Work continues on the Motoman! This month, the Expansion chamber exhasut pipe and radiator are mounted. Almost ready to start. 550cc of two stroke goodness! Track the Motoman progress here
Mark got a Flir One Thermal Imaging Camera for the iPhone and of course we have to try it on different things. We even sat on chairs and took pictures of our ass prints but they’re a little too high-rez to post here!
This is Mark’s hand that he blew up working with highly volatile rocket fuel years ago. His fingers are his toes and you can see the dark area where there is a little less circulation.
Motoman work in progress. This month Mark Pauline has been working on the belt adjuster system for the Motoman Flamethrower. Bottom pulley will spin at 8500 RPM. Watch your fingers…
Mark continues to replace the baseball bat gripper on the Motoman (see it in action at the An Explosion of Ungovernable Rage show in Santa Rosa) with a motorized flamethrower. Here are the air flow sheet metal for the flamethrower attachment. The high pressure diesel fuel sprayer will attach to the tip of the cone. More details here
The first civilian mobile robot controlled over the web, the Track Robot was operated via web interface by various anonymous users around the world at the ICC in Tokyoin 1997. System was coded by Karen Marcelo and Eric Paulos and again at the Web98 show in San Francisco in 1998, and another Tokyo show for NTT in 1999. Fast forward 17 years later and Mark Pauline is giving the Track Robot a major update with (6) 150 amp 24v forward/brake/reverse ESC’s. The front gripper is being upgraded to a faster and more powerful unit and the remote control system will be full 3D using Oculus Rift Goggles with a tilt/pan/roll 3D camera mount and 1 watt dual channel video transmitters. Expecting a range of about 400 meters.
Mark Pauline is currently replacing the steel baseball bat wielded by the Motoman at the Explosion of Ungovernable Rage show in Santa Rosa three years ago with a motorized flamethrower.
According to Mark, “This SRL project is a lightweight high powered flamethrower attachment for the SRL Armored Motoman UP50 6 axis robot arm. The arm has a capacity of 50 kilograms. The flamethrower will weigh around 90 lbs and will bolt to the end effector bolt circle. The fan motor is a modified 550cc Kawasaki Jet ski motor with around 60 HP. It spins the forged aluminum fan at 8500 rpm, generating 15000 cfm of air. Diesel fuel will be injected into the air stream using a Parker Macrospray fuel vaporizing nozzle at a rate of 9 gallons per minute. This will generate a flame about 25′ long. Due to the fine fuel vaporization, the flame will be clean burning and very hot. The arm will be programmed to move the Flamethrower in ways that will strike fear into the hearts of fire dancers everywhere!”
The Flamethrower Attachment can be seen here under construction, mounted to its rotating engine fixture.
MiklEm shows us Mark Pauline’s required reading for the Long Now’s Manual for Civilzation which is a list of books that various people consider essential for sustaining civilization. The kind of books you would want to have around if we had to start from scratch: Mark Pauline’s manual for civilization:
Heres a proposal we recently sent in to a few select Google Execs requesting that they consider having SRL stage shows all over the Google Campus (or anywhere else that Google holds sway). What the heck, my mom told me it never hurts to ask… – Mark Pauline
Video edited by Steve Bage
Boingboing – Bring SRL To the Googleplex by David Pescovitz
Laughing Squid – SRL Proposal for Show at Google HQ
Yahoo News Proposed: Scary Robots to Make ‘Unannounced’ Visits to Google Campus by Rob Walker
On Metafilter as well – SRL Proposal to Google
Testing a 70 watt surgical laser at the shop. Range 6 ft. This laser will be used to generate fumes by frying the pigskin covering of a 3 foot mechanized head prop.
Mark Pauline resurrected the Assassination Prop from 1985 for AREA NYC book launch private opening at The Hole NYC November 5 2013. The event was curated by Jeffrey Deitch and featured the works of artists that had exhibited over the years at AREA including SRL, Basquiat, Chuck Close, Warhol, Sol Lewitt, Jenny Holzer, etc.
Mark took some images and videos of the opening – more details here. Here’s a video of the Assassination Prop in action: