Opening Robie Up
	Now the that motors are working, its time to open Robie up and remove the unnecessary original parts to make room for the new electronics which will be needed to turn Robie into a modern autonomous robot. Inside Robie’s body is a circuit board which used to provide the radio control and motor control functions and a cassette player which used to provide rudimentary programming by allowing Robie to repeat a previous sequence of moves.
	I will split the video of this blog into four parts for reasons which will become clear as you watch them. The first step is to remove the six screws from the back which hold the two large sections of the body together.
	Removing the screws proves to be a little more difficult that you might expect. The last one was clogged with fine sand, which prevented the screwdriver from finding purchase on the screw head. I had to get my little screwdriver out and dig out the sand before the head was exposed.
	Once the final screw was out, the two body parts separated easily. This allowed removal of the head and arms, which were held in place between the two halves of the body. Fortunately Robie’s designers attached all of the connecting wires to the circuit board with snap in connectors, so it was an easy task to disconnect all of the wires which were holding the various parts together. The arms do not contain any electronics, but I am going to see if I can add small stepper motors to provide animation. There is probably not enough room, but time will tell. The head contains some flashlight bulbs for eyes that I will take apart in a later blog and replace with LEDs and also put LEDs into the mouth to try to add some animation when he talks.
	With Robie all apart and the pieces spread out, I start to make plans for how I will fit the new electronics in place. I will need a space for the Arduino Mega which controls the motors and the sensors, and for the Raspberry Pi which provides the artificial intelligence functions.
	The old circuit board removed from Robie is probably still functional, but I doubt that I will ever need to use it. Being a bit of a pack rat, I will save it for a while in case I want to remove any parts.
	The cassette drawer will likely be cleaned out and the space used for a touch screen which will not be used much because Robie should respond to voice commands for all desired functions, but it may be useful for unlikely scenarios. The back and arms will go back together again. I doubt that my battery solution will fit within the original space, so I will likely need to find room within the body for that stuff too. [5414.jpg]
	The cassette compartment comes off easily after you remove the two screws at the top holding it in and remove the two screws holding the top clock interface in. The picture to the left shows the hole in Robies body where the cassette used to be. The picture to the right shows the body from the inside. Note: I have put the clock interface back on for now.
	Sadly, my plan to turn Robie's body on his base so he could drive with the powered wheels in front and the swivel wheel in back will not work. It turns out that the original designers were even more clever than I thought at ensuring Robie was put back together correctly after maintenance. The front and the back edges of the body have a slightly different shape. When I just sat the body on the base in both directions it 'looked' like it would just fit, except for the screws not lining up with the holes. A close look at the picture here where the back base piece is lined up on the front base piece shows the front has a slightly curved bulge that the back does not have. So, short of rebuilding the entire base unit, which I have considered because the gears are soooo noisey, I am going to have to live with Robie going forward with the swivel wheel first. This means that he will have trouble with rugs and other obstacles, but this can probably be resolved by creating a 'Turn Around and Back Over' behavior.

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