CHURCHLAND —Chris Hannold may not have built his ultimate “Terminator”android yet, but he’s well on his way to making some “killer” robots.
Hannold, 30, recently took one of his killers, code named XAK, to Atlanta to compete in the Robot Battles competition at the Dragon Con science fiction convention.
And he learned that robot battles can get a little freaky.
XAK “got tangled up in panty hose, and I couldn’t really go anywhere, and this guy came along with his hammer and whacked me a couple of times, which didn’t do any damage, but he pushed me off the edge,”Hannold said.
Dropping four feet from the edge of the “battlefield,” Hannold’s robot was automatically out of the game. It flipped over onto its top, wheels spinning like an angry mechanical turtle.
Though he lost the battle, Hannold gained some valuable information.
“I need to learn how to drive it better, and I need to learn how to bolster my electronics on the control side,” Hannold explained.
Hannold has a strong background in electronics. He provides computer 
support services for Computer Horizons out of Raleigh and formerly worked at the Salisbury Post.
A graduate of North Rowan High School, Hannold first got involved in electronics and building robots when he was still in the eighth grade at North Rowan Middle School. He attributes his interest in electronics to his science teacher, Joe Teeter.
He built his first robot for a science fair project and now has constructed more than 10 different robots through the years. He operates his combat robots by remote control but is building a robot he’s dubbed “Einstein” to “think” for itself.
“You can say AI (artificial intelligence), that’s what I’m ultimately working on,”Hannold said. “I’ve got pages and pages of notes and stuff that I’m gathering together to build my artificial intelligence robot.”
Don’t expect his robots to imitate R2-D2, the diminutive Star Wars hero.
“That’s the problem with people’s perception of robots, because like R2-D2, they think robots should actually accomplish tasks that people accomplish,”Hannold explained. “We’re nowhere near that.”
Hannold’s Einstein may not be able to accomplish human tasks, but he already has engineered it for a task that could be useful one day. Einstein is designed to compete in the next Trinity College Firefighting Home Robot Contest held in Hartford, Conn.
In the firefighting competition, a robot is programmed to seek out a candle in a maze. Acting autonomously, Einstein and its robot competitors are designed to find the candle and put it out.
Einstein “thinks” for itself thanks to a system called “sensor fusion,”which uses microprocessors to handle separate tasks, including sonar and infrared object detection, video and mobility.
A larger processor handles the information from the individual microprocessors.
“It takes input from the rest, trying to obtain its objective, whatever that maybe,”Hannold explained.
Just as the larger processor has to piece together information, Hannold has to piece his robots together at different locations.
For design and actual electronic work, including soldering, he uses his workshop at his Davidson County home. His shop, a mishmash of electronic parts, wires and equipment, would make Dr. Frankenstein a little envious.
“Like my little Radio Shack here?”he jokes to a visitor.
Hannold goes to another workshop — the home of his brother’s father-in-law, John Boger, in Salisbury — to cut metal for frames and weapons for his combat robots.
And to piece it all together, he stops at the home of his parents, Richard and Nancy Hannold, in Spencer, for welding.
Sometimes, he destroys one robot to build another. Void, a robot he never really finished, fell victim to XAK, the robot that competed in Dragon Con.
On his computer, he has an electronic skeleton of “The Tattoo Machine From Hell,”which will have two spikes that act like a tattoo machine. He also has scribbled notes for an unnamed robot that will use a 28-inch saw blade.
As fancy as Hannold’s designs may be, he believes just about anybody can get into the Robot Wars competitions. He’s seen low-tech robots — two cordless drills stuck on a plywood base with a cheap remote control car radio — and a robot made out of titanium and magnesium that probably cost $10,000.
For anyone interested in learning more about building robots, Hannold recommends his site at
www.litewav.com where he has links to other sites, as well as the site
www.teamdelta.com which sells parts specifically for robots.
Hannold himself eventually hopes to start a robotics club in the area.
And from what he’s seen at other competitions, if the club does get started, it might include an arrangement of people as diverse as the robots that compete.
“They’ve got engineers and imagineers for Disney, the guys that do special effects for big name films ... they’ve got high school students, college students. And then they’ve got me.”
Anyone interested in possibly starting a Robot Wars Club in Salisbury can contact Hannold at
litewav@litewav.com .
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