Client
Me
Year
80s and 90s
Duration
Life Long
Tags
Where is that damn tape?!
Have you ever had a moment that changed everything?
Well, I had a few, and fortunately the first one came at the age of 7 when I watched my dad upgrade my toy car. He was a self-taught electrical technician. Actually, not officially, but he knew whatever he needed to know to be an electrical technician, except maths. Because he couldn't get a proper education after primary school, he couldn't pass the technician exams. Yet he could open up any TV, find the faulty part, and fix it.
So he added a tiny light bulb that lit up as my toy car went forward. As I loved that thing so much, he then made me another small light bulb attached to a single battery. I remember taking it and going directly under the table to see in the dark.
That simple act sparked a fire in me. It showed me that things don't have to be the way they are — we could change them as we like!
That thought led me to open a few more toys and stuff at home. Some of which led to wonderful responses from my mother, i.e. flying slippers and some groundings 😊 Though, I am only thankful to my parents, as they were very supportive of my "experiments".
The next spark was the first robotic toy they bought me, I suppose. I now understand how much they had to sacrifice to get that toy for me. I played so much with that robot while watching Voltron on TV. I am not sure, but that toy probably left a scratch mark in my subconscious.
As I grew up, my curiosity led me to DC motors, batteries, and such things. I was trying to make them turn, light up, move something, etc. Of course, more duct tape please!!
One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I was making simple robotic grippers I saw in movies. As time passed, I played more and more. I couldn't stop tinkering and creating in robotics. I remember developing my first 2 DoF robotic arm from basically garbage when I was 10 years old. I used an old pen, a tiny DC motor for the gripper, and another bigger DC motor for the main axis from my father's junk to build it. Matchsticks for the gripper. A pencil sharpener for the joint connection. Oh, I almost forgot — and lots of duct tape too!
I don't remember how many failures I had while assembling it, but I do remember my frustration. I was so pissed with everything not going the way it was supposed to. I mean, you are 10 after all — things need to go well, right? Ahh, that feeling of failure was ripping me apart!! You do something, it fails, you get over the feeling of failure and try again. I think it was especially hard for me to deal with failure because of the education system we were going through in those days. Failures and mistakes were not welcomed. I mean, they weren't a part of the learning curve, I suppose.
The result was mostly everything. When it worked, it was the best moment of my life. I was so proud of myself for making such a thing. Of course, it didn't take long to see something fail again, but at least I was able to get it working for a week or so before a duct tape got loose. Then I moved on to other designs. A winch. Another robotic arm with one more degree of freedom. And another...
I was also frustrated about my drawings at first, but in time they got better and better as well. When I was in high school, I remember my dad teaching me how a relay works. It was rather surprising to see such a simple relief to such a tedious problem for me. That meant I didn't have to physically change the cables to reverse a DC motor.
So I went on and built more. A Cartesian robotics setup. It had a total of four degrees of freedom. The body was acrylic thanks to my father (we had a family business in outdoor sign making, so there was an abundance of acrylic), and the gantry was rolling over my broken toy train tracks (they were so smooth). So there it was. For a month, it was fun to play with. Weird enough, all that fun is in the development. Of course, seeing it working is nice, but the result never made me as happy. Then off to the next project...
In high school, I started free diving. Being underwater fascinated me. I loved the idea of having a submarine. I wondered how cool it would be to have a remote-controlled one. So I decided to build one of my own.
My plan was simple. Build a sealed acrylic box. Use ordinary DC motors with propellers — I mean, the salty water will ruin them eventually, but who cares when you have no other choice. Put my good old video camera in there with an AUX tether to our old 14" CRT TV. Two 12V 20A batteries, and that's it.
I started drawing again. One design after another. I then started building a big acrylic box at our workshop. Selected 8–10 mm thick acrylic plates. Cut them into shapes and got 45-degree corners to make room for chloroform for gluing. It took the whole day, and it was time to test it for possible leaks with a bucket of water. Moment of truth... So of course, it leaked.
I tried more chloroform. It leaked again. Apparently, my design was flawed. The corners didn't allow me to make a proper seal. I had plans to redesign the whole thing and use acrylic tubes, but I left the project aside. I had to spend more time studying for the university exam. I remember tinkering with other things, but I didn't have much time in those days. At least I was 100% sure what I'd pick for a major.
Still, I kept thinking about it.
This was 26 years ago. Everyone says time flies, but it gets a new meaning when you experience it yourself indeed.
What is left from all this for me is the joy of designing and building something, I suppose. I am still the same 8-year-old kid whenever I solder a wire, run a small DC motor, or see a mechanism I designed that works or doesn't work, for that matter.
Both are mostly welcome...
