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And The Work Goes On
March 7, 2008

"Racing to build technology that saves Soldier's lives."

MEANWHILE BACK AT THE RANCH
While we wait for the new administration to take power, the reality is that the US Army still does not have the guidance system that they need for their supply trucks. Where it will come from remains a question. What if the Army has to buy its automatic guided supply trucks from Japan, or France, perhaps Korea? Here at AIM we are still working on our version, learning a great deal about such things and we are rushing to get the US Army the system they need as soon as possible, no matter where it comes from. The point is to field the system and begin saving US soldier's lives as soon as possible.

UPGRADING
As a team that works on donations, we put the best of what is donated to us on our vehicles with the idea that we can be running with what we have and then upgrade whenever something better is donated. Recently a team supporter donated seven conductor cable with stranded conductors so I am in the process of streamlining AGV WENDY DARLING's wiring. To keep it simple I am using the standard trailer wiring color code for the basic circuits:
1. white - common ground
2. Blue - electric brake
3. Green - tail/running lights
4. Black - battery charge (+)
5. Red - left turn/stop
6. Brown - right turn/stop
7. yellow - auxiliary/back up

COMPARISONS
While I am telling you about our homespun approach to building and testing technology demonstration vehicles, compare it to what you know about how difficult it would be to do rapidly at your company, or if it could be done at all. There are many advantages for a group like mine to be doing this work. The most important might be that companies can take advantage of the insulation my independent team provides. By supporting my team's work as a sponsor, companies can share in the positive publicity and discoveries, insulated from any liability or negative publicity. The work my team does is also extraordinarily economical, for instance today I needed a 10-32 tap to chase the threaded holes in the main fuel tank and mount the repaired fuel level indicator. I got in my car and drove to the hardware store on the corner and bought one for $3.25 and was back in about 15 minutes. Chasing the holes and mounting the tank level indicator took about 5 minutes and then I was on to the next task. At Ford Motor Company, where I worked for a while, it would have taken a purchase order that the accounting department figures costs them $30 to process, 5 signatures for approval, a Ford branded tool in this size costs at least $5, then would take about two weeks to arrive. Overall more cash and more manhours spent would be spent at Ford than one would think reasonable. This, as I understand it, is typical of all large businesses. Proceedures like this make sense when the purchase order is for 5,000 of a single high-dollar item such as crankshafts. For small quantity, one of a kind purchases, as is the case in R&D or prototype building, it makes better sense to have small, flexible teams like mine do the work.

GOOD NEWS TODAY
A local tire company owner today has said that he can have custom rims made for us and has recommended that we use used tires that will become available in the spring as the trucking companies start replacing them with new tires, for a fraction of the cost of new. This will make conversion to super-single tires and rims more affordable.

AIM TEAM JACKET PATCH
Newsweek has done a story called Badges of Secrecy, interesting jacket patch designs of secret defense projects. In contrast our project is unclassified, in plain view, and while for the Department of Defense our work is independent of the DoD. This approach makes it easier for more people to participate in the work and to get as many people as possible working on finding a solution to the problem. The more people working on solving the problem, the more likely that one or more of them will discover affordable solutions and ways to get those solutions fielded as soon as possible. Autonomous Vehicle Racing is an interesting and fun way to rapidly develop the technology that the US Army needs urgently.

SOCIAL EXPERIMENT
"If you can recruit your neighbors, you can recruit anyone" paraphrase of a comment by one of the team supporters. As a test to see how to get as many people as possible involved I have invited about 750 people within walking distance of the AIM workshop to the Robot Club Meeting I am sponsoring Saturday afternoon. This is an experiment to see what it will take to get a select group, the neighborhood, involved as volunteers and supporters. If I can discover what it takes to get these people involved, perhaps I can expand the recruiting campaign to bring in support from additional people. If it fails I can try again. Commitment to becoming a Robot Club member is $20 per year and one hour a month. Becoming members of the AIM Team requires a larger commitment and in this experiment it is hypothesize that it would be a smaller, sub-group of those who would become Robot Club members who would want to join the AIM Team. Commitment to becoming an AIM Team member requires a minimum of two hours a week and the accomplishment assigned work, both of which have a tendency to narrow the field quickly.

GO ROBOTS !

Paul F. Grayson - Chief Engineer
AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL MAGIC, LLC
Racing to build technology that saves soldier's lives.
390 4-Mile Rd. S.
Traverse City, MI 49686-8411
(231) 946-0187, (231) 883-4463 Cell
pgrayson@aimagic.org 
http://aimagic.org 
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/robotcluboftraversecitymi/
http://www.controleng.com/blog/1180000318.html

Posted by Paul Grayson on March 7, 2008 | Comments (0)