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EEtwidget

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Milling Santa out of machining wax. If it turns out, the wax will make a mold we can use to cast silver Santa's.

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its a 4th axis so the part will flip 180 and mill the underside automatically.

 

im thinking of doing a more complicated 360 piece. Maybe a totem pole? 

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That is exactly why they want robots. No emotional connection. No empathy, no regrets, no concern, no mercy. They have always had to try and dehumanize the enemy. No decent human would want to kill someone they thought of as being like themselves. Can't think of the enemy as fathers, brothers, friends, just like yourselves without some tinge of remorse. Done on both sides of any conflict. In my war it was gooks, not people. In others, the hun, krauts, whatever. 

 

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It's a valid concern. When I got out of the military I took a job working industrial automation. I worked for a large company that produced IV bags. The company was bought by a German corporation and quickly 'modernized'.

 

The company was literally cut in half, sold and turned into restaurants. Including a church of no denomination.

 

$30 million dollars automation project put 1,000 labors out of work. My workload was tripled, overseeing half the factories robotics packaging lines.

 

The worst part, a lot of those laid off employees were friends. They used to really appreciate me, calling me to fix the lines. The personal who remained though saw me as a threat to their job.

 

I have even had to report a person who was sabotaging the robotics. They figured if we thought the robots didn't work, everyone would be rehired.

 

Its important to remember morality when designing robots. A principal I try to instill in the students. It's equally important not to resent technology. 'War' robots aren't about killing. Taking the young soldiers off the battlefield saves lives. An interesting concept that's a bit difficult to understand, even debatable. 

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I do enjoy my job, although I'll never be rich working in education, I can at least order the tools I drool over. I'm currently working with the Roland MDX-40a CNC with 4th axis. I've got a small music box project with Purple Heart & Yellow Heart inlays. Hopefully I get it done before Christmas as it's my wife's gift. ?

 

Meanwhile I'm teaching one of the students CNC basics. I've decided to document the process in both video & writing. I quickly put together this clip from today's endeavor. A more polished version will come.

 

its a multi-part series that shows the complete process of casting a part. Everything from preparing machining wax, CNC billets, CAD design, CAM programming, milling, mold making, casting, & finishing. It should be a fun project.

 

a sample: 

 

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  • 4 months later...

Today the kids partisapated in the first phase of the robot competition. The goal is to design a robot that assist first responders in locating victims. I've been mentoring this group the previous two semesters. Today was the presentation section, a design review judged by a panel of graduate students. We took 2nd place.

 

Im hopping for a first place finish during the actual competition. Very proud of there hard work!

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Very cool hearing about them picking up tools and putting them to use for a practical purpose for the first time.

That quad of wood, are you planning on making a complete one out of lighter material or doing anything further with that?

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On 4/25/2017 at 2:58 PM, KnarlyCarl said:

Very cool hearing about them picking up tools and putting them to use for a practical purpose for the first time.

That quad of wood, are you planning on making a complete one out of lighter material or doing anything further with that?

It's awesome teaching them to build. Often frustrating, but rewarding. 

 

Im sure we will continue to build quads but I've got no immediate plans to continue that specific one. It's a students 'solution' to the problem we presented. Half the fun of teaching this stuff is seeing the creative ways people go about solving problems.

 

this Sunday we are headed out to the dry lakebed. The students built rockets & fitted them with electronic data loggers. Hopefully a bit more successful then N. Korea launches ?

 

This is one one of the students builds. Political satire is alive and well in California.

 

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On 12/9/2016 at 3:22 PM, EEtwidget said:

It's a valid concern. When I got out of the military I took a job working industrial automation. I worked for a large company that produced IV bags. The company was bought by a German corporation and quickly 'modernized'.

 

The company was literally cut in half, sold and turned into restaurants. Including a church of no denomination.

 

$30 million dollars automation project put 1,000 labors out of work. My workload was tripled, overseeing half the factories robotics packaging lines.

 

The worst part, a lot of those laid off employees were friends. They used to really appreciate me, calling me to fix the lines. The personal who remained though saw me as a threat to their job.

 

I have even had to report a person who was sabotaging the robotics. They figured if we thought the robots didn't work, everyone would be rehired.

 

Its important to remember morality when designing robots. A principal I try to instill in the students. It's equally important not to resent technology. 'War' robots aren't about killing. Taking the young soldiers off the battlefield saves lives. An interesting concept that's a bit difficult to understand, even debatable. 

Granted, combat robots save whoever deploys them lives, but any battlefield is about somebody dying. I do not blame the technology. As has been said "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." Guns, nuclear energy, ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel, etc. are just what someone chooses to make them. I just don't understand who these companies are planning on selling to when most people are replaced by automation. Used to work as a CNC tech at Parker-Hannifin (granted at least one machine still used core memory, but most were new) and was familiar with sabotage and paranoia from a few. The new Luddites I guess. Can't put the genie back in the bottle, just hope humanity as a whole is more compassionate than I give it credit for. Hard to believe, but I'm not a bitter old curmudgeon. Blessings to all. 

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Today was exhausting, but rewarding. We spent about 10 hours under the sun, shooting rockets, doing donuts, learning science, and forming friendships. 

 

This is about half the students 

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I got some quality drone footage, I'll need to spend some time editing though.

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Phantom 3 Professional with 4K video. We had a few other quads out but the phantom is definitely the easiest to fly.

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The students built data loggers as part of this project. Inserted into the rockets, 9 degrees of data was recorded. Altitude, acceleration, axis of rotation, etc.

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And when things didn't go smoothly, I pulled out my trusty Fluke 87v. I would like to try out one of Southwires meters someday.

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Big rockets

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Little rockets

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Most flew without too many problems

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A big thank you to David, our rocket expert.

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If you've never tried this hobby, I highly recommend building a rocket kit. 

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April 30 is also my wife's birthday. Being 6 months pregnant, she obviously didn't want to spend the day cooking in the desert sun. Foruntly the students were willing to help me wish her s happy birthday. 

 

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

My robot kids took home 2nd place in their field trials. Technically they out preformed the other teams, they collected too much data and couldn't process everything fast enough. O'well. Next time we will win #1. Still proud of them.

 

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the team decided to show-off a bit and took a selfie in the middle of competition. Proving the robot is fully autonomous. ?

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