WHAT IS HACKING?: RoboCommunity

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July 18, 2008 5:39 PM

Making changes other than what the original manufacturer intended.

Bolting on a flame thrower? That's a hack.

Equipping it with a rail gun? That's a hack.

Installing bright LEDs so that the camera can more easily recognize colors? That's a hack.

Using puppet mode to teach it the Hokie Pokie? Bzzzzzzt! Not a Hack.

ScottE -- Member (always) & Moderator (when needed)

Currahee

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July 18, 2008 6:44 PM

thanks MrScott....where would u get LEDs

Elvensynth

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July 18, 2008 7:00 PM

Fry's electronics has LEDS, probably any electronic store, like radio shack.

Currahee

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July 18, 2008 7:07 PM

thanks Elvensynth

FREEEK

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July 19, 2008 4:02 AM

Very good question !!!
Hacking , on my opinion , is making changes on your robot (toy, car ,computer ...) which results to a plus of capabilities.

Horia Pernea
http://www.roboticage.eu

MrScott

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July 19, 2008 7:51 PM

FREEEK said: Very good question !!! Hacking , on my opinion , is making changes on your robot (toy, car ,computer ...) which results to a plus of capabilities.

Only when you do it right...

There are plenty of hacks, and hackers, that don't end up with a net "plus".

ScottE -- Member (always) & Moderator (when needed)

FREEEK

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member since: 01/11/2007
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location: Oradea, Romania
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July 22, 2008 3:49 PM

Any hacking is preceded by an idea then and a first attempt which ends most of the times with a bad result or a broken robot ... but hey , keep trying ... keep on doing it even if a plus is preceded by a minus at the begining!!! :)

Experience made NASA the developer of a super telescope like Hubble (when at the beginings it was the biggest failure ever because of the lens).

In conclusion , if you wanna be a conqueror you gotta do some mistakes first and learn somethink from it!

Horia Pernea
http://www.roboticage.eu

GWJax

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August 10, 2008 11:47 AM

A very good example of a hack is the Elvinator Project of mine or the twin wing DragonFly that I have been working on and off for some time. This takes time and planning out to make it work right and document everything you do just incase someone out there would like to do the same thing you have done or would help them out in changing some items that you thought was not important. To have a good hack you must know a good bit of electronics if working on robots and have some sort of seeing in your head what you want to achieve. and as always a good set of tools to do the job or find someone to help you out in the areas your not good at like 4mem8's Wall-E in programming, but with my help and others he's getting better.

Hope this helped you understand a bit more.
Jax

GWJax, To Hack and make mods on robots is a life style and comes natural and not by choice. If a robot has a screw to open it then it must be opened!

Currahee

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