Robotics

I've been a Squidoo member for about 3 years now. The first Squidoo lens that I created was on the topic of Robotics.

I've created a few more lenses since then (e.g. New Hamburg, ON and The Spark Centre), but I haven't been active in updating the Robotics Lens.

If anyone is interested in purchasing this lens from me, let me know. To be honest, I can't say that it has made much money from the advertising revenue that Squidoo shares (probably under $10 USD in the past 3 years), but I'm sure with some love and attention, someone else could do much better.

Send me an e-mail at onecog2many@gmail.com if you are interested. Once a Paypal payment is made, I will transfer the lens. I'm not sure on the value of the lens, but make me an offer. I'll probably wait awhile and let it go to the highest bidder.

Update 2009/08/05: Aw heck! I'm ready to give it away.

I was lucky enough to have my parents buy me a metal detector when I was kid. The handle was bright orange plastic and it was made for kids (I think it was from Radio Shack), but it did the trick and I always had fun using it until it gave out (after which I took it apart of course). I never found any real treasures with the device, but I was never short on bottle caps or rusty old nails :)

That metal detector was one of those formative toys in a growing geek's childhood. It sparked my interest in electronics, not to mention treasure hunting. I've thought about getting back into using a metal detector as a hobby again, but it would just have to compete with the kids and other side projects and it's just not really feasible at this time.

I've been mulling over an idea of combining a couple of my interests. I'm interested in robotics and electronics projects in general. It would be interesting to create a robot that could roam a field, narrowing down interesting places to dig. While the treasure hunter is investigating a marked spot, the robot could be locating the next place to dig. Covering the entire area programmatically would ensure that you didn't miss a spot as well (especially with an accurate GPS system installed). You could likely write the code for the robot to cover a potential find with several passes and several detector settings to qualify the find (e.g. using different frequencies for metal type detection and different depth settings). It might even be able to narrow down the size and shape of an item and show it graphically on a screen or send it wirelessly to a base station.

Then I got to thinking... where are some untapped locations for treasure hunting? Most people wouldn't have a lot of luck metal detecting in beach areas, especially along the shore and in the water where people might be unlucky enough to lose jewelery of one type or another. A submersible robot could be programmed to scour the shore for potential finds, and the treasure hunter wouldn't even have to get wet until a suitable location was found by the robot. With some attachments and a lot of skill, you could add a bucket to bring a scoop of sand to the shore for investigating.

Update 2009/09/15: Stumbled on an interesting RC car that can detect metal.