Built in 1999. Fear It.
Happy Fun Ball was my senior capstone project at ITT Technical Institute in Anaheim, California. The assignment: build a fully functional, team-engineered robotics prototype. The result: a custom-made, remote-controlled robot ball with internal gears, dual wheels, and a programmed navigation system.
Our team split the work: I handled the circuits and logic. Another teammate built the mechanical housing. Another wired the motors and managed the radio control. It wasn't just remote-controlled—you could actually program it with commands like "roll down the hall, turn left, go 5 feet, stop." This was 1999. No Arduinos. No Roombas. No GitHub. Just raw engineering. It worked, it rolled, and it rocked.
We named it Happy Fun Ball—a nod to the absurdity of a toy that was technically impressive and yet could totally roll over your foot. It was a clean, integrated system of electronics, radio signals, mechanical drive, and custom-formed housing. Proof we knew what we were doing. Mostly.
