Sam’s Photo Blog

True to tradition we met up at Pat’s house and enjoyed some pancakes, bacon, and some alcoholic beverages the day before we get our rings. We also had a costume making party in the basement

The theme of the costumes were, naturally, ROBOTS. We picked up a bunch of cardboard boxes, rolls of aluminum foil, duct tape, and misc stuff lying around our rooms.

Some like shiny stuff…..

Awesome-O vs Walking DVD player box.

[Left] Jolivet with his bling necklace and quick detectable head [Right] I sported a more nimble suit so I can keep on taking pictures.

We wanted to attend our multi-variable controls lecture so we all walked together down Columbia. We got quite a few stares from the passing by drivers.


The robots with more girth kept running into doorways and poles in the school…

We finally made it to class, the robots sat respectfully in the back without blocking the views of other students.

Can’t resist the temptations….

Pat dressed as Bender (I don’t think he remembers being at the BBQ though).

How on earth did Aaron morph from a chicken to a cow in a matter of 8hrs?

Terminator and Super-charged Optimus Prime with backpack powered 12in speakers

Another one of those crazy weeks: 1 exam, 1 lab+report, 1 design report, and 2 projects due. See ya!

Our 8 months of blood and sweat all came down to this one afternoon when we could show it off and talk to visitors about our 4th year design projects at the student life center. Setup began at 10am and the Symposium officially started at 1am. This year we had 30 groups in the class and it was great to check out some of the final products. Let’s check out some of the display booths.

Hyroller, a hybrid wheelchair that had been built from scratch!

Dancing robot that would imitate human movements by capturing joint positions and adaptive Neural Network.

Project Alarm, a multi-robot system for landmine detection.

ARGO, we finished the project with the vehicle able to navigate by GPS waypoints.

Ed’s hydraulic robot arm (AKA Snakebot). It amazed us since he pulled it off alone.

Active suspension design to climb over curbs and gaps.

ARCON, a R/C conversion for a 1993 Toyota Camry.

SwimTRON 5000, a trainer for competitive swimmers.

Yassir explaining his Vertical Take-Off & Landing (VTOL) UAV to the Chair of the Mechanical Department.

This is after the plane was set to hover for a short demo. I think those fans were spinning at over 10,000RPM.

Brandon and his new concept for a tattoo gun.

The team posing in front of their tele-operated, robotically-assisted, image guided laparoscopic instrument. Amazing design/construction once again.

Prosthetic Hand Design with force feedback to avoid crushing the objects.

The nForcer, combines perspective control and shooting game. They built the gun, the tent to block out ambient light, and the game for their project.

A new synthesizer involving body movement/tilt, and finger positions.

Man’s best friend strapped to your wrist. The device can turn on/off appliances, get bus schedule and do other magical things.

Team Franken-mote in action!

A new chassis design for the Formula SAE team.

Closing statement from our professor before we all packed up and went to the bar.

High-Five for a job well done!
UPDATE: GALLERY for the rest of the pictures. More information on these projects are available HERE.

Symposium on the 23rd, 10days left. We took the ARGO out for test driving a few days ago and it is working really well with the joystick input, we flipped the switch for autonomous operations but ended up doing donuts and tearing up the field.

This is the ARGO loaded onto the trailer, some of us had to sit on the floor because they had taken out most of the seats in the van.
The controls are really sensitive and combined with the mushy field it was very easy to slide out of control. We COULD drive slower but then we wouldn’t be testing it correctly..
While Ryan is fine-tuning the actuators, we were happy to just be standing outside enjoying the sunshine.
This is me ripping the field to pieces….hehe.
Since we didn’t want to lose the ARGO, we were driving at 20km/h….causing traffic backup on Ring Road.

School has been very hectic the last week. But with less than 1 month of classes left, it is time for some graduation themed posts. The Engineering Gradball took place at St.George Hall north of campus. About 600 graduating students attended the event and it was a great time to dress up and forget about school work for a while!
To start us off: Tristan with the bow tie; Utsav showing off his Space Shuttle tie.

Anthony and Ludwik - my faithful test subjects.

Myself and my date, AJung.

Behrouz and Cindy.

Steve, AJung, and Yassir.

Brandon and his girlfriend.

Group photo of those from the class of Mechatronics 2009!
After dinner and award ceremonies. Jolivet commanded the start of partying and dancing.
[Left] Aaron brought out his shiny flask. [Right] Ludwik and Heather taking a break on the side.


Paul performing his stationary sprint while Soheil tries desperately to protect himself.

The mid-air jumping shot, love the expressions!

Danilo roaming the dance floor.

The Mechatronics corner where we congregated.

Yin Yang - Robot + yoga moves, anything goes!

By midnight, a strange glow was emanating from Utsav. I think he was overheating from all the 6-Degree Manipulator dance!

I have set up a Gallery with more photos for those interested! Thanks to Tristan for taking some of these photos when I goofed off elsewhere. If you would like high res copies please leave a comment or send me an email.