My name is Jim. For the past 17 years I've been an engineering mentor for a local FIRST team, helping high school students design and build 150 lb. robots for the FIRST Robotics Competition. Thanks to FIRST, building large robots now seems perfectly normal.

My current project is ARMadeus Mk7, the latest in a series of large robots with articulated arms. Each robot is built on the recycled remains of its ancestors. The Mk7 version is one of the smaller members of the ARMadeus family, measuring 48 inches tall and weighing about 110 lbs. It should be the most capable thanks to DJ and the EZ-B.

I discovered the EZ-B while searching for a replacement for my vintage Isaac16 control system from Innovation First. I am both impressed and inspired by the robots and their builders featured on this site. I am especially pleased to find others who share my passion for building big. Construction of ARMadeus is expected to be complete by this summer. I will post pictures and updates as progress continues. My favorite building material for the robot framing is t-slotted aluminum extrusions and connecting hardware from 80/20.

I am posting a picture of an older (circa 2001) hexapod project. The nameless metal beast was over 4 feet long and weighed 100 lbs. It used a conventional tripod gait and was driven by 6 pneumatic cylinders with an onboard 12V compressor and storage tank. A simple sequence of 6 bit words controlled the leg movement. I can post more pictures of it if anyone is interested. My advice to anyone contemplating building large robots, design them to be modular. I learned that the hard way trying to get a 100 lb robot out of my basement.