WELCOME

Larry Phillips Design

Welcome to my website where you can learn more about Two Roll Gripping the new end effector design leading the way into the future with new direction  for global robotic flexibility.

Larry Phillips,  like all die hard inventors/engineers, has  always

been fascinated by how things work. Since he was a young boy, Larry has been motivated to find simpler, more effective designs which increase the speed, efficiency, and economic value of machines and technology.

As a very young boy, this fascination led him to build his own

toys. He quickly progressed to electronic design and built, among other things, a number of radios, from "fox hole" and crystal radios, to one transistor radio by the time he was 14 years old in 1958. In high school, he designed and built a power amplifier using 6L6 power amplifying tubes and taught himself about super heterodyne radios.

At the same time, he found himself becoming increasingly drawn to rocket science. Acquiring the plans from a Popular Science magazine he eventually built a six foot liquid fuel rocket using nitric acid and alcohol for fuel. He was unable to obtain a license to fire it locally. Today he continues to use salvaged parts from government surplus missiles.The servo mechanism and parts can be used in robotic technology for proto-typing and benchmarking purposes. This is one of the least expensive ways to experiment with parts for end effector design.

Upon graduating from high school in 1962, Larry went to work for Golf Development Inc., a golf ball manufacturer. In a very short time, Larry learned the processes for making state of the art golf balls and quickly began to design and implement processes and materials changes which upgraded the quality and value of golf balls.

Who is Larry Phillips?

His vocation eventually took Larry to Dow Chemical Company, Midland Michigan, but his avocation continued.It was during this period of time that Larry designed, built, and patented the Pro-Tester. see (illustration) a coin actuated golf ball tester. He took on a partner and they began manufacturing, promoting, marketing and placing the Pro-Tester nationally with golf courses and pro shops.

Later in the 1970’s, Larry found himself at Saginaw Steering Gear another GM division, but by now the focus of his after hours research was the field of acoustics. In 1936, German movie theaters has advanced speaker enclosure design which reproduced exceptional low bass notes with an analog signal and they had rave reviews all over Europe for superb sound quality. It was a rectangular box with three cubic feet of space and three ports they called it a resonator. Larry used the design from that time period and improved the damping material inside the box with a ceramic paint used at Cape Kennedy to dampen sound from around the space pad where the space shuttle is launched. There was much more engineering that went into these boxes and the goal was to get an “out of box” sound. Digital Signal Processors or (DSP) sets up a sound field that administers a special holographic sound effect, only he was doing it with speaker enclosures. The speaker enclosures Larry designed and built had exceptional sound quality and worked extremely well.

By 1980 Larry found himself being drawn to robotics. He took some courses at Eastern Michigan State University and GMI (General Motors Institute) and found himself becoming increasingly fascinated and submersed in robotic technology. Between 1982 and 1994, he belonged to the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and Robotics International, where he was occasionally a guest speaker.

In 1984, Larry began designing the original two roll gripper. By 1992 Larry was so immersed in robotics research and development, and with the design of the two roll gripper having progressed dramatically to the point of marketability, he chose to pursue his avocation. 

In 1987, he was a guest speaker at the Society of Manufacturing Engineers/Robotics International seminar “Integrating Sensors Technology and Automation Tooling” it was held in Cincinnati, Ohio.

In 1994 Larry’s technical paper “ Lightweight, Multi Purpose Two Roll Gripper for Part manipulation” was accepted for presentation at the Fifth World Conference on Robotics Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge in Boston, Massachusetts. Sponsored by Robotics International and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. The technical paper MS 94- 243 is now available by download from the Society Of Manufacturing Engineers/Robotics International main web site.

Research & Development has been a very important part of my life. There is  more, much, much, more and two roll gripping is the next challenge. Come join me as a partner in leading the way with a new robotic flexibility expanding robot applications worldwide along the way. 

Cool March Day... 2010