So me and my friends are very adventurous people (not in that way). I live in Minnesota, Cannon Falls to be more specific, and in case you hadn't gotten the gist of what I'm saying, we like to go on adventures in the Cannon Falls, Minnesota area. It's a historic, naturally glorified and beautiful place to say the least. Upon entering the Cannon Valley, which stretches from Cannon Falls, hence it's name, up the Cannon River, into the Mississippi and crossing the border into western Wisconsin, you are eventually stricken by a beautiful scene featuring a layered portrait of cliffs and forests. Anyway, we starting calling our series of quests in the enchantment the Cannon Falls Adventures. We explore nature, random events, and even urban myths. One time, we took a trip down to the nearby town of Faribault, Minnesota at midnight to check out the "Haunted Insane Asylum" which was pretty freaking creepy. I went into this bare concrete building (aside from the graffiti) partially extruding from a hill, an extension of the main building, armed with only an LED flashlight, and out of all typicality, a startled bat scared the living hell out of me. It started attacking me like a rabbid squirrel, and the fear was escalated by the fact that it was 1am by then. I was wondering if this would be an interesting series on a YouTube channel, which I would name Cannon Falls Adventures, respectively. If so, I want to use my leftover Christmas money to invest into a sturdy GoPro camera to film the action. In other words, would any of you watch this crap?

Our new trend is freestyling. As a joke, we call our freestyle group CFAI (Cannon Falls Adventures International).  

Hmm

I would watch this, it seems interesting  

That'd be really cool! I would probably watch it. Also, do you geocache in that area?  

I used to watch Videos like those all the time dude, hyped if youre actually going to do that.
Would 10/10 watch.  

You should go for it man!  

coming to kidnap u  

Posted by The Doctor

That'd be really cool! I would probably watch it. Also, do you geocache in that area?

Now that I think about it, that seems really fun. If I end up carrying this out, I'll be sure to do activities like that.

Also, thanks guys, I can't wait!  

Posted by Distorted_P2P

coming to kidnap u

K, I'll be on the Red Wing bluffs  

I've been thinking about ideas for the channel, like a theme and whatnot. I've been investing in a gopro camera, and actually got a really good invention idea -- but that's off topic. Anyway, I was thinking about entering each episode with a screen video of myself typing a location, which will be the general location for the episode, into Google maps, then setting up the gps to get to the location. There'll be an iconic song/jingle playing while the Google Maps intro video is playing, and then I set the gps, and afterwards the "real" intro will play, which says, "Cannon Falls Adventures" with some fancy graphics. The Google Maps intro will act as a hook for each episode, and will give an idea as to what the episode will be about, and where I'll go to have an adventure.  

Now, the invention idea: I was thinking about how cool it would be to have a little robot follow you around to take a gopro video of you. Now, I know there are gopro drones that are programed to follow you (which probably won't cost less than $1000), and stationary gopro cameras that pivot to follow your movement from a single location, but no market for all terrain ground bots that follow you. Oh boy, I don't know why I'm posting this, or if I should. I just hope none of you are investors or Thomas Edison reincarnations, but here goes.

I want to make an all terrain bot with a gopro camera attached to it. Simple as that, right? Make an RC car with a gopro mount extended by a stick about 3-4 feet off the ground, easy. Not really. I want to make an automatic hamster wheel-like ball, essentially a star wars bb8, but replace the head with a gopro mount (if you don't know how a bb8 functions, look it up). Sort of, but instead of using a normal gopro mount as a bb8 head, I want to extend it about 4 feet above the bot by using a long stick/rod as the bb8 head, while the mount resides at the top of the stick, so it rests at face-level and acts as a personal camera man. But here's the kicker: at the base of the rod, it won't technically be attached to the "bb8 head." Instead, there will be magnetic suspension between the bb8 head and the rod. Easy to do, I just make a socket where the stick rests in on the bb8 head, and attach a magnet on the base of the socket, and attach another magnet of opposite polarity on the bottom of the rod. So when the rod is placed inside the socket, a magnetic gap will act as suspension if it hits a bump. Furthermore, since the stick isn't technically connected to the bot, it can also be removed and used as a gopro selfie stick.

Now, a problem arises; how does it record you? Typically, a wristband with a radio transceiver is fixed to one's wrist to give a location to the camera, so it follows you and your movement. Obviously, since my idea uses freely moving magnetic suspension, it makes it difficult to actually follow you since the camera/selfie stick is constantly rotating in random directions as it hits bumps. I solved this problem, through attaching an electromagnetic motor around the selfie stick. In the socket, there will be a brushless motor, and on the selfie stick, a magnet perpendicular to the rod. This way, when the selfie stick is placed inside the socket, a brushless motor allows the selfie stick to be rotating in controllable fashion to follow as long as you are wearing a transceiving device, such as a bracelet or a headband or whatever.

The programming will be easy, you just set the average following distance, and you manually set the height of the rod, and everything else in between. The hamster ball part might be about a foot in diameter, and the rod has a maximum heigh of about 5 feet, so that's approximately 6 feet in height total. You might hear many theories about how bb8 works, but mine would require the method where a weight keeps it upright, which might have some computerized assistance.