At Automate 2013, for example, I was transfixed by the packaging robot demo from Fanuc and the IQ Motion System with MRJ4 Servos demo from Mitsubishi Electric.
Packaging machines are particularly fascinating, because there’s often so much complicated “mechanicalness” reacting to all the sophisticated automation design ideas and programming. Paper, plastics, liquids, air all propose their own challenges as machine builders move from the business challenge to the automated solution. The resulting interaction of materials is as mesmerizing to me as the flames of a campfire or the lifts and twirls of a ballet. All I keep thinking is, “How did they think to do that?”
Today a friend sent me a link to a YouTube video by “Hknssn” that had me equally fascinated. Hknssn has created an automated paper-airplane folding machine that he (or she) built out of a Lego Mindstorm NXT kit. Hknssn used 6,000 to 7,000 Lego pieces along with servomotors and a variety of sensors to build a machine that folds—and launches—a paper airplane. I love it. The video speed is about three times faster the normal and set to music, which makes for a good show. But the slower speed version is even more fascinating to me, because it helps me see how the paper responds to every machine design decision.
Months ago, Hknssn also used Lego Mindstorm NXT to create a Lego "bottling machine" that screws on a cap and then labels the bottle. Do you have a video of your machine in action? What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome to get it do its particular mechatronic dance?
Professionally, I’m interested in the problem/solution. Personally, I just want to watch it run.
