This is a post from the old Strange And Cool on blogger. I thought it was worthy of a re-post. I have also appended some more information about Mark Tilden and his ”Satbots” with a link to a cool article about them on American Scientist at the end.
I’ve been interested in robots ever since I was a little boy, as were many boys that grew up in my era.
I had a few robotic toys as a child too and I would always tear them apart to see if I could learn anything.
Most of them were “cheap” and weren’t very impressive. The coolest thing they had back in the 70’s when I was really young was “rock ‘em sock ‘em robots. Yes they were kinda cheap and had no motors but the linkage set up for the controllers amazed me. It was just string routed up through the robots limbs and the limbs had springs that returned them back to their default position. I still think it is an ingenious idea.
They have actually started making them again just recently. You can buy them from Amazon.com here: Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots
Anyways, not much happened in the field of robotics as far as I was concerned growing up.
Then I got into the work force and started welding. It was in the welding shop that I learned about modern robotics and the way it works on the production line. It is pretty impressive but I was still disappointed at how primitive the whole thing is.
Productions robots are completely stupid. The programmer determines all the moves of the robots. You have to tell the robot precisely where to move and what to do every step of the way which takes hours of programming and trial and error. They are just stepper motors which are programmed and controlled by computers every step of the way. Hardly any sensors, no smart capabilities like the ability to detect misaligned parts or anything.
I was truly disappointed in the progress of robotics in the last 20 years after what I had learned.
Then in 1997 I learned about Mark Tilden and his new BEAM Robotics philosophy and I finally saw a glimmer of hope for the advancement of robotics.
BEAM robotics started with a solar cell, a couple of transistors, a resistor, capacitor, a diode and a very efficient little motor. In layman’s terms this setup basically…
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Tags: Robotics by Bill
Comments
Rovio is a remote robot / camera for your home (or whatever else you wanna monitor) that you can control from almost any device anywhere in the world. Your cellphone, your WiFi connection at the hotel on vacation. From work. Anywhere.
