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Geocaching robot?


Natman3400

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I have recently created( after a year or so of work) a high power, multi-purpose, modular robotics system. The system boasts a 40 mile outdoor range, and a 30 channel gps unit. I was wondering, what could i do with all this excess power, considering it has a dual core 1.5 ghz processor.A thought came into my mind, Geocaching! My question is, (as long as i can prove the robot found the cache, like leaving a sticker or something) if i could send the robot geocaching? Would this be allowed? And just to note, it will be manually controlled except for the complex things like the robotic arm module. Its a multi-thousand dollar project, and i hate to see all that power and changeability go to wast doing things that only use less than 1% of its power. I mean, who uses a $2000 robot to sort marbles? A few days ago, we tested object renegotiation in a rocky/river-ey/forest-ey area and drove it up to 50% with the "Find my keys" (copyrighted) feature. It was able to locate a roll of duct tape, and assist in the getting to it. This just screams GEOCACHING!

Edited by Natman3400
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Well, the bomb squad has been called out on more than a few occasions to send out their robot to dismantle a potentially dangerous package, that turned out to be a geocache :rolleyes:

I suppose it would be ironically fitting to have citizens sending out their robots to seek the same,, :anibad:

I'd love to see a photo of your contraption, and would be curious how it could possibly extricate some of the delicately placed caches without trampling the area to death.

 

.. using a robot also hints a bit of laziness(?) What would you call this new format? Geo-couch-ing? (Geocaching from your sofa?) :rolleyes:

Edited by NordicMan
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curious how it could possibly extricate some of the delicately placed caches without trampling the area to death.

Just add a Robot attribute. Make a robot-acessible cache station, which I guess would have the rating of "1 Terrain - 5 Difficulty", designed just for that.

Edited by kunarion
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"Its a multi-thousand dollar project, and i hate to see all that power and changeability go to wast doing things that only use less than 1% of its power. I mean, who uses a $2000 robot to sort marbles?"

 

with all due respect, didn't you have this figured out BEFORE you built the thing?

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Sorry for no pictures, its still ugly. The robots main purpose is to be modular, so it can do anything. For delicate environments, it has an attachment that evens out the weight distribution. The purpose pf the project was to create a consumer-level completely modular robot. So no, i didn't have this all figured out before i built it. Im not willing for it to leave its little room with out a few hours of preparation, as its environment-resistant cover isn't finished. To be honest, we waited tilll a dry day and duct taped a trash bag over it.

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without saying too much, I'm just gonna throw out there that technology like this and much more advanced than this is out there and this scenario is plausible.

 

I would of expected a slightly more educated and direct type of post from someone who has designed such a piece of equipment with a bit less skepticism.

 

but then again I am an engineer and any forum I've ever posted on I always have "ugly" type posts.

 

but all in all, I'd love to see those tech-specs and would be great to see a photo before you make it all shiny. Some of us out here have a lot more respect for the guts of a project than the fancy cover over it.

 

Ciao,

 

Bill

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Take this further. If I have someone wear a video camera, and I have real time video link, and two way audio link with that person, can he go out and find a geocache for me? Would it be right for me to log the find under my account? What if he has an account of his own as well?

 

Personally, I do not know. For now I'd lean towards logging only caches for places I've been to physically.

 

Edit to add : if you log a find on one of my hides with your robot, I won't delete your find. I'd like photos though :lol:

Edited by Chrysalides
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Come on dude: PHOTO PHOTO PHOTO!! I'm a (student) engineer, and would love to see the innards of this thing - sounds totally overkill, but totally awesome!! If you can, why not?!

 

As for your original question: there's always gonna be someone who doesn't approve cos it doesn't fit in with some sort of guideline. Personally, (and if I had a hide) I'd love for a robot to find it!! I'm assuming you'll be there as well anyway, rather than just letting $$$$ roam around freely in the countryside.....!!

 

tl;dr sounds awesome, photos please!

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Ill work on photos asap, but because its a team effort (there is another dude involved, but he only helped with the debuting) we had to rent a storage place, and its an effort to get down there. Im working on an update for the computer to physical interface, ill take picture when i update the robot. Its a real pain to go and reprogram all those 8-pin avr chips. That is why i want to make sure this works. Im thinking remotely controlling it, but having all kind of live feed coming back.

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Unless you are walking along with it, I would be worried about somebody stealing it and parting it out. Good luck with the experiment. I think it's creative and a great way to build gray matter.

 

Also, don't send it on any FTF missions until a reliable early warning weapons and defense system has been installed. Some exuberant FTF hound will crush it with a boulder! :)

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Does a tazer count? IM considering splitting the hull into plates, and i could centrally run a painful current between the plates. And as it cant really open it, an ftf mission would be futile, because they could peel off the sticker.

Edited by Natman3400
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I got a sneak peak at the robot. Here he is!

 

bender_casemod.jpg

Oddly enough, the inside of that thing resembles the original design for the insides of my robot, but we switched to a special atom computer-on-board to make it easier to work with physical computing elements.

Edited by Natman3400
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I have recently created( after a year or so of work) a high power, multi-purpose, modular robotics system. The system boasts a 40 mile outdoor range, and a 30 channel gps unit. I was wondering, what could i do with all this excess power, considering it has a dual core 1.5 ghz processor.A thought came into my mind, Geocaching! My question is, (as long as i can prove the robot found the cache, like leaving a sticker or something) if i could send the robot geocaching? Would this be allowed? And just to note, it will be manually controlled except for the complex things like the robotic arm module. Its a multi-thousand dollar project, and i hate to see all that power and changeability go to wast doing things that only use less than 1% of its power. I mean, who uses a $2000 robot to sort marbles? A few days ago, we tested object renegotiation in a rocky/river-ey/forest-ey area and drove it up to 50% with the "Find my keys" (copyrighted) feature. It was able to locate a roll of duct tape, and assist in the getting to it. This just screams GEOCACHING!

 

Sorry, but I have to say Im pretty skeptical about this High power robotic system. First off to have a 40 mile range would either cause the robot to run on liquid fuel like gasoline or have a battery the size of a refridgerator. 30 channel GPS unit?? ok... "Multi-thousand dollar project" Lets just say, my Department's bomb robot cost $250,000 and it's wireless range is less than a mile, and you say "$2000 dollar robot to sort marbles"???? When my department ordered the bomb robot from the company that specializes in bomb robots it took them almost a year to build and deliver the robot, and yours was created "After a year or so"

 

Im not saying your are lying, Im just skeptical. After doing an IP look up and screen name search for the Kentucky area I became more skeptical when I saw some of the questions your screen name asked YahooAnswers.

 

Providing pictures or even better yet, youtube video of your object renegotiation test would seal the deal and put many people in awe of your amazing robotic system.

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Im not saying your are lying, Im just skeptical.

I have to put in my vote of agreement here. My 'troll alarm' may be a bit quick to go off after so many years of newsgroup/forum reading, but I don't think so in this case. I went to school for robotics back in the day, and have a pretty good grasp of the costs and challenges involved in something like this. The numbers here just don't add up, not even close.

 

IF this fella has a robot that can find a geocache, and I'm going to be generous and say within a mile of deployment point, then he needs to seriously be working for a military contractor, because he's got something even they don't have.

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Rumor has it the US military will be auctioning off some left over Cruise Missiles on Craigslist. I was wondering if anyone was interested in going in on some. I hear the starting price is several dollars. I figured since it already has inertial guidance, satellite navigation and terrain contour matching and can hit an underground bunker with extreme precision, we could program Cache locations in and just send it on its way. What do you think?

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Rumor has it the US military will be auctioning off some left over Cruise Missiles on Craigslist. I was wondering if anyone was interested in going in on some. I hear the starting price is several dollars. I figured since it already has inertial guidance, satellite navigation and terrain contour matching and can hit an underground bunker with extreme precision, we could program Cache locations in and just send it on its way. What do you think?

I'm on it! GC1BE91, here I come!

 

(yes, a cruise missile reaching the ISS is as likely as the Pentagon auctioning them off)

Edited by Chrysalides
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My question is, (as long as i can prove the robot found the cache, like leaving a sticker or something) if i could send the robot geocaching? Would this be allowed?

I see nothing in the rules saying it isn't allowed.... but, depending on the robot, your local Law Enforcement might have other ideas.

 

And as a cache owner, providing proof of said visit (ie a stamp/sticker/mark of some kind in the log book from a robot or a ROV), I'd welcome the log.

 

PS Did I miss the picture of this thing? :P

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I think with all that high powered hardware, it should search geocaching.com, find near by caches, analyze the cache page and hints, and then, using the GPSr and pre-loaded maps, go, automatedly, and find the cache. Why use a remote control. Just let it go do it's thing.

 

On a serious note, what difficulty rating do you figure this bad boy can find?

 

Oh ya, and I would love to see a youtube video of this guy in acction.

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I would like to know how you will design a robot that can open everything from an ammo can to a matchstick container to a film cannister to a nano, find/extract the log, attach a sticker, put the log back, then put the container back where your robot found it.

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I would like to know how you will design a robot that can open everything from an ammo can to a matchstick container to a film cannister to a nano, find/extract the log, attach a sticker, put the log back, then put the container back where your robot found it.

 

Not to mention doing it repeatedly on a power trail... something like TOTG! :D

 

The EOD people seem to have mastered the 'open anything' part, it's the putting it back together part that will take some work, let alone replacing the cache in its spot correctly.

 

Still the whole robotic idea has some merit as a 'specialized' but separate robotic challenge... not for normal caching.

 

Doug

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The EOD people seem to have mastered the 'open anything' part, it's the putting it back together part that will take some work, let alone replacing the cache in its spot correctly.

 

Still the whole robotic idea has some merit as a 'specialized' but separate robotic challenge... not for normal caching.

 

Doug

 

I don't think the EOD robots open anything, I think they blow the poop out of the item in question with a high powered water canon. I'd be a little upset if a stupid robot comes along and blows my Cache up.(it is fun to watch though)

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