Monday 29 June 2009

Moving In

We have found a new-build, 670 sq/ft industrial unit in Berkshire, which should suit us fine for up to 6 months, after which we will need to move to a larger unit for final assembly and test. There are very few people in this new industrial estate, so we managed to negotiate 6 months at half price rent.. perfect! :)

I have ordered workstations, chairs, workbenches and various other essentials.. such as a toaster! hopefully most of these will be arriving in the next couple of weeks. The work stations I'm going to pick up from Ikea so that we can get our computers set up and the design process can start.

Friday 19 June 2009

The start of the Mantis project

I have been planning to build a large scale hexapod walking robot for the last 4 years, the purpose of which is to demonstrate/develop the HexEngine hexapod walking engine. This large scale hexapod nick named the Mantis will use hydraulic actuators, weigh approximately 1.5 ~ 2.0 tonnes, use a combustion engine as a power source, and have a cab for a pilot/operator.

In June 09, I formed a new company Micromagic Systems Robotics Limited (MSR Ltd) to develop the Mantis hexapod under.

I have a limited budget to design/develop and build the Mantis, so I am having to pull in favours and negotiate deals where ever I can to see the project through to fruition.

The project will start at the beginning of July with a team of just two, myself and Josh Lee. Similarly to me, Josh has also come from the animatronics industry, however Josh's skill set is within the design and mechanical engineering field. Josh will be with the project through to the end of the mechanical build, probably 6 months. After this point I foresee a further 3 months of control systems tweaking and software devleopment, I hope to get additional help with the this stage of the project, especially as I intend to port the HexEngine to a Linux platform, whihc I know very little about!