Meet the City Tech Super HERO.
She was born in 1980 as Heathkit Educational Robot (HERO). For the next 15 years she helped countless number of students in colleges and universities across the country learn about Computer and Robotics Technology. Then she went into hibernation. Fast forward to 2017… City Tech Women Engineers Club members have taken the initiative to revive HERO, give her a new life and new features, with the help of modern computer hardware and software technology. Her capabilities will be enhanced with the implementation of Assistive Technology to enable her to help people with disabilities.
She will be a true Super HERO!
Historical Background and Basic Technical Specs (from Wikipedia)
HERO (Heathkit Educational RObot) is the name of several educational robots sold by Heathkit during the 1980s. The Heath Company began the HERO 1 project in October 1979. The first units were available in 1982. Models included the HERO 1, HERO Jr., and HERO 2000. Heathkit supported the HERO robot line up until 1995. All three were available as kits, or for more money, prebuilt by Heathkit.
HERO 1 (ET-18) was a self-contained mobile robot controlled by an on-board computer with a Motorola 6808 CPU and 4 kB of RAM. The robot featured light, sound, and motion detectors as well as a sonar ranging sensor. An optional arm mechanism and speech synthesizer was available for the kit form and included in the assembled form.
To make this power available in a simple way, high-level programming languages were created. For example, the ANDROTEXT language was a HERO 1 editor and compiler developed in 1982 for the IBM PC.
HERO 1 was featured on Mr. Wizard’s World on a few episodes. BYTE Magazine called HERO 1 “a product of extraordinary flexibility and function … If you are interested in robotics, HERO will show you the way”.
