[Robotgroup] belly of the beast

[brooksdesign]

   Today we finaly did the installation of the fault detection system at the huge casting foundry up here. Unlike the last time I was here the plant was in full operation with all the robots and furnices online and cranking out some of the most intense industrial sights,sounds and smoking,steaming action. One of the managers had told us before that we could shoot some pictures of our unit on the floor but the head honcho made me leave the camera in the car. Just a couple of minutes of the sound would be so cool but you can't get a real feel for the danger factor till you spend a couple of hours in a four foot walk way trying to focus on wire diagrams while giant robots toss 100 lb engine blocks down a steel shoot a few feet behind you with only a wire mesh fence to protect you. The sounds rattle your whole body and as the castings get dunked in the cooling bath the steam and oily residue cover everything making it hard just to stand up on anything but the steel grating. I kept a deathgrip on my tools since if I were to drop anything it would most likely slide down one of the many shoots that lead to massive conveyor belts that sort,ship and or recycle all the slag and rejects back into the giant furnaces never to be scene again.
   When it came time to wire up the units that interface with the main robots they issued us special locks that attach to the main power cutoffs on each of the control panels so it can't be powered up without each persons individual lock removed so you don't have to keep track of everyone which is good because there were alot of people climbing around inside these things that are each about the size of a moble home.There were maybe 10 or 12 of them in a place that is about twice the size of that exposition center building where we did MakerFair. If you got crushed by a robot you might never be found, just an odd crusty impurity an a bad batch of castings.
-brooks

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