Tag: Brooks Coleman

Mechanical Pit Bull

The pit bull has a nasty reputation as a cruel and vicious breed. In Austin, TX, there lives the Mechanical Pit Bull, a beast so ferocious and fierce that even the most stout-hearted bull terrier would flee in terror.

The Mechanical Pit Bull, a nightmarish dog-like contraption, some six feet long, is built from heavy-duty welded and bent pieces of sheet metal. It twists about, thrashing its jagged-edge legs and jaws, and its thick electro-pneumatic torso.

As it moves, the metallic sound of its grinding, metal legs and the hissing from the compressed air create an eerie atmosphere for this robotic entity. No one dares to challenge this beast. No one, that is, except Brooks Coleman.

Brooks, a founding member of The Robot Group and the creator of the Mechanical Pit Bull, often wrestles with his creation in dangerous displays of man vs machine.

Has the Mechanical Pit Bull ever bitten the hand that feeds it? “Yes. Many times,” according to Brooks who used to have a lot more hair.

Note 1 : There is some evidence that the Mechanical Pit Bull evolved from the Centipede that appeared at RoboFest 1 (1989).

Note 2 : It is unclear, at the moment, whether the Mechanical Pit Bull appeared at the Cyberspace Convention, hosted by The Robot Group (1990); however, it did appear at RoboFest 2 (1991).

The background material for this page is derived from an archived page on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Some links may have been added, removed, or updated.

Crawling Hand

The Crawling Hand, an automated, air-powered, mechanical sculpture, was another of Brooks Coleman’s creations.

“The Crawling Hand was first used at a ’10 Minutes Max’ show at [perhaps] the Vortex when they were across the hall from the original location for Children’s Museum.”

“I made it from some scrap metal I got from East Austin Pipe and Supply. It ran for about 3 shows but was too much of a hassle to store. When I moved out of the warehouse, I took it apart and used the metal for the first batch of metal bras. The rest is history.”

Brooks Coleman

Outreach : Space Shuttle Simulator

Throughout its history, The Robot Group’s outreach program at area primary schools has been a key activity. “Robots, Gadgets and Gizmos,” a demonstration of robot construction using common household materials, was regularly presented to grade school children identified as “at-risk” and disadvantaged.

One long-term project, the Space Shuttle simulator at Kealing Junior High (since renamed Kealing Middle School), stands above the rest. Science students learned about mechanics and computer control by constructing robot arms used in their final semester projects.

This project was under the direction of Robot Group member, Linda Brown. She was ably-assisted by Alex Iles, Brooks Coleman, and Bill Craig.

Group members also assisted Kealing students by supplying robotic arms and telepresence equipment.

Kealing Junior High's Space Shuttle simulator
Kealing Junior High’s Space Shuttle simulator

This Space Shuttle mock-up, featuring a large robotic manipulator-arm constructed by the students from salvage, appeared at the Cyberspace Convention (1990) and at several RoboFests. The students used the simulator to “fly” missions and accomplish tasks such as rescuing satellites and performing experiments. During these simulated missions, the ground crews communicated with the flight crew via computer terminals and video cameras.

Babbling Head

The Babbling Head Robot, better known as Babbling Head is one of The Robot Group’s iconic exhibits.

Babbling Robot Head is perhaps one of the finest examples of our group’s efforts to meld art and technology. It is certainly one of the classiest. Brooks Coleman, a genius at wood-crafting, designed and crafted the various wood elements that went into this piece. These wood elements are as diverse and as rich as purple heart and oak and as raw as tanzania root.

The base of the piece is purple heart wood and the neck and collar bones are pow amavia woods. The organic brain in this robot is a piece a tanzania root that Brooks filed and fitted perfectly to this piece.
The rawness and natural ridges of the wood root give it a very natural organic-looking brain.

Brooks, who also does metal forging, tailored the metal nose and half head piece for Babbling Head while Laurie Davis forged the eyes.

The eyeballs are hammered silver with LEDs illuminating the iris centers. The eyeballs are also servo-controlled and capable of rolling.

The neck and the lips are made of soft plastic for mobility. The lips are molded black silicone and the neck-pipe piece is actually a dryer vent pipe.

The servos are each fitted with a winch pulley which Brooks turned from nylon. He machined a custom tool to create the spline that fits the standard Futaba servo shaft.

This robot is fitted with a Mini SSC II board that operates a series of hobby servo motors that move the lips, eyeballs and neck areas.

The DecTalk provides the computer voice that brings the Babbling Robot Head to life.

Alex Iles was instrumental in developing and programming the original exhibit controller for this piece. Bill Craig assisted with the original programming and the speech synthesis. Later, Eric Lundquist added real-time speech synchronization with the DecTalk.

At times, Babbling Head has been integrated into the Robot Brain project.

When last it spoke, Babbling Head revealed that it was awaiting some surgery. We look forward to its reappearance and to hearing it sing again.

Did we mention Babbling Head’s popularity? Some notable appearances :

[Text and images originally from http://wiki.therobotgroup.org/wiki/BabblingHead

Varmint

Varmint, a four legged walking machine, was born in 1986. It became the first computer controlled robot project of Silicon Barrio and The Robot Group. When Varmint took its first steps in the world, its creators were as proud as any real parents could be. As the first-born Robot Group project, Varmint paved the path for many of its siblings that followed soon after.

Varmint demonstration at MCC auditorium
Varmint demonstration at MCC auditorium

David Santos designed and coordinated Varmint. He also helped Joe and James Perez with the metal fabrication of the project. Mark Dommers implemented Varmint’s computer control and electronics. Brooks Coleman worked-out the pneumatic actuation control. Norman Annal drafted the design specifications for Varmint.

Varmint made regular appearances at RoboFest. It is an old robot now but it is still active.

The background material for this page is derived from an archived page on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Some links may have been added, removed, or updated.