Question 1: How did you get involved in the LEGO Robotics Group of Ann Arbor?

I started the group a little more then one year ago. You see I had wanted the RIS since it's commercial release, yet could hardly justify the expense to my wife (seeing how I was in my "dark ages" still). Well lets just say Santa was extra kind to me Christmas 2000! Once I had my set, I was all about lego all the time, so much so that some of my co-workers took notice. I had found out that not 1, but 2 of my co-workers were also AFOL and that 1 of them already had the RIS and did nothing with it.

Well it was a challenge, but ultimately successful task in pushing the other AFOL to finally get his own RIS set too. Once he did, I decided to challenge them to a contest. This is where the group events began. Our first event was a sumo-bot contest. I built the ring, wrote the rules, and hosted the event.

Question 2: What do you do for work? How does this work effect your Robotics?

I am currently a software engineer. I think that working with computers and software all day makes me lean towards the mechanical side of robotics. Evidence of this is seen in my recent maze solver. I built a synchro-drive based robot. In hind sight, it wasn't a very good solution for the problem, but at the time it seemed like the way to go. Although it didn't actually make it to the maze on the day of the event, I still had a great time building and rebuilding the synchro-drive. I have also made this mistake in the past. I tend to build more complicated mechanical solutions then are called for to solve the problem at hand.

Question 3: So far, what has been the most challenging aspect of Robotics and why?

For me it seems to be a challenge to get my program and my mechanics to work with eachother and not against eachother. I have often thought that my robot was great, only to figure out that I wasn't able to get it to do what I wanted. I think this stems from not managing my time properly between the early stages of design and prototyping to actual production and then programming and testing. I find myself testing and tweaking my programs the night before events.

Question 4: Out of all of your creations, which made you feel the most satisfaction when it was complete and why?

I'd have to say that the most satisfying robot I have built would be my Maxwell's demons bot. Maxwell's demons is a fairly complicated game in which 2 robots try to seek out the good cubes and discard the bad cubes found ont he play field. It was quite a jump to go from the seeminlg simple challenge involved with sumo-bot wrestling to the more intense challenges (item gathering, decision making, navigation) found in this game. After some time of thought and sketching and discussion with Greg, I came up with what was in theory a great idea.

My plan was to build a robot that had a front end that was as wide as the rules permitted to easily collect the cubes. Then the chasis would be built in such a way that the cubes were channeled into a "gate" area where the light sensor would take a reading. If the cube was seen as good, then it would pass on untouched and out of the robot. If it was seen as bad, then a gate would kick it out towards the divding line in the play area. All the while, the robot would make systematic passes on the play area similar to that made by a Zamboni while it cleans the ice. The theory was that with each pass the bad cubes would be getting closer and closer to the enemies side of the play area and the good cubes would stay put on my side.

This pretty much worked. There were of course some glitches and definately some design flaws not revealed until game day. But overall this was a great robot that I woud love to revisit some day soon.

Question 5: What if any inspiration do you use when it comes to starting a new Robot?

I am an avid reader of the robotics and technic discussion boards found at LUGNET. I have a huge collection of links to other people's web pages. I also read Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, MIT Technology Review, and New Scientist. All of these sources give inspiration. So when it comes to a new challenge, I tend to do a bit of googling to see what I can find on the net prior to making any attempt on my own.

Some other things that have influenced me are t.v. shows like Junk Yard Wars, BattleBots, Technica, and Full Metal Challenge. As well as big tractors you see almost daily on construction sites around town. There are some real cool engineering systems at work in all of these machines.