Episode: 3482
Title: HPR3482: Introduction to Post Apocalyptic Robotics Meta Technology
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3482/hpr3482.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 00:14:37

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This is Haka Public Radio Episode 3482 for Tuesday 7th of December 2021.
Today's show is entitled, Introduction to Post-apocalyptic Robotics Meta Technology.
It is the first show by new host mechatrolyach, and is about 14 minutes long, and carries an explicit flag.
The show is building robots from junk parts and tech prepping.
Hail to my loyal henchmen and fellow supergillums!
Welcome, new recruits, and greetings to the hackers of HPR. This is mechatrolyach, the mechatronics
maniac, with the zeroth installment of robots, warlords of the apocalypse, where I will talk about
post-apocalyptic robotics and share my projects, philosophy, and future ambitions.
I am doing this podcast contribution for hacker public radio at hackerpublicradio.org.
After this has aired on HPR, I will be adding video to this presentation,
and will be uploaded to my channel at bitchute.com-forward-slash-channel-forward-slash-mechatroniac.
Now that's where I upload my projects, as well as other videos that I find that will be helpful
for this project. Mechatronics is code, electronics, and mechanics working together as a system.
I'm weak in all three, but I've built mini-battlebot-style robots completely from scratch,
except for Arduino. With every chassis part, every motor and wheel, and every circuit that
drives them sourced for free from junk, like discarded printers, DVDs, TVs, computers, and
uninterruptible power supplies. I'm calling this ethos and the resultant aesthetic
post-apocalyptic robotics, that is robots that can be built by reclaiming existing
post-consumer products to create something new. Currently, they are confined to smooth surfaces
like battlebot arenas, but more rugged terrain bots are currently also being worked on,
and I want to work towards autonomous and swarm robotics as well. The recipes I release here
can be followed by anyone to build their own robots and devices by simply gathering the required
scrap units or similar as described, then disassembling and finally reassembling into a new
meta-technological device. I hope that others will join me, come up with their own innovations and
new recipes that can be gathered to our incipient swarms of meta-technological bots as they evolve
ever more sophistication. Welcome to post-apocalyptic robotics.
Introduction to post-apocalyptic robotics meta-technology. Tech prepping, building a
battle bot out of junk. Meteors, asteroids, comets, cataclysmic solar flares, massive volcanic
eruptions, and earthquakes triggering massive tsunamis. Social unrest. Runaway climate change!
ransomware and EMP attacks striking electric grids. Deadly viral pandemics!
Mass hysteria, big boats, blocking waterways, obscured malware in a system D update,
management engines at the heart of CPUs providing backdoors to Intel and AMD hardware
root-minus-3 privilege what could go wrong. There are a large number of looming events which could
collapse technological society as it is, wipe out most of the internet and shipping and transport,
and hopefully maybe even the government. Tech prepping is more important than food prepping.
While most survivalist and prepper types concentrate on stacking cans of beans, seeds,
fuel, and ammo. Tech prepper will also be hoarding books on pdf, component data sheets, software
libraries, breakout boards, and every post-eol electronics product they can get their hands on.
In a semi-apocalyptic scenario where the trucks stop rolling, a lot of people who save seeds will
be able to grow food in their communities so food won't be such a big issue. There might even be
some that figure out how to make petroleum from wood like Mr. Testelonian channel on YouTube
describes and shows. But a real crux will be analog digital electronics technology IT and
mechatronics. Those communities with working electronics, mechatronics, and information technology
infrastructure will be at a distinct competitive advantage. They will be able to leverage this in
such things as automation of agriculture from watering schedules to weed pulling along
with many other applications that will make the PAR communities ascendant. All else being equal PAR
will be a force multiplier versus hostile neighbors starved of their slave slaves swiping because
Facebook no longer exists or remnants of the tyrannical state coming over their dumb bunkers
and thinking they have the right to rule. It's a good thing then that we have a boost up to a
mechatronic technological society all around us in the electronic consumer devices that although
they may be de-crap its soil gun or dead nonetheless contain a wealth of component parts most of
which are hard enough to function for a very long time components that can be reused in new
applications. It's like there's a supply chain for robot factories all around us. It's not infinite
but it is very plentiful at the moment. Sadly our society is blind to the current and future
worth of the technological legacy in our midst and the electronics recycling is merely electronics
destruction. So the antecedents for this meta-technology are beam cyberpunk road warrior.
Beam is a biology evolution aesthetics mechanics and that's a robot building philosophy of
Mark Tilden's which has inspired me. He even wrote a book called Junk Bots. Fellow travelers
are maker right to repair hardware hacking such as a Valerio de Kiempietro. The hardware hacking
tutorial which I have mirrored on my bitchute channel and collapse OS trying to put a simple
operating system that will work on a variety of technology. One of this new meta-technologies
main antecedents is beam as I said Mark Tilden's robot projects that issued microprocessors in
favor of circuits built of discrete components that mimic biological nerves and can react to
environmental stimuli. There's a nice archive of beam related documents on solar botics site.
Leave a link for that. So where Mark uses transistors as the nerves and brains I'm using Arduino
since microprocessors are now a lot more ubiquitous and inexpensive than his time. But I think
there's some really good ideas there. So do check out the solar botics site for all the beam
documents. He wrote a bunch of stuff for JPL about perspective space traveling and
really interesting stuff about ceramic peos or electric motors which I haven't seen yet. Where are
they? But anyway the use of Arduino is the only thing keeping my projects from bringing completely
or theoretically post-apocalyptic robotics but one day we'll get there and and use everything
reclaimed. So yeah right to repair and hard we're hacking to very important aspects utilizing the
processors inside consumer products to run other operating systems for our use. Unless we
hoard thousands of at-mega-328 peas it would be difficult to find processors that we can run unless
they've been liberated via techniques described by Bill Laryl Dick and Pietro and others. Hard we're
hacking. Reusing processors from printers and other products is a goal for the future but
right now let's have some fun. So it's not all doom and gloom. There's a lot of fun and education
prospects to this so you should follow along and build a battle bot style bot with me.
The first Arduino PAR battle bot style bot I built the Harold Interceptor. It's powered by
518650 cells from trash laptops. Power train is custom hybrid relay MOSFET H bridge and it is driven
by four electric motors and wheels harvested from post-apocalyptic printers. It has IR remote control
and is very fast to the extent that I have to add rubber bumpers to it to keep it and others safe.
Another deep part true from PAR ethos is I added some front and rear ultrasonic sensors from China
and the MP3 player which is a lot of fun. All IR remote control so hence it's the Harold Interceptor
since it announces the presence of the swarm. Give up your energy. The swarm is here. We've come to
harvest. Take us two year receptacles. I think it has an interesting road warrior cyberpunk aesthetic
with the gray steel aluminum and black ABS parts and but for the wheel star wars for the bolted
on look of things. I hope we can set up tournaments. We build our bring our bots, battle it out
with cost not being a barrier to building robots. I mean those battle bots must have been
an arm and a leg to build those. I could see a challenging new sport that is across between
battle bots and junkyard wars where contestants would have a set amount of time to build a bot
from junk and then compete in racing or deathmatch or sumo or whatever. So obviously you're going to
learn a lot about coding and electronics and how those go together so best way to learn is by doing
jump right in. Now that I've shown some of the more important strategic and fun and educational
implications of PAR meta technology by rating trash consumer electronics for their components.
I hope at the very least that everyone hearing this never again take their post use electronics
to one of those recycling centers where all those precious components are destroyed. Better off
keeping it in your basement. You'd do better taking it to a landfill than taking it to recycling.
I mean maybe some wretched future mutant can discover and make use of it. Next episode I'll show
you how to build your PAR laboratory and give you the ingredients to the herald interceptor.
But if you're already excited to get started you can order an Arduino Uno or Nano or an Arduino kit
with a bunch of sensors like I did when I got started. You can also start gathering things
like printers, TVs, DVDs, UPS and other ways to get a soldering station if you don't already have one.
Be very careful you start taking stuff apart. I'll give more guidelines on safety but you can get
cut-taken printers and things like laptop batteries apart. So be warned. In the coming episodes
I will share the detailed recipe for my first post apocalyptic robot I built complete with Arduino
code and I'll show you how to build your own robot for free except for the Arduino and also
do email tech support if you have problems just tell me problems and complain I'll try to help you
resolve it. I also want to go further into other tech-prepper archiving so in case all or large parts
of the internet are no longer accessible and this may be where your programmers can help me.
They kind of gave me weird looks on the Arduino forums when I asked for a way to download all the
libraries but I was finally able to beg a script that let me download a lot of them if not all.
So as well as libraries software libraries we should have a way to archive component data sheets.
Maybe we can get some torrents going or something with the most important stuff seems it would be
prudent to have data sheets on all the components and microprocessors that you possibly can and all
the software libraries that it would be practical to archive. Probably pretty huge to download every
Java library and I'll also go into more aspects and implications of this exciting meta technology.
I hope you will join me in building post apocalypse robotics and mechatronics fun. Like I said come
to my bitchute channel after so you can see what this looks like as well. All right thanks for
listening. If you're on bitchute subscribe to HPR if you're on HPR check out my bitchute. See you next time.
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