Things to pass the time on startup

[Guest HalBishop]

I just returned from a 7 week startup on a flour mill in Bucyrus, Ohio. (CLX5561) (2 HMI) (300 DeviceNet nodes) (165 FVNR motors) (20 VFD) (Other assorted analog and descrete I/O) My son and I were the startup team. This is his 5th year as an intern with the company. He does the HMI and I do the PLC programming. After a while the "same old s@@@ different day" routine kinda gets old. There was a Radio Shack in the mall near our motel. We were getting a new serial cable when I noticed the Vex Robot kits that Radio Shack is now selling. Since we were involved with FIRST robotics at the local high school, I thought this would be a good diversion from watching television and talking about the job all the time. We bought the kit and built one of the designs in the book that was supplied. What a blast! We bulit a bracket and attached my Sony DSC-828F digital camera to it. We turned it on "movie" mode and drove it around the parking lot of the motel taking videos. We also took it to the job site and ran it around the mill during slow periods. It gave us something to do and a different topic to talk about during what little decompression time we had available. I thought some of the other "ubergeeks" out there might want to take a look. Edited July 30, 2005 by HalBishop

[Guest budw]

Big kids and their toys!!