The Geek group recently documented the process of overhauling part of their office to accommodate project Jeff, a massive KUKA KR-350/1 industrial robot.
We don’t see lots of behind the scenes industrial-scale projects here at Hackaday, but we’re absolutely pleased with the creative techniques employed to pull off this precision install. At around 5 inches deep, the original floor was far too thin to manage the weight and tortional loads imposed by project Jeff, so The Geek group carved out a 15′ square space of old concrete and discarded it piece by piece in the rubbish. They then dug a new hole to a depth of 2.5′ and filled it with a fresh pour that amounted to 67,500 pounds of concrete. Sheesh.
That concrete will unavoidably expand and step around, which indicated installing a pool-noodle-looking slip cover to secure a buried conduit from damage, as well as placing some gaskets around the edges to stop cracking while maintaining a seal. around 10 minutes into the video, they tackle the challenge of embedding bolts that connect to the robot’s base; it takes some patience and creative ladder positioning to fit the theme in the right position.
As an added treat, The Geek group smashed a CRT monitor in our honor, and while they claim software limitations and a steel frame prevented project Jeff from completely annihilating the monitor, we like to think the skull and cross-wrenches just refused to be destroyed. Because, you know, science. videos after the break.
[Thanks Ryan and Andrew]