Chapter 12

Saturday morning, I was up early, with Base and I finishing off the sports game to get it ready for beta testing. After that, we decided to start on the actual build of the version two of the Model one robot. Some of the items dad and mom ordered had come in and Base had provided a bunch that he had made up, though the documentation and money trail showed they were manufactured in the far East. I started with a full-size metal frame as we decided to make this full scale. The frame was to hold the robot up while we put together the spine and the torso. It took an hour to cut and weld the metal bars together so that it would hold serious weight, twice what the robot would actually weigh. Once the welds cooled, I spray painted it flat black and let it dry while I gathered up the material I would need for the robot’s skeleton. It was going to be made from titanium tubing, strong but light weight. Tubing was chosen rather than bar stock as the wiring could be run through the joints and tubing rather than the outside of them, so we could keep everything neat and tidy and the wires protected.

I started cutting various tubes to lengths for the shoulders, upper arms and forearms as well as the supporting braces to attach the shoulders to the CPU chest cavity. The spine would go through the empty middle of the donut shaped cavity that would hold the unique CPU and various input/output circuit boards needed to attach wires to. Those wires would control all the actuators, joints, sensors, visual and auditory devices as well as the tactile devices on the hands and feet of the robot. There would be a hard shell, also made out of titanium material, to hide and protect all the internal workings of the robot. Even the head would be made of titanium to hold the visual and auditory devices, including a speaker to allow the robot to converse in a somewhat human manner.

I continued on to cut the thigh and shin bones for both legs out of heavier titanium tubing and then cut a larger tube for the neck. Once all the cutting was done, the edges were ground smooth and couplings attached to each end to mate up with the joints. Actuators were slipped inside the ends of the tubes with wires leading from each end to connect to joints or regional circuit boards to control the local devices. I soon had one arm loosely put together from the shoulder down to the five fingered hand that Base had provided, with another three-sixty rotating device to act as a wrist. Everything was wired together, with wires out of the shoulder tube to go through the brace tube to the CPU cavity. I didn’t weld the brace to the shoulder tube yet but had it laid out on the big work table. I started on the other arm and shoulder getting the actuators and the joints in the right place but not tightened up yet in case something needed to be adjusted. It took a lot less time using the lessons learned from the first arm and Base providing input to help.

Once both were done, the shoulder tubes were loosely put through another smaller donut shaped ring and then I threaded in the wide neck tube to the top of the ring. Next, I loosely attached the three-hundred-sixty-degree rotating device with a ball joint to the neck tube so the head could spin all the way around as well as look up and down on the ball joint. All wiring would go through the middle of the devices to ensure no snags or pinch points when devices were moving. The spine would attach to the ring and the top rotating device for the head. The door to the garage opened to let in more light as both mom and dad came in to see what I was up to.

“Just in time,” I said with a smile. “Dad, if you could help me hang this up, I can explain where we’re at with version two of our Model One robot.”

“Sure,” dad said, moving to help.

“Alright, pick up your side by the shoulder and hold the arm please,” I instructed him.

We picked up the assembly and moved over to the frame. There were hooks to hold the shoulder tubes so we put the assembly over those and gently lowered it until the frame took the weight before letting go.