Bored at Work, So We Made......

[gramatton]

Me and my boss were bored at work on Saturday. We've been slow lately but this was just ridiculous. So we started to try to think of ways to bring customers. So after thinking for a little while I happened to glance across all the empty crap computer cases we had lying around and an idea popped into my head.

After a quick run to the hardware store right around the corner to get some nuts and bolts, we set to work. Now just a warning, we don't have much in the way of tools around here except a few screwdrivers and my power drill(I didn't know I was going to need my dremel so it was at home sadly).

AAAND sorry about the cell phone pics, didn't have my camera with me. It was a very spontaneous project.

We started with our lot of cases.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0004.jpg

Found which one we wanted for the bottom and drilled some holes
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0003.jpg

We stuck in the bolts.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0006.jpg

Ran into a problem where the washer wouldn't sit flat because of this lip. I figured we might as well wait till Monday when I can bring my dremel up.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0007.jpg

But after me going out to smoke a cigarette real quick I come back to this.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0008.jpg

Apparently my boss didn't want to wait. But since we didn't have a hammer handy, decided to take an old ratchet wrench that was lying around and give it the ol' caveman treatment.

So with the lip out of the way we ran the bolts through, then did the same on the other bottom case, and we decided which cases were going ontop of those.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0009.jpg

Marked the holes and drill through the bottom of the second tier cases.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0010.jpg

After that was done we set our spacers on the bolts, basically just another nut and a wide washer so if needed we could adjust the height between the cases and level them out easier.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0015.jpg

Put the second tier cases on.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0012.jpg

After some tweaking and getting them where we wanted.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0013.jpg

And here you can see how those spacers worked out.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0020.jpg

Now to see how the middle case was going on.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0021.jpg

Marked and drilled the holes in the top of the second tier cases.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0024.jpg

Then marked and drilled the middle case.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0022.jpg

Put the spacers on then put the middle case on and tightened her up.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0025.jpg

Another shot of how those spacers worked out.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0033.jpg

Marked and drilled the top of the middle case.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0029.jpg

Marked and drilled the top case.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0037.jpg

Ran into a problem with the top case where the 3.5" bays covered one of the holes where the bolt was supposed to thread through. I was willing to run and go get my dremel, but my boss found an old pair of PVC pip cutters and tried to get it out.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0039.jpg

I should have known better but I left him alone with it while I ran to the bathroom. And when I can back he had channel locks in his hand(from god knows where) and this is what I found.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0043.jpg

Its not pretty but it definitely freed the space for the bolt to go through. So once again we put our spacers on.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0040.jpg

And put the top case on.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0035.jpg

And here is what it looks like so far.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0044.jpg

And that's all we got done on Saturday. I'm going to try to get some more work done on it today, but since I'm the only one in the shop today that might be hard, but we'll see.

And with that last shot, can anyone guess what it's going to be?

[Luke122]

A case tower shaped like a person, with a monitor for a head? :D

[gramatton]

Gah, on the first guess. Damn.

Yeah, we're working on the arms today. Got a bunch of dead PSUs we're using. I should ahve those up later today.

[p0Pe]

hahaha! thats totally awsome dude!!!
+rep!

[SgtM]

That's freakin cool! +rep

[FuzzyPlushroom]

It is going to stand in the corner and intimidate customers, with an angry face displayed on-screen, right?

[Luke122]

One of the cases should have a pc in it to drive the monitor. :D MAX HEADROOM!

[gramatton]

It is going to stand in the corner and intimidate customers, with an angry face displayed on-screen, right?

Well, its not going to actually be in the shop. It's going to be on the front porch staring out over the road that is less than 10 feet from the front of the shop.

And as far as the monitor making faces. It won't be doing much of that. Me and the boss took it apart like a week ago just for the hell of it. While it was apart we ripped out pretty much everything except the front glass and tube connected to it. I swear that my boss is a caveman, he went ape**** on the thing tearing it apart, even after he scoffed at me when I said he should be careful cause monitors can kill people.

What we will do is make a silly block face out of bright tape, later when we get a correct sized LCD we'll make it make faces and such.

[gramatton]

Forgot to add that we got some work done on the arms today, but I haven't had time to put up any pics. I'll probably put them up tomorrow.

We were going to do a case on each side of the shoulder-case, but decided that would look abit odd, and would also be a bunch of weight put on the thin metal on each side of the case. We finally decided to make arms out of PSU. Before I get too far into that I'll just wait till I get the pictures up tomorrow to explain.

[gramatton]

Alright, here are some pics of our work on the arms yesterday.

First we started with these
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0055.jpg

We were going to use cases but decided they would be too heavy for the sides of the shoulder-case. So we though about how to put these together and my boss(who came in on his day off so he could do this while I did the real work and watched the customers) came up with putting holes in every corner and zip tying them together. Yes yes zip ties are ghetto, but they also give the flexibility we need for bending the arms, and also it would be easier to move later when we want him to hold a sign over his head.

A dark picture of putting the holes in
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0058.jpg

Putting the zip ties in to see how it would look and function
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0059.jpg

My boss assembly lining the PSUs
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0062.jpg

Didn't get any pictures of him putting the zip ties in all of them cause I was busy doing the real work(pushy customers). But this is what one of them came out looking like
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0061.jpg
Those loose cable will actually be bundled together along the arm to kind of look like muscles.

And after that he got bored cause the drill died so he went home and left me with the real work.Tomorrow I'm going to figure out how we are going to attach those arms to the shoulder.

One thing I thought of after he just went after it was that those PSUs were kind of heavy, and with all of them attached together they're about as heavy as a case. So tomorrow I'm probably gonna go through and cut the ties and remove all the innards from them and put them back together.

[Datech]

Care to give it a name?

[Oneslowz28]

Yea this deserves a cool name.

[knightyc]

hows about mackiller tron lol looks good shame wasnt indoors would look cool with a pc showing image on screen

[Oneslowz28]

http://thebestcasescenario.com/oneslowz28/front_page/worklog_notification.jpg (http://thebestcasescenario.com)Click the image to be taken to your front page feature

Congrats!

[DonT-FeaR]

hahahaha this is sweet! great work mate!

[gramatton]

Wow, thank you for the honor of Weekly Spotlight. Compubot, I like that.

We have been rather busy at the shop lately. Seems everyone brings their computer in when its been raining. "Ohhh the lightning gave me a virus."
"The virus caused it to shut down and not turn on again." *while I'm looking at a board full of blown caps from a lightning strike*

We have been working on the bot though. The arms are proving a pain to attach. My boss doesn't want to do it, so it looks like I'm going to have to cut all the ties, remove all the guts of the PSUs, and then put the arms back together to make it lighter.

And with just me and the boss being the only people in the shop, it might be a while before I get that chance. But I will keep the updates coming as soon as we have some.

[Indybird]

This should be pretty epic, when you guys are done; can't wait to see it.

+rep btw

-Indybird

[gramatton]

Alright guys, over Saturday and today we got this thing finished.

On the arms we finally decided on how to attach the them to the shoulders. While sitting there and pondering the curious metal man, the idea came to me...I-bolts. Not only would they be easy to thread zip ties through to attack the arm, and it would also make it easier to position them, and cut the zip ties if we need to reposition them later.

So we drilled the holes in the shoulder
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0090.jpg

Ran into a problem with one of the holes being blocked by part of the ROM cage, but the handy dandy Dremel fixed that problem. (Thank god I had it today cause the boss was gonna go ape on it again.)
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0091.jpg

Threaded the Ibolts through with their washers. Needed some big bots cause the arms were pretty heavy.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0094.jpg

We did run into a problem where the bottom side of the shoulder case was too thin for the nut and bolt to fully tighten, even with a washer on either side. But, we had only enough washers of that size for 2 for each bolt. So what did we do? Converted the smaller holed washers so they would fit.http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0096.jpg

Here you can see the the original size on the bottom with the "modded" ones on top. They worked out very nicely.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0097.jpg

So after getting that done at the end of the day on Saturday, when we came in today we were ready to attach the arms. but first we had to put some holes in them for the zip ties.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0101.jpg

And we got one arm attached.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0103.jpg

And here's a pic to show how sturdy it is. That arm weighs a good 15 lbs almost, and hardly a lean on the guy.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0104-1.jpg
And the other arm put on
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0105-1.jpg

And while I was putting the side panels back on the cases to get ready to finish him, I ran into this problem.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0107.jpg


Apparently we forgot that on this case you have to take the top panel off to get the side panels on. This was a bit of a problem because the top panels has two huge bolts through it and is supporting 30+ pounds. So after the boss tried to figure out how to fix this while I was already pulling out the Dremel, I went to town on the lips that go under the top panel.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0108.jpg

This was some pretty damned thick metal(they dont make em like they used to) and I ended up going through like 10 cutting discs. This particular one shattered just after the photo and sent bits of it into my other hand. And it turns out the cuts worked just fine.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0114.jpg

I got tons more stuff for the next post.

[gramatton]

So after getting everything cleaned up and all the side panels on, we started on the head. To attach the monitor to the shoulders we needed to attach it to the side panel for that case. So we marked and drilled some holes on the monitor base
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0111.jpg

And the marked and drilled more holes on the case panel.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0115.jpg

So we attached the base to the panel. And my boss tightened stuff a little too much and ended up warping both the base and the side panel. Its a little hard to see.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0118.jpg

That wouldn't cause many problems. So we put it on top.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0117.jpg

And then tossed the monitor ontop of that to see how it would fit.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0119-1.jpg

Looks pretty good. We tightened a bunch of stuff down and took the monitor off so we could move it out front.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0105-1.jpg

And before we put the monitor on we added a face made out of white electrical tape that was lying around.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0128-1.jpg

So after putting the face on we went out and put the monitor on and bolted the side panel down and got everything situated, one arm holding onto the railing and the other hand zip tied to a screw in the wall to look like he's waving at a street less than 15ft away. And here he is pretty much finished.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0132-1.jpg

And another shot from further down. I was actually standing on the edge of the street, and it runs pretty much right at the edge of the photo, so thats what people see as they drive by. Just alot clearer cause these are all done off a crappy cellphone.
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/gramatton/PIC_0131-1.jpg

Thanks for watching guys. I'll try and get some better pictures of it, with a real camera, on Wendsday. I think it turned out rather well for something constructed solely from stuff lying around, the only thing we bought for it were the bolts.

PS. We decided that Compubot was a pretty good name for him so we're gonna keep it.(I'll always just call him Bob anyways.)

[Datech]

That turned out REALLY well man, great job! Have some rep.

[BerticusPryme]

dude that thing is friggin awesome. I want one now.....+rep for all the effort that was put in to him

[x88x]

Heheh, nice. At the very least it'll get peoples' attention :D