Robot Picker

The Robot Picker is a Robot added by BuildCraft. It is able to pick up items on the ground and store them in a Chest (see Usage). It is useful for picking up mined blocks from another Robot such as the Robot Miner, Robot Lumberjack or Robot Shovelman.

Usage


In this example, the Robot Picker works with a Robot Shovelman to pick up all shoveled Sand and store it. The robot automatically picks up items on the ground, as the name implies, and can be used to pick up Sand from the "Shovelman" Robot The setup described below guides the reader in building a functional Robot Picker, working in tandem with a Robot Shovelman on an example sand hill shown in Fig. 1.

The following items are needed for the setup:
 * 4 s, or the work zone of another Robot.
 * Some and s (amount dependent on the height of the sand hill),
 * 2 s
 * 1
 * 1
 * 1 (or another type of Emerald Gate if special functions are needed)
 * 1
 * 1
 * 1

Step 1: Demarcating the work zone
The player should demarcate the area from which the Robot is to pick up items from the ground. This is done with Land Marks. If the player doesn't define a work zone and configure the Robot's logic in Step 3, the Robot will fly to every active chunk around the player and pick up every item on the ground. If the player already has a work zone for the Robot Shovelman or any other Buildcraft Robot defined, this step can be omitted.

If a new work zone must be demarcated, place three Land Marks in a 90° angle which defines the base of the sand hill. Right-click on one of the marks to display red borders (shown in Fig. 2) which show the ground area of the work zone. The two marks on the left and right in the figure may not be more than 64 blocks away from the center mark. To set the height of the work zone, place the fourth Land Mark directly over the center basal Land Mark at the desired height (Dirt or Sand may be needed to reach said height).

Right-click on any Land Mark and red borders will appear framing a 3-dimensional work zone (shown in Fig. 3). If no red border appears, the Land Marks are not in a 90° angle or are more than 64 blocks away from each other.

To pick up all blocks on the ground (including blocks which lie at higher altitudes), the Robot Picker needs a 3-dimensional zone which includes all possible surfaces. If the player uses the 2-dimensional work zone demarcated by the three ground Land Marks, the robot will only pick up items on the ground. Each dropped item outside the working area is not touched.

Step 2: Control Station
The player must build the control station for the Robot. It can be placed anywhere but it is recommend to place it near the work zone for easier access. The following described control station is the simplest and can be extended.

The station includes a double Chest with a connected Stone Transport Pipe, a Docking Station and an Emerald AND Gate which can be placed anywhere on the Pipe (without disconnecting the chest).

Place the Lever in front of the Emerald Gate. The station should look like the example in Fig. 4.

Step 3: Configuration
The Emerald Gate must be configured to control the Robot. The example given is one of many possible configurations.

Right-click the Emerald Gate to open its GUI which shows two 4x4 slotted fields (one left, one right).

Replicate the slots as shown in Fig. 5. In the first and third row on the right side are signalling that a required item is missing.

The important configurations to control the robot shown in Fig. 5 are explained here:

A full explanation of all possible functions can be found in the Emerald Gate article.

The sequence of rows does not matter.

Slots requiring coordinates can be added by using the Map Location.
 * 1) Take the Map Location and right-click on one of the Land Marks to receive the coordinates of the work zone (shown in Fig. 6). The Map Location should now have a rectangle on it. Place it in the  in the first row  of the Emerald Gate's GUI ("Working area" option). The coordinates will be stored and the Map Location can be reused for the second coordinates.
 * 2) Take the Map Location and right-click on the Docking Station to receive its coordinates. Note: It is important which side is indicated at the coordinates for the Docking Station. This is displayed in the player inventory if the cursor is hovered over the Map Location. Check that the specified side is the same as the Docking Station ; for example "UP" if the Docking Station is on top of the Pipe. Place the Map Location in the  in the third ("Unload" option) and fourth rows in the Emerald Gate's GUI ("Go to station" option).

The configuration should resemble Fig. 5 and the control station fully configured. The Land Marks and the respective frame are no longer needed and can be removed. If the player wants to use the frame for other Robots, make sure to have the coordinates stored in a Map Location.

Step 4: Starting and stopping
In the fourth and last step, the Robot Picker can be placed on top of the Docking Station (shown in Fig. 7). The Robot will initially do nothing because the fourth logic statement instructs the Robot to stay docked when no redstone signal is provided.

If the Lever in front of the gate is switched on and a redstone signal is provided to the gate, the first three rows become true and activate.

After a short time (the update time of the robot), the Robot will start working in the work zone (first logic statement in the Emerald Gate) (shown in Fig. 8) until no items are in the work zone.

Once the Robot is fully loaded it will return to the station automatically. Once there, the Robot unloads its collected items into the Chest and resumes working.

When all items have been collected in the work zone the Robot automatically returns to the control station but will remain active. It will resume work, when a new item is dropped in the work zone. The Robot can be stopped at any time by switching the Lever (in front of the Gate) off.

Recharging
If the Robot is low on energy it will seek out a kinesis pipe with a Docking Station to charge itself. If none are available, it will continue doing its job until its battery dies. The player can also stop the Robot with attacks to prematurely drain its battery, causing the Robot to drop as an item on the ground. Stronger attacks will drain its battery faster. The player can pick up the Robot and place it in the Charging Table to recharge it. After that the Robot can be placed again on the Docking Station to resume work work.