Tim’s Blog

Today we got a tour of Goddard Space Flight Center. We got to see inside the clean room where they had one of the full-sized mockups of the Hubble Telescope and the satellite that is going to fly past Pluto (to be launched in 2006). The focus of the tour was on robotics and the Hubble Telescope. There were lots of mockups of the Hubble Telescope laying around that they used for the Hubble servicing missions. We got to hear from some of the people who designed the robot to service the Hubble, and saw some parts of the actual robot. We also got to see lots of the environmental testing equipment including a large centrifuge that can give ~30 Gs. There was a really big vacuum chamber that can heat up to 250 F and cool down to -250 F, and can bombard the object with all kinds of particles. It was a pretty neat field trip.

So I was sitting around wondering what I am going to do with all the money I am making this summer, and I thought: “what is the point of having money, if you don’t spend it on neat gadgets?” (I hear that the kid with the most toys when he dies wins). So I bought an iPod. My first impression was that it’s really really slick. It is one of the best user-friendly designs that I have ever seen. Directly out of the box, I was able to start it up, and play with the settings. Which is a good thing, because the included manual is brief and basically points you to a website. I couldn’t download songs from linux right off the bat, but after I formatted it with the included software in Windows, gtkpod worked like a charm. I am very happy with my purchase of yet another toy.

John Vranish came to talk to us at our house today. He was one of those geniuses who is on a completely different level then the rest of us. When we would write on the white board, he would write the first couple of letters of a word, and move on to the next. He talked about what he has already designed, and what he is currently working on. One of the coolest things he has made is a small planetary gear set which has a huge gear reduction (2000 to 1). It is impossible to back drive, not only because of the gear reduction, but also because of the way the gears mesh. He had a couple that he passed around. Each one cost about $3000 to machine. Currently he is working on “virtual” feel, which is way over my head. It had something to do with measuring the voltage drop of an electrical field passed through a substance. My favorite part was after he finished explaining something complex that he had made and tested, he said “it’s supposed to be impossible.”

It has been a long time since I have updated last. I have been very busy here in Maryland.

Work:
I am working at Anthrotronix, a small research and development company in Silver Springs, Maryland. Anthrotronix develops control mechanisms for mainly robots. Their offices are full of random off-the-shelf robots that they play with and design controls for. I am working with 3 other college aged interns also a part of the NASA robotics internship. Nick is the team lead and an electrical engineer, Caitlin is a mechanical engineer, Brandon is a computer engineer and I am trying my best to learn as much as possible. We are working with a robot designed by I Robot that Anthrotronix got from the department of defense. It came to Anthrotronix without any software loaded, so we stripped the electronics out and are in the process of putting new ones in. Out long term goal is to put a vision and speech system on the robot.

Program:
All 28 of the NASA robotics interns are staying in a frat house on the University of Maryland. It is pretty much what you would expect from a bunch of nerds cooped up in a house together. We have something planned about 90% of the time, I have never been bored yet. The frat is within 5 blocks of a metro station that goes into DC, so everything is fairly accessible. Last Thursday, we flew down to Houston, Texas to have a tour of the Johnson Space Center. We stayed overnight, went into the astronaut training facilities, and had several people come in and present various robots that they are working on. We got to see an early version of an 8 legged spider robot, a humanoid robot with an amazing set of hands and virtually perfect wearable controls, and a test bed for lunar rover subsystems. It was neat to be in the astronaut training facility, and see all the tourists walking behind glass and peering in. They have a mock up of the space shuttle arm, that has a torque of 1 ton * mile, that is a lot of torque. I am in the plane right now heading back to Maryland.

East Coast:
It’s hot and humid in Maryland. And everyone wears fancy clothes, except at Anthrotronix because they don’t have a dress code. That’s about it.

I am all ready for my internship. I am all packed, and all my files and settings are transfered to my laptop. I will be leaving for the airport in less than 5 hours, I should probably get some sleep…