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Treasure in the garage?? Erector sets — Parallax Forums

Treasure in the garage?? Erector sets

rwgast_logicdesignrwgast_logicdesign Posts: 1,464
edited 2012-09-07 15:36 in General Discussion
So im always hearing people saying robotics is exspensive and mostly becuase of the building materials, chassis things like that not the electronics themselves ya know. Its true looking at parallaxes selection even for a little robot chassis its about 100 bucks wow!

So I found a few big erector set kits in a box from when I was a kid they have wheels electric motors battery holders plus all the cool erector hardware! Now your not gonna make some crazy huge robot with these things but it seems like you could make maybe a 1 and half by 1 and a half foot chassis base fairly easy with something like an erector set, Im sure you could then build it up a foot or two if you need too. Grantued i think erector sets are maybe 60 bucks at least when I was a kid, but with one 60 dollar set you could make a nice bo bot sized bot. How come I never see people using erector sets for this stuff? Seems simple and fairly cheap.. and most importantly its scalable! Im really not into robots at all, but I was wondering if maybe these would make a good pcb mill, or maybe a good sell on the forum market? Not sure what im gonna do with them but, it really makes me curious why there not used and modified, heck you could just use them as a frame and drill sheet metal to the frame.

Comments

  • davejamesdavejames Posts: 4,047
    edited 2012-09-06 23:25
    Funny - I stumbled on my old set in the garage just this last weekend. And I even had an additional kit to suppliment the main kit.

    You're right: motor, wheels, battery pack, pulleys, screws, nuts, curved metal, straight metal of various lengths...man! I'd forgotten how much was packed into the box!

    Definitely can see the possibilities in making robot/rover frameworks.
  • JLockeJLocke Posts: 354
    edited 2012-09-07 07:39
    I remember building a robot from my Erector set when I was a kid. Of course, it used the electric motor from the set, so it couldn't go far from the AC outlet! It used strings and pulleys to make its arms move up and down as it rolled.
    Note that I didn't design it, it was one of the designs in the provided booklet.
  • rwgast_logicdesignrwgast_logicdesign Posts: 1,464
    edited 2012-09-07 09:51
    well i found 3 sets 2 bigger regular sets and a motorcyle set. im not sure if all the parts are there since my 12 year old self didnt put te pieces in the starafoam holder very well, so when i picked them up most of the parts fell out the end of the bonx into the bigger box they were packed :/ this seriously happend with all 3 sets damn kids.

    anyways these sets are from the mid 90s like specifcally they have double aa battery holders with spst switches built in, dc motors (no wall plugs here lol) wheels, assortments of gears, and of corse all the colorfull metal and plasti pieces. thank god it appears that the screws and nuts were all in all in a tupper wear... the stuff looks really intresting but since it made such a huge mess when all the pieces dumped i decided to close the box and put it back lol..

    ive always wanted to build a robot to chase my dogs around i have a few other dc motors, servo, and stepper motors maybe now that i found this ill get that new prop powered camera module (cmu4 or something) for vision at some point and build it in mt free time.
  • mindrobotsmindrobots Posts: 6,506
    edited 2012-09-07 09:59
    rwgast_logicdesign wrote: »
    since it made such a huge mess when all the pieces dumped i decided to close the box and put it back lol..

    Haha!! yeah, "darn kids!" :lol:
  • prof_brainoprof_braino Posts: 4,313
    edited 2012-09-07 15:36
    rwgast_logicdesign wrote: »
    How come I never see people using erector sets for this stuff?

    A robot tends to be expensive. If somebody is going to spend the money, usually they start with Lexan and polycarbonate and go up from there. When your spending the money anyway, your don't want it to come off as cheap.

    That being said, I'm working on a project specifically designed to encourage folks to build out of any available parts.

    http://code.google.com/p/propforth/wiki/LittleRobot

    This could provide a an option for someone to get a $20 set of parts, add it to an erector set, (or anything else) and get a functioning programmable robot. I don't know if it will catch on, only one school has expressed interested so far.

    I would have tried to make my Prusa out of erector set parts if had had them on hand.
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