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Industrial Robot Arm Becomes Giant Catapult

Posted by Soulskill on from the excellent-gift-ideas dept.

wintersynth brings us a story about a group of enthusiasts who made a catapult out of a 2,800lb industrial robot arm. They used it to launch bowling balls, fireballs, and cans of beer toward a stationary target, and they controlled the catapult's aim with a graphical UI on a laptop. "I wanted to be able to control the rotation of the robot so we could aim the robot from the laptop, but I quickly realized that since the desert is so flat, we could do some basic ranging on the target too. I also wanted the targeting to be overlaid in 3d over a photograph of the target area. The software needed to control the robot like an MMO or RTS game. I suspect that video games, in general, have some of the most optimal control interfaces. I wanted to try a control scheme similar to the area effect spell targeting in World of Warcraft."

6 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. double entendre by User+956 · · Score: 5, Funny

    wintersynth brings us a story about a group of enthusiasts who made a catapult out of a 2,800lb industrial robot arm.

    And it's all thanks to the second amendment.

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
  2. It's not a catapult. by zippthorne · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's a trebuchet, as can clearly be seen from the sling which holds the bowling balls. It also does not have an optimal sling length, but that just makes the robot itself all the more impressive.

    --
    Can you be Even More Awesome?!
  3. Graphical UI by iminplaya · · Score: 5, Funny

    gorilla.bas?

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    What?
  4. HD Camera by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let me get this straight... they "Rented" the camera by buying it at Fry's and returning it?

    I'm sure some people will defend this tactic, but its stuff like this that causes awesome return policies at stores to be restricted, and prices to go up. (as recently happened at CostCo)

    I can't believe they posted that tidbit on the site...

    1. Re:HD Camera by wintersynth · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Okay, I have to admit, we felt pretty bad about this "renting" tactic until we actually tried the camera. It was hands-down the worst HD camera I have ever used. I mean seriously, it had all sorts of proprietary software with weird codecs so that the footage was extremely difficult to transcode at high resolution.

      I felt absolutely no remorse returning that thing. I know, that still doesn't make it right, because we didn't know that going into it. But I hope it is at least a mitigating factor. Plus, I give Fry's tons of (non-"rented") business, and their awesome return policy is a big part of the reason.

  5. Catapult? by Teufelsmuhle · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's not a real catapult unless it's flinging cows or pianos.