Building a robot YOU can drive around MY shop Pt.2

Hanging out and swapping stories on traveling through China while building these ridiculously large mecanum wheels that @Esden sent me.

This was streamed on Twitch on Dec 12, 2020.

Special thanks to Greg Needel of REV Robotics and @Esden for the robotics care packages!

00:00:00 Stream starts
Stream Starts. Good morning everyone!
Scotty vibes to his music while enjoying his tea.
Scotty reports there were 3 asymptomatic cases of covid in the pueblo which were found due to mandatory testing. the Pueblo is now in lockdown.
Closed captions work!

00:02:37 What’re we doing today?
Let’s get going! First things first; finish putting together the wheels!
So the plan is to finish putting together the mecanum wheels that esden sent.
Scotty isn’t sure these wheels are “perfect” cause they’re really large but we’ll start with them anyway and see where it takes us.
There’s one fully assembled wheel already and 3 others in various other states of assembly.
Scotty is advised by Greg of REV Robotics that a hub is not required on both sides of the wheel.
Scotty does a quick intro of Greg for chat.
Scotty tries to remind himself of the process on building the mecanum wheels.
He has a bit that fits onto the bolts that he can use with his drill to make the process easier.
Chat starts talking about notifications as Twitch really lags behind.

00:06:07 Assembling wheels!
Scotty starts by removing a hub from a completed wheel that he fixed 2 hubs too.
Scotty joins the notifications discussion with chat.
Notifications are a challenging software problem. It’s not just Twitch, it’s a compound of lots of different things.
Welcome to Scotty’s ASMR Mecanum wheels stream!
Scotty doesn’t have hundreds of thousands of followers…… yet. 😉
He’ll announce his Twitch on the next youtube video. He wonders how that will go but expects the first stream after that video to be “pretty nuts”
Discussion between chat and Scotty of whether this will be Eternal September
Scotty is trying to figure out the community on Discord and Twitch and have some setup done before large scale broadcasting of it’s existence.
More notifications talk. Jarlave posts a custom built notifications solution in Discord.
The hub is removed and Scotty tightens up the bolts on the remaining hub.
That’s one wheel done. On to the second and third!
These two wheels are already mostly built up however, they’re missing spacers that belong between the plates and are installed at the same time as the hubs.
Scotty counts out the necessary spacers and bolts.
Small discussion about the ShopBot in Discord running on a premium version of MEE6.

00:16:28 Mecanum wheels are directional!
Scotty starts placing spacers in wheel #2.
@Robogreg warns Scotty that mecanum wheels have specific left and right configurations and that hub placement is important.
General confusion everywhere while Greg explains.
Greg reports “from the top of the robot the rollers need to look like an X”
A source image is offered to clear up confusion
Confusion is cleared up, Scotty figures out which wheel goes where and starts attaching a hub to wheel #2 with the spacers.

00:21:55 The infamous ‘Forest Turkey’ Anecdote
Anecdote time!
Apparantly, Scotty’s neighbors leave food outside.
Ambrose is super food motivated.
Watch the vod for more! 😉
Scotty keeps installing spacers and bolts into the wheel while interacting with chat and answering questions.
Scotty lets on he’s printing a dogtreat dispenser on his 3D printer.

00:29:58 2 Wheels down, 2 to go.
Two wheels down, 2 to go.
Scotty decides it doesn’t matter too much on which side the hub goes on Wheel #3, just as long as Wheel 4 is counter to Wheel 3.
He begins assembling the hub onto the wheel, with the spacers again.
@RoboGreg points out after a chat discussion that the wheels are originally from AndyMark.
Rollers need to be tightened a bit. This is done entirely unscientifically by eye.
Final wheel! This one needs to be completely put together.
Chat and Scotty discuss manufacturing processes for the mecanum wheel plates.
Apparantly early versions of the AndyMark were waterjet cut and the fins bent in a fixture or jig.
Newer REV designs have a die press that both cuts and bends.
Scotty begins by individually threading a roller and washers onto a bolt passed through one mecanum wheel plate.
As he goes along, he starts to streamline his process by first threading the bolts through the plate.
Discussion about building mechanical keyboards on stream.
Scotty continues by dropping washers and rollers onto the bolts.
Scotty is having a keyboard kit sent to him by a friend of StrangeParts; Jesse from Keyboardio
Congratulations @Nosh for joining the StrangeParts twitch as a Mod!
Meanwhile, Scotty ran out of washers, he needs to find more!
Going through his stock of washers, he finds he has plenty.
Talk about units of measurements and the pros and cons of standardizing on metric in the US
Talk of how and where to store stock and spares. In bins with labels or write down product codes or not.
Washers have been procured, back to the wheel!
@patrickod suggests a community BOM sourcing method/app/environment/thingy (Editor’s note: yes, thingy is a technical term)
Patrick goes on to say google sheets + pivot tables were necessary for his build organization
More chat stories shared on BOM
Patrick shares Kitspace as (how Scotty puts it) a “greases the wheels” on getting toward this.
Example OpenBook kitspace project.
While telling chat an anecdote about china trips, rollers and washers are complete, time to add the second plate!
Consensus between Robogreg, Scotty and chat that foot massages are great after a long day of walking round HQB.

01:07:00 Completing the last wheel
The wheel is largely put together, time to tighten all the nuts and bolts and complete it.
Discussion and pointers on various hacker spaces throughout the US, eventually leading to a suggestion from chat on a hackerspace world tour.
Scotty completes the wheel and tidies some things away from his workspace
Talk about Twitch, starting streaming and figuring it out.
Scotty is really excited to help grow the Science & Technology side of twitch streams.
All ships rise together!
Scotty takes a quick break.
We’re back and Scotty has moved chat somewhere new.
We’re on a workbench at the back of his workshop.
Some microphone shenanigans appear.
Something with how the windows StreamPC handles audio ruins the simplest of audio switches.
Using a mic rig that Scotty normally uses for factory tours, he starts to put together a wireless mic setup.
Discussion about Yaks. @Nosh is not prepared for yaks.
More microphone troubleshooting to dial in the wireless mic

01:48:57 Cutting the chassis down to size
Normal service has resumed!
So chat can now see what the next step is and that’s to cut an aluminium plate down to size for use as the robot platform or chassis.
Scotty clamps down the plate, marks the area he wishes to cut and breaks out the tapmatic cutting fluid.
Using a Jigsaw, Scotty starts cutting the plate to size.
Scotty explains the importance of cutting liquid when cutting metals.
Chat cam goes flying during cutting.
After more havoc is wreaked on the workbench, Scotty moves to a more robust, metal workbench.
Back to cutting aluminium.
The plate is swiftly cut after which Scotty tidies the work area again.
Keeping the place clean of metal filings and dust is important in an electronics workshop!

02:08:38 Drilling and Tapping for motormounts
Scotty starts mockup up where the motormounts will be fixed to the plate again.
Wheel placement is checked to figure if there are any obvious mistakes. Scotty can’t spot any so motormount holes are marked on the plate.
Scotty works out with drill bit he needs (Spoiler; Greg told him all along) to create holes he can later tap for the motormounts.
After setting up the drillpress and centerpunching the marks, Scotty starts machining the holes.
After creating a centerfinding hole, Scotty uses a 7/64bit to machine the holes through.

02:34:56 Winding down
Scotty finishes up and starts winding the stream down.
He reports he’s waiting for a RaspPi motorcontroller.
Tidies up workspace.
Answers chat questions about teaching kids of the family Scotty stays at basic workshop skills
Weather and dogcam are used to illustrate snow of New Mexico
Scotty ends the stream without a raid but is raided himself by LearnWithLeon