Heinlein's Waldo's = Robot Ninja's?

FANCY THIS!!!

So i get an email reply from Imagesco about their bend sensors. It seems my logic was correct! They can be shortened, the open lead on the end can be repaired with silver epoxy (yay!) and the total resistance and resistance curve remains proportionate to the amount snipped off!

So construction is now 50% easier. Considering i'm still using servos for the robot hand, i'll have to find a good way of connecting them with least amount of parts, but that is much easier considering i can take apart the hand as it will be legos. I am wondering if i should use bend sensors (for comparison re-straightening) in the robohand, except they only work in one direction and to 90 degrees. So a pot would still be potentially better for error correction....except it'd require some math and programming to get the resistance scale between the pot's and the bend sensors. Of course thats all for later steps. Right now is step 1:

Construct Control Glove (lol nintendo power gloves anyone?), construct PIC circuit and program it, and construct the robot hand. The hardest part in my opinion is going to be programming the PIC's correctly. I'm going to be taking this one step at a time, which means i'm going to use my index finger first and build a finger first. that and because i can use one PIC per finger to get all degrees of freedom. 4DOF per finger. I figure a bend sensor on the thumbside of the index will cover for the side to side motion.

4x Bend Sensors @ 10$ ea. = 40$
4x Servos @ 20$ ea. = 80$ (lame, i should find cheaper ones)
1x Serial Port Programmer @13$ = Sweet!

the PIC, programming and burning software are all free! The expensive part:

1x My Own Computer... because i don't know if my uncle will let me install any of the programming bits on this comp. Of course, he has this other deuchy looking '95 looking contraption that should have a serial port on it. The programmer says that low voltage serials (ie notebooks) don't work well with it, which means i'll probably just shell out 100$ (if that) for a simple desktop just for progging the PIC. I can always upgrade the serial programmer later on, along with other stuff like getting a laptop. That stuff ain't necessary right now. For instance, one site i found has a guy programming their lil bits with a Sharp Zureus! How nice that would be.

BTW: if i can find a pocket pc that can handle an external harddrive, an IPOD, has a decent size harddrive itself, internal wireless, and can run internets, streaming video, and most importantly, bittorrent, id rather have that. Something that has a couple USB ports on it for a keyboard should i need it, etc. A decent or boostable powersource would be nice. I want to get one of thsoe single-eyepiece headset monitors for it :). That would have to have its own batteries as well, but hey! Itd be small, do what i want, and badass!

K bro's n girls, i'll see you all later!

Addendorandom: My uncle has 2 extra comps laying around, both which he doesn't mind me using. yay! So i'll fire an email to my dad asking him to send me up my harddrive! That'd be helpful, and i'll have it for later. Whew! that means i can get an ipod sooner than later if i get i-tunes to run on one of those older machines. That or if he'll let me install itunes on this baby...that would work too. I would just need an external hdd shell, one of those 20$ usb goodies so i can get all my tunes off me old drive and onto an ipod! yay! Thatd make gym time SO much better. i'd keep that cd player for the sauna though, not takin anything expensive in there! lol.

So, its lookin good, looking good. I even have a lil webcam here so after a bit i can post vids! weeee!