CyclicalObsessive
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cyclicalobsessive.bsky.social
CyclicalObsessive
@cyclicalobsessive.bsky.social
240 followers 54 following 98 posts
Robot Educator - the robots, not humans. Sim Fly LongEZ, Cabri G2, and ICON A5 in MSFS2020 MSFS2024, and XPlane12. Avid birder, biker, and jogger. Obsessed with my 2023 Prius Prime XSE. Amateur Advanced WB0ZJJ South Florida USA
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cyclicalobsessive.bsky.social
As soon as a robot has purposes, and actions, “synthetic personality” emerges. Personality should not be artificially programmed IMO.

One of my robots sometimes fails to properly dock, and I always find it nestled up against the nearby robot.
Apparent personality problem.
Myself with robot WaLI and robot KiltedDave
November 12, 2025 at 6:14 AM
cyclicalobsessive.bsky.social
My Robot Carl is 7 Years Old Today

August 22, 2018 #GoPiGo3 #Robot Carl was "born".

In his seven years, he has:
- been "awake" 93% (56,935 hours)
- traveled 3.9 km
- dock and undocked 5724 times
- turned around 6952 times
- burned through 12 sets of NiMH batteries
- spoken 34380 phrases
Robot Carl has an 8 inch single eyed Minion Carl character atop a differential drive (two driven wheels and a rear castor) GoPiGo3 robot platform. Carl is seen in front of his dock which has a sign with his name Carl which stands for "cute and real lovable".
August 23, 2025 at 12:41 AM
cyclicalobsessive.bsky.social
After weeks "visiting Lusitania" (Speaker For The Dead, Xenocide, Children Of The Mind), I returned to "my world" by flying a pattern in "my LongEZ" at "my airport" in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. It felt good to only have my survival (landing) on my mind.

#MSFS2024 #KLNA #LongEZ #EndersGame
Simulated canard pusher LongEZ aircraft with canopy open, parked at Lantana Florida airport, showing pilot and passenger. The LongEZ aircraft looks different than most airplanes due to the tiny canard wing in the front, propeller in the rear, with swept back main wing extending out to twin vertical stabilizers/rudders. (There is no tail after the main wing.) This particular LongEZ is painted in fire engine red and silver, with the "registration" Cyclical O visible on the vertical stab.
August 7, 2025 at 12:48 PM
cyclicalobsessive.bsky.social
I heard the sound of my ROS 2 Jazzy robot WaLI (Wallfollower Looking for Intelligence) rotating in search of his dock to recharge.

"Head spinning" WaLI was trying to push my ROS 2 Kilted Kaiju robot Kilted Dave the dock.

Lesson learned: they still need me.

#ROS_2 #Robot #Kilted #Jazzy #GoPiGo3
Turtlebot 5 WaLI (Raspberry Pi 5 running Turtlebot 4 stack on an iRobot Create educational robot platform next to a GoPiGo3 robot running the beta ROS 2 Kilted Kaiju on a Raspberry Pi 4 named Kilted Dave.
May 14, 2025 at 1:11 PM
cyclicalobsessive.bsky.social
Update - Unexpected accuracy!

I rebuilt GoPi5Go-Dave's dock sign with a 125mm 36h11 AprilTag and figured out which file to put the new size into and how to pass the param file to the recognizer.

Thank you Christian Rauch (apriltag_ros)

#GoPiGo3 #AprilTag #RaspberryPi5 #ROShumble #Robot
Graph of the processing nodes inside the Oak-D-W camera to produce RGB image, mobile net object detections, and stereo depth cloud outputs. The AprilTag ROS detection is using only the RGB image. Dave estimates AprilTag marker is 1.005 meters away oriented -38 degrees from robot heading, both accurate to as good as I can measure
December 25, 2024 at 2:33 PM
cyclicalobsessive.bsky.social
GoPi5Go-Dave managed to detect a standard 36h11 #apriltag (150mm on a side) from 6 meters away. Hopefully someday he will be able to use Steve Macenski's new #Nav2 docking feature to find his way home.

#GoPiGo3 #Robot #ROS2Humble
rviz2 image from robot GoPi5Go-Dave close to an AprilTag with the detection result rviz2 camera image from 6 meters away from an AprilTag with the successful detection result Robot GoPi5Go-Dave looking at his square dock marker
December 19, 2024 at 4:27 AM
cyclicalobsessive.bsky.social
Even though my #ROS #robot has a "Flopsy Wheel", it managed a #nav2 trip to the kitchen and back in 6 minutes today. It only got confused once, probably due its "can't drive straight" problem.
map of house showing waypoints planned to kitchen and back to dock map showing the actual path of robot to kitchen and back to dock ROS robot GoPi5Go-Dave at end of his journey to the kitchen is close to his dock at approximately the planned pose
December 12, 2024 at 7:30 PM
cyclicalobsessive.bsky.social
My ROS 2 Humble robot "GoPi5Go-Dave"
Map showing where Dave got trapped, unable to continue navigating Simulated GoPi5Go-Dave shown in rviz2 with Minion Dave model atop the robot layers GoPi5Go-Dave sitting on his dock
December 7, 2024 at 8:22 PM
cyclicalobsessive.bsky.social
November 30, 2024 at 10:11 PM
cyclicalobsessive.bsky.social
What's on my mind? Disappointment and Disillusionment!

- Invested 7 yrs in #GoPiGo3 #robot
- Robot cannot safely, reliably navigate in complex home environment.
- No slower turns, no inflation value can fix
- No strength for "one more try".

GoPi5Go-Dave shelved with "reached its limit" robots.
Image shows robot localization is 45 degrees different than actual on a map the robot built previously with ROS 2 Cartographer Shelf with WALL-E figures from 2023 Create3-Wali robot, GoPi5Go-Dave robot (with minion Dave on top) built in 2018, and Rug Warrior Pro robot built in year 2000.
November 25, 2024 at 2:13 PM
cyclicalobsessive.bsky.social
Day 3: It took less than 5 minutes from launch to takeoff. Moving map and radio not working. I know my way around this area VFR, especially since #MSFS2024 has the TV towers I use for landmarks.
Canard Pusher LongEZ parked at rwy 34 end of Wellington (Florida) Aero Club FD38 Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 flight summary screenshot showing KLNA Lantana Florida Airport and landing approach path of LongEZ airplane flown today.
November 22, 2024 at 1:41 AM
cyclicalobsessive.bsky.social
Anyone know what's up with #iRobot #Create3 "Shop" link not working for 3 weeks now? They announced layoffs and have not been seen on their GitHub discussion forum lately.

The Create3 really is/was? the best #ROS2 learning platform: bumpers, self-docking, wall-following, obstacle avoidance, ...
Two GoPiGo3 based robots Carl and Dave posing beside the iRobot Create3 robot WaLi. Text says "CARL (Cute and Real Lovable), WaLI (Wallfollower Looking for Intelligence), Dave (well... just Dave) Posing for a Selfie)"
November 21, 2024 at 4:00 PM
cyclicalobsessive.bsky.social
What does a #ROS2_Humble #Robot getting lost look like?

#nav2 seems to work great in sterile environments. My home is apparently not a robot-friendly navigation environment.
Map of my home as created by ROS 2 Humble Cartographer and the mess my robot is making trying to use the ROS 2 navigation package to unsuccessfully return to his dock. Robot GoPi5Go-Dave doing battle with a chair instead of following the global planner path to the kitchen. Text says "Dave not able to get out of a wet paper bag" with an arrow pointing to the robot position on map. Two robots (Carl and GoPi5Go-Dave) sitting on their recharge docks. Carl has a large Minion Carl (one eye) rubber character atop a GoPiGo3 two wheel robotics platform. Dave has a smaller Minion Dave (two eyes) rubber character atop a GoPiGo3 platform.
November 18, 2024 at 1:54 AM