[Robotgroup] belly of the beast

[Paul Atkinson]

Brooks,

Maybe you can take an MP3 player in and capture a sound track. I've had to
*forget* I had a camera in my pocket once or twice in order to get some
interesting pictures <wink><wink>

Paul

On Jan 31, 2008 12:56 AM, brooksdesign <brooksdesign at peoplepc.com> wrote:

>   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
>
> ________________________________________
> PeoplePC Online
> A better way to Internet
> http://www.peoplepc.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Robotgroup mailing list
> Robotgroup at puremagic.com
> http://lists.puremagic.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/robotgroup
>