HERO-1 Robot Bartender

More music from http://www.galxygirl.com HERO the Robot, built in 1983 by the author, was programmable and tended bar at parties, just like R2-D2 in Star Wars! I did this for the humor when I was young & crazy (I no longer drink). Mostly, I was fascinated by having a full featured home robot.

HERO was also mobile. I wrote a custom program that utilized the sonar ranging "eyes" to steer around obstacles. I also had HERO-1 guard my home, answer my phone, send IR signals to my VCR while speaking the commands, alls sorts of fun stuff!

Original video, editing, effects, and soundtrack by me, Wendy.

In 2008, Heathkit announced a new HE-RObot that is even more powerful, has a camera, but no arm.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• robot
• bartender
• cocktail
• party
• drink
• bar
• robo
• home
• Hero
• Hero-1
• Heathkit
• techno
• Wendy
• Dunham
• music
• indie music
• minneapolis music
• electronic music
• robot kit
• educational
• how-to
• soundtrack
• electro
• house
• industrial

[THEROBOTMAN10]

Do you still have the code? I would love to see it!

[wendylouwho]

@THEROBOTMAN10 My custom code is long gone. I did print out my machine language & robot control language hex and mnemonic codes on a dot matrix printer so I could debug before I burned all the routines into an EPROM. HERO had everything I ever wrote quickly accessible from the EPROM (much better than the cassette deck and serial Tarbell format). It was really cool. But I guess after 10 years, I pretty much programmed everything I was ever going to do with HERO.

[archimech1138]

Technodiva....awesome program. Remember how hard the hex addressing was to remember....what's in the accumulator now?

I hated using the tape recorder to save programs and the thing was always plugged into the charger, but what a blast when routines worked.

My HERO is in the basement somewhere still, can't junk it yet even though it's been cannibalized a bit.

PROPS....OLD SKOOOOOOL

[wendylouwho]

I shot this in 1984 with a bulky vidicon tube camera, so yeah, it WAS "old skool," tee hee! :o)

[atruewarrior377]

This is awesome! So retro!

[wendylouwho]

1984 to be exact.

[archimech1138]

I'm addicted to this video...if you never built a HERO then you might just be temporarily fascinated at the most...

Still awesome post.

Synth sounds like a roland of some kind...

You rock so hard. I'm sending this vid out to friends...

My vids as a kid were boring, just HERO patrolling hallways using sensor inputs and telling our dog to sit.

The gripper and extender were way too weak (even when lubed) to do anything really cool, but your vid rocketh.

You is cool chick.

[ORUPRANKSTAZ]

That's quite a limited manipulator... and the end-effector isn't great.. but it was just 1984. Lol I think I got to see one of these in person as a little kid..

[wendylouwho]

That's not Kraftwerk, it's my music. I created it using Apple's Soundtrack. It also features recordings of HERO's speech synthesizer.

[6364gg2]

I love kraftwerk

[shifzr]

Excellent!