taking robotics very seriously (with smores!)

So last year, I took a robotics course.

It was really fun, we got to do cute things with robots courtesy of Robodyssey. We programmed in BasicX, ladadada... the technical stuff is kinda boring I guess. Back to the point: as in any 'creative' course, we had to come up with a final project. There were many interesting final projects, like a soccer-playing robots, hot-air balloon things, motion-activated thingy ma-bobs, line-followers, there was even a really cool looking thing involving vibrating a non-newtonian fluid, etc, etc, etc. And the programming behind that is all very exciting of course, but my partner and I were more interested in other things... And if you read my bio (or the title of this blog post), you might guess what might be involved.

Yes. A Marshmallow Roasting Robot.

The following video is from the 2011 George School Robotics Open House where tons of people came  and asked lots of questions about our robots ie what does that thing do, how did you do that, what is that thing, whats that thing etc. Lots of people, little time, lots of questions = TOO MUCH STRESS = me talking at high speeds and not really making much sense...

(sorry it's tilted)

But anyways, the whole thing is constructed from bits and pieces from different places ie. lab stands from the chem classroom, candles from some random bin, a bit of plastic with holes previously drilled holes in it that nobody really wanted to use, bamboo skewers from my kitchen drawer, marshmallows from the on campus fast-food joint... you get the idea. Of course, we went through many iterations (the flame-thrower on one of the first versions was activated by an IR sensor ie. how close you are to the sensor. unfortunately, it didn't differentiate between a marshmallow on a stick, and your face), but the end result was pretty satisfying. There are certain improvements that could have been made (if we had the resources/time) to make the robot more "high-tech" or at least function better (if you look carefully at the rotating disk you'll notice that the skewer isn't actually in the center). However, if you ask anyone that sampled the smores we made at the open house, I think you'd get an overwhelmingly positive response anyway. That might be attributed to my (genius) idea of smushing the chocolate into the center of the gooey-melted marshmallow to allow it to melt more before consumption... but of course, to get there, one would have to attain the perfect completely-heated-through-gooey-and-slightly-crispy-on-the outside-but-not-at-all-burnt-marshmallow that this robot made. All in all, I think even with the small flaws, the semi-ghetto nature/messy presentation, and the feeling of utter regret during the following afternoon lacrosse practices caused by over-consumption of smores, I'm still pretty proud of it.

Apparently my teacher was more interested in the flame thrower aspect of it though...

(its pretty cool.)