's been required for like the last 5 years.

Re:Radio Shack is going to be selling a ton of the

[Hercynium]

Like if we're idiots with the memory span of a goldfish.

Now, now... they busted that one, remember? (the goldfish memory - the jury's still out on the idiots part ;p )

Re:Vex is NOT a robot

[dhiebert]

If you find out more about the VEX kit and don't dismiss it simply as a Radio Shack product, you will see that it is based on a programmable microcontroller. While I think that RS is probably trying get some of the RC market with their product decription, VEX is capable of running autonomously, and thus would fit the definition of a robot.

Um, cool -- but...

[FlyByPC]

...aren't Jamie and Grant already quite knowledgeable about robotics? I mean, Grant has experience in competitive robotics, and Jamie built that soda-can-shooting, remote-controlled vending machine. Not exactly your typical RS customers.
That said, I am looking forward to seeing them build the kit...

Re:Radio Shack is going to be selling a ton of the

[SStrungis]

They won't. Their Mommies and Daddies will.

I work as a schoolteacher in an affluent NJ district. The MIDDLE SCHOOLERS walk about with iPods, Razors, and Louis Vuitton bags.

Trust me, $300 for a neat robotic toy is nothing.

In related news...

[timothykaine]

The cast of Magnum PI just built a model airplane and didnt even sniff the glue.

Not just the starter kit

[Mr. Freeman]

They don't just have the base model kit.
From what I can tell they have:
- starter kit
- Tank tread kit (2X)
- Ultra sonic ranging sensor
- Extra hardware kit

I just bought a vex kit about an hour ago as well, damn cool so far.