From: Emmanuel Charpentier (manu@cybercable.fr)
Date: Sat Oct 24 1998 - 07:23:08 MDT
Bernard Hughes wrote:
>
> Emmanuel Charpentier wrote:
>
> > Bernard Hughes wrote:
> > >
> > > Hmm. Maybe Lego blocks have more potential than I thought. Don't have time to try
> > > this out right now though. Pity.
> >
> > You need to take a look at this project:
> > http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~robodyne/stellar/
> >
> > This is really a huge lego project, with implications in space
> > conquest, medecine, machinery, etc, possibly a universal machine...
> >
> > Manu.
>
> Yes. I'd bookmarked that before, but never got back to it. Worth checking. The
> Robodyne building blocks look quite complex to me, but clever. I've always liked the
> idea of building a macro assembler out of a diminishing series of half sized
> components. Came up with the same notion myself some time back. The designer doesn't
> address problems of positioning or error detection. So I think his claims are rather
> over-hyped.
I think he hasn't really addressed the problem. As I see it, it's
mostly a software problem: what Operating System do you use :-)? Fractal
shape changing robots would probably need a fractal OS, every part would
need to have a behavior relative to its surrounding, as well as a link
to a more general control mechanism.
Just like you can move your arm, but you can't contol your cells...
> Still, its more of a start than anyone else has done that I've heard of. Be
> interesting to see where it goes.
We need to see if he can commercialise it, design macro and micro
scale robots (using magnetic instead of mechanic properties). If he
does, the principle can be extended to just about anything mechanical.
Manu.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:49:41 MST