Christmas Robots!
2008-04-20 20:29
Yes! Finally, someone to whom you can make a robot for Christmas, someone who will love to get it.
Yes! Finally, someone who will give you a homemade robot for Christmas.
Yes! Finally you can get to actually see and try someone else's robot .. and keep it.
This is how I would like to start a page on LMR; A whole (little) section with one purpose:
Let's make robots to each other for Christmas!
Sounds mad? Personally I would love to participate, would you?
My only rule would be that this should NOT get out of hands in rules and suspicion, there is a risk of someone not being a good sport, of course, but no pain, no gain.. and we keep quite a good tone of friendliness in here, I think, no?
OK.. Enough boring, the idea:
At first of October everyone who want to participate should start building a robot that they mark "Christmas-robot" (we will make a special check mark), and show progress online.. so that everyone can see what robots are being build for Christmas.
Then..
At November 30, everyone should send a mail to an e-mail address we make for the purpose.
At first of December we show a screen dump of all incoming mails, and first on the list should send he's Christmas-robot to next on the list (last sends to the top).
This way you will get a homemade robot, possibly from a friend from the other side of the globe.. for Christmas!
Am I the only one who would want to participate?
That sounds like an awesome
That sounds like an awesome idea, and I'd definitely participate. And since I'm a programmer, I could actually whip up a quick webpage to handle the whole exchange thing without having to post people's email addresses on the website. The software could take care of matching people up automatically and sending everybody an email with the name and address of the person they should send their robot to. That way it could even be a surprise, and you wouldn't know which robot you were getting until it showed up in the mail. But I'm definitely up for the idea, whatever way we do it.
Dan
I would be willing to
I would be willing to participate, but I don't want to send out a drum robot and happen to get a little herbie bot :p
We should rank the robots in a few catagories, such as basic, intermediate and advanced, and trade basic's with basics, etc.
Yeah, I was considering
Yeah, I was considering something like that, but I think that would add too much complexity to it. I think it should just be about getting a little robot from some stranger in some other part of the world, without worrying too much about fairness or dollar value or anything. Besides, personally, I probably wouldn't spend $150+ and a month's worth of work on a robot I'm giving away -- I'd stick to something simpler, and I imagine most other people would too. So I'm not sure it'd realy be that much of a problem.
Or, if I did decide to build something more complicated and expensive, I'd just accept that I probably wasn't going to get something so big in return, and be OK with that. I think that even getting a Herbie from a stranger would be cool and interesting. Even when it's a robot that you've built too, it'd be cool to see how someone else approaches the same problem, and having it on your shelf and telling friends, "That was sent to me from a guy in Switzerland" would be fun :)
This also brings up a
This also brings up a subject I hadn't considered until now -- designing a robot that is going to be owned by someone else. You'd need to design it in ways that you might not bother with if it's just going to be yours, like for example changing the batteries. In my Harry The Discbot robot, it's kind of a pain in the ass to change the batteries, but since I'm the only one that has to do it, I figure, hey, no problem, I'm willing to put up with that. But if it's a robot you're going to be giving to someone else, you need to remember that they didn't build it so they won't be aware of all the little quirks you figured you'd "just put up with." It's interesting to consider what changes would need to be made for a situation like that.
Dan