So, maybe we were bored. Maybe inspired. Maybe a little crazy… We decided to build ourselves a robot.
Ok the idea didn't just suddenly pop into our heads one Friday night. It has actually been a rather long logical path that ended in the robot. Now I'm not saying that the thoughts were logical, I'm just saying the path that led to them was.
It all started one fine day sometime around March 2004. My pack of friends includes 2 jokers namely Rajiv and Siddhant. Since Siddhant is a bloody long name to type often, I shall henceforth refer to him by the name "Pok".
"What the Pok?" you might say. Yeah I know, but that's what we all call him. To be completely fair, as required by my Libran stars, we shall mutate the mutant Rajiv's name suitably to Ranji, and they call me Jam I hear.
So as I was saying, back around March 2004, these 3 highly intellectual mortals were locked in an engaging conversation:
Pok : Jam
Jam : i say pok, lets play something
Pok : is ranji ready?
Jam: wait I'll call him
:
Ranji : yues?
Jam : let us play i say…
Ranji : ya or whast
Pok : whast?
Jam : ya lets play generals
Ranji : ok. Gvive IP
Jam : 202.68.xxx.xxx < We used to have live IPs by default back then! Ah…
:
:
Jam: pok?
Jam : respond pok
Ranji : I shjall casll hiom
Jam : ok…
:
:
Ranji : he sayds hue cvamnot ciome
Jam : what was that again?
Ranji : not coming
Ranji : arey arey I dfidnt mkake any mistyakes in thast sentenced
Jam : hmmmm
Pok : haan
Jam : oh hello pok. finally gracing us with ur presence
Pok : i have to go down, mom is calling
Ranji : hmmmmmm
Pok has left the conversation.
In one of our wiser moments Ranji and I realized we must look elsewhere to channel our powerful brains. The first idea that hit me was probably the smartest of them all…
Ranji : lets build a radio
Jam : lets build a radio controlled helicopter that I can fly from ur house to mine
Ranji : ya or what? Lets build a car
Jam : no something thats flying we can use outside, a car will just get run over
Ranji : hmmm
Ranji : let us first build a radio transmitter
Then, around July 2004…
Jam : yes that should be easy
Ranji : and we can control it with radio
Jam : yes yes, let us
Ranji : we can make it crash into pok and blow up
Jam : self immolating blimp
Ranji : yes!!!
- you cannot join together 2 plastic waste paper bins, fill it with helium and expect it to float
- it takes a 20 foot long blimp to lift a 4kg payload
- Rajiv loves Google cos it fixes all his typos (which I have stopped simulating cos it's quite tough actually to match his skillfulness)
It was now August, and my "multiplayer gaming" had been reduced to Yahoo Literati (Scrabble, for the uninitiated) with my then-GF. Things looked bleak.
I noticed Rajiv seemed to be mighty busy all of a sudden. I asked him what was up the next time I met him and he spilled the beans. No he hadn't found some to play Yahoo Literati with. He'd been busy building a robot with a few of his classmates for a robotics competition in his college. I was like "Ya or what?" and he was like "Ya."
The robot he built with his VJTI pals looked like cross between a rickshaw and an ancient expansion card served on a steel tray of the sort used in Udipi restaurants, with a few bits of thermocol here n there to make it look more complex and deserving of being labeled a robot.
I'm not joking. It was literally a steel plate with some thermocol taped on at strategic locations to support a PCB, 2 motors, 3 wheels and 4 IR sensors. The sensors were on its underside to detect a silver strip it was supposed to follow along the track. It was wired to an 8085 kit that did all the processing for it and it had an external power supply.
It was also completed last minute. This seems to be a standard feature that comes with all models made by Rajiv. And it barely did anything on the track (perhaps another feature…)