Design obstacle course

[hmartiro]

Research the 'standardized' course used by previous models, consisting of rectangular blocks of various heights. Design our own version that we can build and use.

Who wants to take point? maybe greg?

@Hughzie @towlett @PayneTrain @boleary134

[Hughzie]

Surely... Shirley

On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 9:08 AM, Hayk Martirosyan notifications@github.comwrote:

Research the 'standardized' course used by previous models, consisting of rectangular blocks of various heights. Design our own version that we can build and use.

Who wants to take point? maybe greg?

@Hughzie https://github.com/Hughzie @towletthttps://github.com/towlett @PayneTrain https://github.com/PayneTrain @boleary134https://github.com/boleary134

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/hmartiro/project-thesis/issues/81 .

-- Greg --

[Hughzie]

• Added a wiki page called Obstacle Course under the Parts Headliner.
• Read through the original RHex research paper and documented how they qualitatively analyzed the locomotion on the wiki page
• ToDo: Begin planning construction of required obstacles

@boleary134 @towlett One or both of you guys want to hop in on this with me? We also need to take care of attaching electronics to the base plates soon and making composite legs between all of us. Each focus on one and everyone helps?

[boleary134]

Ya i can help with whatever. We should get on it tomorrow! Also we
should probably all meet to figure out the legs because Hal's email
suggested they need to be carefully designed/made. On Mar 24, 2013, at 4:23 PM, Hughzie wrote:

Added a wiki page called Obstacle Course under the Parts Headliner. Read through the original RHex research paper and documented how
they qualitatively analyzed the locomotion on the wiki page ToDo: Begin planning construction of required obstacles @boleary134 @towlett One or both of you guys want to hop in on this with me? We also need
to take care of attaching electronics to the base plates soon and
making composite legs between all of us. Each focus on one and
everyone helps?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[Hughzie]

• Found required lumber materials for Obstacle course and Rough terrain at Home Depot
• Determined we will not build a permanent course besides the Rough terrain blocks, but instead use pre-existing surfaces for the forward locomotion and tape down blocks for the obstacle course in a repeatable method
• ToDo: Buy lumber for obstacle course, buy 4x4in lumber for rough terrain and begin building the individual stacks according to the heights used in the RHex experiment
• Question: How best to attach the 4x4" wooden blocks into 2x2block stacks, and then these stacks into a 6x12stack grid? Some permanently attached to each other in sections that can then be separated for storage...

[Hughzie]

• A grid of wood the size used by RHex requires 198.33 FEET in length of wood ~$380 at Home Depot

[Hughzie]

Created adjusted (smaller) rough-terrain grid of wood:

• Created R program that makes a normal distribution of lengths between 2 and 10" tall, mean = 6, sd = 2
• New grid is 6.66' long and 3.33' wide (10 stacks long and 5 stacks wide)
• Each stack consists of four 4x4" rectangular prism pieces of lumber of uniform height
• RHex grid was 7' long and 3.5' wide (12 stacks long and 6 stacks wide) and used lengths between 4 and 12" tall, stacks consisted of 3.5x3.5" pieces of lumber as opposed to the 4x4" pieces I found at Home Depot
• Our grid maintains the 8" vertical difference between min and max stack height and a similarly normal, random distribution of the RHex grid
• The 100' of wood would cost ~$200 at Home Depot, if a wood chuck could chuck wood

I'm sure we could get away with only creating the little "obstacle course" of spaced out wooden chunks, but I think this is a very impressive and scientifically approached experimental apparatus. Could be fun to build as well. However it is time and cost intensive Thoughts? @hmartiro @boleary134 @PayneTrain @towlett

[Hughzie]

Can ask Jo Anne for credit card and bring it to Home Depot (Chris Greco)

• Make a trip on Monday, with a second car?
• Have Home Depot cut the 8' lengths shorter, stuff cars full of lumber for rough terrain AND obstacle course

[Hughzie]

• All lumber cut for obstacle course
• 2/3 glued into stacks
• Finish gluing
• Nail together 3.5x7' course border of 2x4s
• Assemble stacks in proper order according to previous RHex course design