It's a RAD, RAD, RAD, RAD World (with apologies to William and Tania Rose and Stanley Kramer)
Chapter One: I Can Has A Robot
A week ago I had an epiphany that said "hey, you're an adult with money now, you can has a robot". It was due to the recent announcement that Heathkit was going to introduce a new Hero robotics platform for the first time in 20 years (seen on the right showing its guts and all covered up). That got me searching the net for the three old Heros; the original, the Jr. and the 2000. All versions of Heathkit Hero have always been full-on robotics platforms with a non-toy price tag to match, and this latest WinXP-based dual-core wireless autonomous badass is clearly no exception. I then found sites dedicated to "robots", although really they are more dedicated to toys that are shaped like robots in Hollywood and not true robots per se. But what struck me was the bodies of the various "toy" robots; some of them were rather detailed, rather large and remarkably powerful. While virtually all of these old robot toys were really just fancy remote controlled cars they had voluminous chassis that would accommodate no end of 21st century electronics that could turn them into true robots, whatever definition of that you might choose to implement.So, inspired by these old toys with great hackable bodies, I set off to eBay. Of course eBay (and Craigslist) are the most likely places you are going to find these old 'bots, and indeed I was not disappointed. On one sitting I added about 30 items to my watch list, and over the next week proceeded to let some go, fail to win a couple, and do really nicely on a few. Of the pseudo-bots I won there was one particular model that stood out; the Toymax RAD 2.0.
This toy first caught my eye because it is quite large (about 19 inches from floor to head, more for the huge fake antennas on both sides of the head) and because it appeared to use track drive, which I have always thought was a must for a solid platform. So, I won one on eBay for $15 but it doesn't appear to have a remote control, which isn't a problem as I figured that any attempt to make it into a "real" robot would necessitate gutting the existing electronics anyway. I had another RAD 2.0 on my watch list, and this one was still at $10 right before auction end, so I sniped it with seconds to spare and got it for $12.50, and this one clearly shows the remote, drink tray (yes, RAD comes with a drink tray), charger and battery... even the foam darts in the chest all appear intact. Yes, it fires foam darts from its chest. Not sure what use that mechanism can be put to, but I won't ignore the potential. Smoke bombs? Firecrackers? Solid-fuel rocket engines tipped with aluminum cones? Hmm...While waiting to snipe that last auction I did some Googling and found a bit of info on the RAD series. I knew there was a RAD 1.0 that was a little more primitive, but I wasn't aware there was a later-model 4.0 that had a considerable amount of sophistication for the time, including autonomous security, voice synthesis and voice recognition. As it turns out, among the RAD enthusiasts the 4.0 is looked down upon, because unlike the 1.0 and 2.0 it cannot bend at the waist, rendering its gripping arms close to useless. Luckily there are a lot of 2.0's on eBay so I didn't have much to worry about. I found at least four sites that all purport to be involved in RAD hacking and upgrading, although much to my surprise there is very little "hard data" and in most cases the project site hasn't been updated in years. So, I decided to document my own stages of dicking with my two forthcoming RAD 2.0 'bots. I hope to do some or all of the following, roughly in this order:
-Upgrade the onboard audio output system (new speakers and new amp)
-Upgrade the onboard audio input system (shotgun or parabolic mike in addition to current omni)
-Insure/upgrade the drive train (word is it is already damn solid for a toy)
-Improve cosmetics (repaint/dye, add Dykstrabits and Okudagrams, LEDs yo LEDs!).
-Upgrade/replace arms (word is they already work well with the bending at the waist action)
-Add one (mono) or two (stereo) video cameras to the eye area for telepresence
-Add autonomy.
+Onboard computer running "mouse in maze" and heuristic mapping software
+Add positional sensors: sonar for long-range, IR for short-range, bumpers for overshoots/blinds, PIR to track animals or humans
+Give computer control of all motors and sensors
+Autonomously dock with power station
-Add voice recognition (run routines on voice command)
-Add an iPod dock. No, just kidding. Shoot me if I am ever that stupid.
I have been considering the issue of "real" robots since I got inspired by all this. One of the very first things that home robots did was vacuum, so honestly Roomba is not in the least new or innovative, they just happen to come to the game at such a late stage that it is finally practical to mass-produce such robots. Other than vacuuming and mowing I cannot think of much that is practical for an inexpensive robot to do around the average home, and I don't need a robot to vacuum or mow. Now, if I am ever disabled you can bet my house will be swimming in robots and home automation and I will be decked out like a cross between the Six Million Dollar Man and the Borg, but until those extreme measures are called for I just can't really come up with anything I think a small, cost-effective robot could do around my house. Thus, this project is likely going to be sheerly for the whimsical fun of it and likely have little to no practical value to real robot enthusiasts.
BTW, in TRYING to do "the right thing" and not steal someone's image of a RAD I did a Google Image search for "RAD 2.0 creative commons" and found one (somewhat to my surprise, the image you see above). The CC license specifies that I give credit to the author, but the JPEG itself did not have ANY IPTC info so I have no idea who the author is (this image was posted to an "image of the day" site with no credit either). So, if you took this shot and you want credit, drop me a line.
We now await the RADs, and maybe meanwhile do some searching for the gear I might bolt on later, price out a BOM as it were.
If you would like to give me some feedback on this article/story/rant, then click here to leave a comment. I'd love to hear from anyone with robotic ideas or advice.
Chapter 2: Pretty RAD after all
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(C) 2008 Don Stratton
