#iprc 84

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"Traffic Safety" robot by Stephen Powers (1984). Powers attended the first International Personal Robotics Congress & Exposition 1984 (IPRC ’84) as a ‘Personal Robot Developer’ demonstrating his VIC-20 powered robot, complete with its own traffic lights. “Stephen Powers built this radio-controlled robot to help teach traffic safety to grade schoolers. “Kids,” Powers observes, “aren’t so impressed by policemen anymore.”” – Me & My Robot, Mikkel Aaland.

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H.E.N.R.Y. by Bruce C Taylor (1984), Budget Robotics & Computing Inc., Lakeside, AZ. H.E.N.R.Y. was unveiled to the world at IPRC'84 where it won the Golden Droid Award for “Most Entertaining” robot (final photo). “The humor seen in my robot was not lost on the judges at the first International Personal Robot Congress & Exposition. ... The inspiration for the design of H.E.N.R.Y came from the Radio-Electronics (RE) magazine reprint series of articles titled, “Build this robot for under $400”. Although H.E.N.R.Y looks similar to the RE Unicorn-1 robot, there are many differences in the design and construction. As complete as the series of articles was, there were many errors and incomplete explanations of the design. Unfortunately, the RE editors were not interested in either acknowledging the errors or printing corrections. The robot retains the basic “garbage can” design but the diameter of the body was reduced to 16 inches. It was obvious that a wider body, with arms added, would have trouble navigating through doorways and other tight household spots.” – BUILD A MICROCOMPUTER CONTROLLED ROBOT, Bruce Taylor.

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RP-IIIZ by Robot People (1984), Hartford, CT. The RP-IIIZ show robot takes centre stage at the International Personal Robotics Congress, IPRC ’84 (second photo). “The show robot’s shape should reflect the typical child’s image of a big, bulky, friendly creature. …A prominent display of flashing incandescent lights is found on the robot’s chest. Two “arms” are connected to motors. The robot’s right arm has a vacuum attachment so that it can pick up promotional literature from a suitably placed bin. The two antennae on the top of the robot are decorative; the actual receiving antenna for its radio control is buried inside its case. …The head is rather devoid of inherent knowledge; instead it has a portable color television connected to a video tape player. Two forms of pre-recorded promotional material can be selectively triggered by the operator, either an audio tape, the video tape, or both. Functionally, the key phrase in any description of a promotional robot such as RP-IIIZ is “selectively triggered by the operator.” There is no intelligence on-board a conventional show robot such as this; the operator is all important. Just as a magician’s use of his artifices and tricks puts a premium on skill and technique, the key to a show robot’s performance is in the operator.” – From the Sublime — To the Limelight: Anatomy of a Show Robot, Robotics Age.

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FETAL I by William H.T. La (1984). La, pictured above with his wife, was a Vietnamese exchange student when, playing with an erector set one day, he found that by adding wheels within wheels, they could move in any direction. This led him, in 1980, to patent the idea of mounting these omni-wheels on a triangular base. La also managed software development for Topo 1 at Androbot. FETAL I is a three-wheeled robot with each of its wheels arranged at the corners of an equilateral triangle (sometimes described as a "Kiwi drive", though this was developed later). Each wheel is independently driven, rotating about a fixed axis. The wheels have passive wooden rollers around their periphery, arranged in two rows providing an unbroken ring of rolling surface. This enables omnidirectional travel, without need of mechanical steering. FETAL I, in its attractive wooden housing, made its first major public appearance at the International Personal Robots Congress (IPRC) held in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1984.

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ROBOMOWER robot by Reza Falamak (1984), EZ Mower Inc., Houston, Texas. The ROBOMOWER is a synchro-drive platform where all four wheels are steered in unison, which can follow a stored program of movements, guided by a compass. At the First International Personal Robot Congress in 1984, it won a Golden Droid award for being the most useful robot there. “The angle selector produces a steering angle signal which is combined with a compass signal in an angle comparator to produce a steering signal.… The platform may be guided in any direction by manual control, remote control, and cassette and computer program control, without a steering wheel. Control structure is provided to permit angular movement in any direction as fine as 0.1°, and straight line movement as fine as a fraction of an inch. The platform has a minimum turning radius of zero.” – Reza Falamak, Control apparatus for omnidirectional, polar coordinated platform for lawnmower and the like, US Patent: 4533998A

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Marvin (Mobile Anthropomorphic Robot VINtage high tech robot) by David Gossman (1983), Iowa Precision Machine Ltd, Milford, Iowa. With its retro, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" styling, Marvin is a 4’2” tall anthropomorphic personal robot. It has 15 degrees-of-freedom in total, including a pair of six-axis arms, a mobile base, and it can also turn its head. Controlled by an on-board Motorola 68000 processor with a standard disk drive, it navigates using ultrasonic ranging. It also has a speech synthesizer with a 500-word vocabulary. “"Marvin was originally designed and developed to be an educational tool, a training aid, primarily at post-secondary institutions, to facilitate the training of individuals in programming robots for industry and for students on the engineering side of the card," he said, Marvin's insides are much like the insides of industrial robots, but he sells for around $6,000 instead of $30,000 to $150,000 as industrial robots do, explained Gossman. That makes robotics courses affordable for post-secondary schools, he said, Marvin contains a computer eight times more powerful than a common personal computer, He can be programmed with the help of a computer terminal that plugs into his back and a computer language the firm developed just for him. Marvin has a large vocabulary, although Gossman admits his speech is sometimes hard to understand the first time it's heard. More understandable speech synthesizers could have been used but they had a limited vocabulary, he explained, Marvin's two arms have six movable joints and can lift objects weighing up to five pounds. He has wheels instead of feet and a sonar system that lets him find his way around objects by bouncing sound off them, Gossman came up with the idea of manufacturing Marvin about two years ago when he saw that schools could use a sophisticated, yet cheap, tool to teach robotics. Gossman said he decided to make Marvin have a human shape only because it "tends to attract attention" and not because there is any real need for him to look human-like, … "I really don't know whether robotics is the wave of the future, Wave of the future may be a bit strong," said Gossman” – by Judy Daubenmler, The Daily Reporter – Sep 20, 1984

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FETAL II by William H.T. La (1984). FETAL II has a three-wheeled omnidirectional base, similar to FETAL I, on which La (pictured) has mounted a MICROBOT TeachMover robot arm. The wheels are narrower, with a single row of small rollers arranged around their circumference. It won a Golden Droid award at the First International Personal Robot Congress & Exposition (IPRC), Albuquerque in 1984. “Sunday was the day everyone had been waiting for, the awards brunch, Nelson Winkless, the official historian for IPRC, acted as master of ceremonies. After his opening remarks and thanks to the many behind-the-scenes personnel, Nels got down to the most important part of the program, the presentation of the Golden Droid awards. The Golden Droid awards were presented in three categories: the most entertaining going to Bruce Taylor for his robot Henry; the most useful being presented to Reza Falamak and his EZ Mower Robot; and the open award going to Bill H. T. La for his Fetal II. After the picture-taking and congratulations were over, it was back to the exhibition hall for the final afternoon of the show, Although Sunday's attendance was somewhat less than the two previous days, the enthusiasm was still evident.” – IPRC, Robotics Age, Aug 1984.

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Zylatron by Michael Otis (1984), Otis Observatory, Aberdeen, South Dakota. “Michael's main hobby is astronomy, and he had become involved in remote control systems while designing and building his own observatory. After that he was hooked, and as he had this Timex (the computer, not the watch) doing nothing, he decided to build a Robot…. Almost a year later he turned up at the Convention with his prototype Zylatron. The machine stands about two feet tall and runs on a three wheel base with the drive wheels at the rear. Its specifications are impressive, with most of the high-level commands programmable in ZX BASIC with Forth as an optional extra. Programmes load from cassette, or can be entered directly through the ZX81 keyboard. He has even fitted sockets for an onboard TV, The computer/machine interface is handled by DOS (Droid Operating System), but he wouldn't give us any details. … In all, the machine weighs about 30lbs and is very impressive for twelve month's work by one person. We thought it showed up very favourably with the commercial machines on display, some of which were very primitive by comparison.” – ZYLATRON a home-built Robot, Richard Moyle, British Amateur Robotics Group Newsletter, Issue 1, Autumn 1984.