50
-Lancaster Fannins, Saturday, Decamber 1,1984
BY BARBARA RADER
Staff Correspondent
EVANS CITY - What stands 4
feet 9 inches tall, weights 110
pounds, moves forward, back
ward, left and right, has two in
dependent arms, wrists and pin
chers and is made from discarded
materials?
Rotom a robot that can hold
round and square objects, serve a
glass of water, water the flowers
and walk the dog. The brain child
of Evans City 4-H’er Christopher
Rishack, Rotom was designed with
the handicapped in mind.
Nineteen-year-old Chris says he
hoped to design and create a robot
that could aid a handicapped
person.
Rotom is the final product of
Chris’ 4-H activities, which started
seven years ago when he joined
the Dunbar 4-H Club at the age of
12. Chris’ other 4-H projects have
included poultry, handicrafts,
Chris operates Rotom's pinchers with a control panel.
Rotom's pinchers are so sensitive that he can hold a fragile
egg without breaking it. Here, Chris shows how he uses a
control box to remove the egg from Rotom’s pinchers.
H'er builds robot that eon help handicapped
entomology, home and garden and
electical. However, his most im
portant and productive project has
been his self-determined project.
Chris’ 4-H leaders Judy Mar
burger and Ina Mikalauskas en
couraged him to pursue his self
determined project at the county,
state and national levels. Devoted
to his small community club, Chris
has served as reporter, secretary,
vice president and recently retired
as president after four years in
that office.
When deciding what to pursue
for his self-determined project,
Chris planned to do something that
would help him obtain a
scholarship. Deciding that his
family would think his idea of
creating a robot was crazy, Chris
kept his plans to himself.
He started spending all his spare
time the family’s garage, leading
the family to believe he was
cleaning it, when he was really
working on his first robot. His
grandfather did have some insight
into the project, but didn’t think it
would materialize.
A series of less successful robots
preceded Rotom. His first ancestor
was constructed of scrap material,
as were the other five robots that
followed Chris’ first attempt.
Robot number one was made of
two by fours which were too heavy
to move, a head, and one arm.
The second robot was again
made with wood, but had no head.
It did have an arm with fingers and
a thumb that couldn’t hold any
objects and just wasn’t practical.
The other robots that followed all
had imperfections, but led to the
creation of Rotom.
Rotom, Chris’ sixth robot, is
unlike any of his predecesors.
Chris used all “new” discarded
parts when he created Rotom. He
made Rotom from eight motors,
six of which are government
surplus and two of which are zerox
motors from a copier. Chris
derived the name Rotom for this
sixth creation by spelling motor
backwards.
Specially designed to have a
vise-like grip in his pinchers,
Rotom can hold objects as sen
sitive as an egg.
Chris’ mother says: “He stayed
in the garage in bad weather as it
was winter, keeping warm with a
camp heater while grinding down
and polishing the arms and pin
chers of Rotom.”
Chris adds, “The wrists are real
stable as they have an automatic
safety control which prevents the
crushing of an egg.”
Rotom’s body is made from two
25-gallon iodine containers from a
dairy farm, the aluminum base
from an industrial transformer,
wheels from old lawn mowers, and
coffee cans. Chris designed a mold
to create the large bubble on top,
'while “Tupperware” can be found
on the control box.
Before beginning work on the
actual robot, Chris worked out his
design with Legos. His mother
says he has played with Legos and
Lincoln Logs since he was five
years old. Gears and mechanical
things also fascinated him, she
said.
In late December 1981 Rotom
was finally designed and built in
just two months. Using the
knowledge gained from ex
perimenting with the other robots,
Chris built his most efficient and
practical creation.
While working on Rotom, Chris
focused his efforts on creating a
helpmate for the handicapped. He
wanted Rotom to be able to pick up
a glass of water and serve it, pick
a piece of paper off a table, and do
Chris and Rotom display some of the awards they have in 4-H competitions.
Rotom demonstrates his ability to hold a coffee cup in his
pinchers.
other chores that the bedridden
cannot. Rotom is now equipped to
do all these things, and by
changing his base, a robot could do
jobs such as mowing the lawn.
“Safety is a major concern in the
construction of a robot,” Chris
says. “Rotom is the only robot who
has made it to the house and into
mother’s dining room! No other
ones left the garage,” he con
tinues.
“Another main feature of Rotom
is that he’s peanut butter and jelly
proof, as he can’t be hurt and wipes
off easily,” Chris adds.
Rotom also has the ability to
speak any word in the language
with any accent, through a voice
synthesizer. It is programmed
through his stereo system with a
computer amplified with the stereo
system. Chris says the next step is
to complete the computer control.
At the time of this interview,
Rotom’s voice synthesizer was in
Pittsburgh, where Chris is at
tending the Pennsylvania
Technical Institute.
After completing his training at
the Technical Institute, Chris plans
to return home to start “Rishack
Robotics,” where he will make
robot kits using his own designs.
He’s hoping that his father will join
him in a partnership. Presently,
Chris is employed as a quality
controller at the Marburger Dairy
in Evans City.
Rotom is Chris’ first robot to be
shown to the public, “but he will
not be the last,” Chris says. Chris,
now known as the kid the robot
brings, can certainly be proud of
his accomplishments. In just over
two years, he and Rotom have won
well over 30 awards in local,
regional, state and national
competition.
Industrial engineering firms who
sponsored some of these awards
include Armoc, Inc.; Joy
Manufacturing Co.; Fisher
Scientific Co.; the University of
Pittsburgh Engineering;
Westinghouse Electric Cor
poration; and the American
Socieity of Mechancial Engineers,
Pittsburgh.
Chris has received
congratulatory memos from u
U.S. Senate and. Westinghouse
Corporation, his biggest sponsor in
competitive events.
He was top among 300 entries on
a research paper on the
development and ■ home ap
plications of robots submitted to
Washington D.C. in January 1984.
(Turn to Page B 16)