MOC's

Hey all.
  I have been slowly adding pictures to Brickshelf, one-by-one (anyone know a
faster way?). I have three MOC's now: the uberCrawler, a 4 wheel drive/4 wheel
steering proto, and a ball collector.    The uberCrawler is the larget moving
robot I have ever built. It has four independently-driven tracks, and a
two-motor winch that raises them to about a 45 degree angle. This lifts the body
up on the tips of the tracks, allowing it to turn and climb over obstacles. When
down fully, it can easily pull a 15 lb. laundry basket across carpeting, due to
the traction provided by the four sets of tracks.   The 4WD/4WS is a prototype
that was scrapped for its parts. It uses an idea from a Brickshelf user
"speedmen89" to drive its wheels.
<http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1177752> The goal was to make a
vechicle that was 4WD, and could steer front and rear pairs of wheels
independently, allowing it to have a very small turn radius, and also to follow
a diagonal path without turning the body.   The ball collector is [the] most
successful union of RCX and pneumatics that I have ever done. It is a simple
robot, with light sensors to find the balls, touch sensors for switch postion,
and a pair of gates controlled by a pair of large cylinders. It also uses one of
my favorite methods of drive, tracks made out of the Technic chain link.
Although it doesn't provide much traction, it is very easy to work with and does
the job just fine with a robot this heavy. My younger brother enjoys Legos too,
and he decided that my ball collector needed a driver, so this is also one of
the rare robots that I have built that has "standard" Legos in it. My favored
style of building is minimalistic and functional. Therefore, there usually is
not any kind of decoration on my robots.   One note: I posted these pix to
Brickshelf on 8/11/05, so they may not be public yet. There are lots of pictures
there, so I cannot really give deep links.

Links:
uberCrawler- <http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=125491>
4WD/4WS- <http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=138221>
Ball Collector- <http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=140638>

Andrew Meyer