Need Help With Everything robotics

[aare voitk]

Hello,
I found an old tube radio cabinet that still looks great, but had no
innards (just the wooden shell). I installed a retractable screen dvd
car stereo with speakers, which is pretty sweet. However, phase two
of the project is more complex: the bottom portion of the cabinet is
empty, and I want to convert in into a liquor cabinet. My idea is to
provide a remote control gizmo to select your bottle of booze, and
serve it (not pour, but extend the bottle out of the cabinet from a
door). I might be able to rig something up with a 5-disc cd/dvd
carousel, and some individual cd/dvd drives (cd player with 5 disc =
rotational drive with large surface, and 5 known, programmed stop
locations, with the individual drives at each stop position, eject
disk = extending the bottle out of cabinet). This however, seems
clunky, wire ridden, and ugly.
So, I want something sleeker. A turntable programmable to stop at 4-6
locations, with a linear drive at the door position. The turntable
rotates and deposits the bottle on the linear drive (like a mini mag
from Dover), which, while extending, opens the door as well. This
happens by remote (might have hardwired buttons on the cabinet itself
too), which means that the door closing has to occur by remote as
well. Door opening also triggers an internal LED light, but that
should be simple enough to rig up with a magnetic catch. I think that
the door could be hooked up to the linear drive, extending the drive
opens the door, retracting closes the door. But some magnetic system
would be cooler.
Anyway, that is my idea. I hope that someone can give me advice as to
how to make this work, make it more efficient, what I would need, and
maybe even how to put it together.

Thanks!

Aare

[Joe Dunfee]

You have an ambitious project planned for someone who says they need a
lot of help.

It might be best to put this idea in storage for a while and
concentrate on a project from a kit that has a lot of educational
content. Something like the BOE bot would be a good choice. Then, you
would gain the expertise to understand the programming and
electronics. You might even cannibalize the kit to later put your
project together. The wheels could drive a belt to drive your turn-
table with sufficient force.

The BOE bot is a system designed with a lot of educational content
included to get a robotic hobbyist started. Once source is
http://www.robotshop.com/, for about $160, but there are other sources
as well.

The kit would handle some aspects of your ambition. But, the
mechanical design is more than a minor task. The weight of a device
to handle a CD is in a different category from the weight you want to
handle.

Joe Dunfee