Who is Droidmakr ?

Hello,

My name is Clifford L Boerema Jr. I am a Christian The oldest of 6 children and over 30 grand children,

I was born in Michigan in 1956, but spent most of my formative years living in New Jersey, with a short (about 2 1/2 years) stint in up state New York. I have lived about an hour west of Chcago, Illinois since 1972

I work as a technician for the power system research and development division of a company that produces HID (High Intensity Gas Discharge) Lighting Systems.

I share a home with my two kids (one of each), three dogs, one cat and one turtle.

I have been called a techno-geek. I love  technology and the sciences, and I actually enjoy reading technical papers and publications.

I also enjoy Science fiction movies, Classic Rock, and Hard and Alternative Jesus Music (Steve Taylor, Guardian, Resurrection Band, Bleach, P.O.D., MXPX, The 77s, Skillet, Five Iron Frenzy, Audio Adrenaline, etc).

My hobbies include Robotics, Home Automation and I'm also a frustrated drummer

I have had two great dreams in my life. The first was that I would be able to explore space.

That one was pretty much killed off when congress started cutting NASA's budgets, after the success of the Apollo program. That's when the human exploration of the solar system was basically abandoned for robotic planetary probes, and the comercial developement of orbital space.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against this development ,

I just expected, or should I say hoped that there would be a greater emphasis on manned exploration of space.

Oh well.

My second dream was to build a robot. I first fell in love with robots when I was in about second grade.

I watched a movie on T V Called "Tobor the Great".

He was the first robot I had ever seen that not only looked cool, but was also was a good guy. I did not see Robby (the robot in the movie "The Forbidden Planet") until several years later.

Well I was hooked on the idea of a machine that was capable of independent operation.

My earliest attempt to build a robot was a human form made out of an orange crate. The head was just a board with a face drawn on it with a crayon, and nail in place,

I could move the arms and legs. I pretended it was a real robot. Hey, I was a kid with a good imagination, and kids can get away with things like that without looking completely wierd.

As the years past and I grew up, a real functioning robot seemed like it too would remain nothing more then a dream.

Then one day while looking for a book on interfacing the Synclair ZX81 computer, that I had built from a kit, I found the book

"Building a Real Working Robot" by David L Heiserman.

Although it was a fairly simple machine, it did revitalized my dream.

I became convinced that it might actually be possible to build a true autonomous robot. So I began to seek out everybook I could find on the subjects of, designing digital circuits, using microproccessors, Robotics, AI, how the Brain and nervous systems function, etc.

I eventually started building a somewhat large machine with two drive wheels, one arm and a head.

I named it "GOAMIR" Which was an acronym for

"Goal Oriented, Adaptive Machine Intelligence Robot".

By the way, that name is pronounced " Go - Mir "

I was not able to complete the project due to the time and expense of raising my two wonderful kids. That and the fact that the room i had been using as a shop became my son's bedroom when he was born

I still have the basic structure in storage. Someday I may resume that project.

But now my children are in their teens and I have a much better job than I had back when I first took up this hobby, so it's again time to take up the challenge. This time though, I am using a little different approach to the project.

I intend to use ideas and concepts that are more directly inspired by nature. I'm building and using several smaller bots to work out the kinks along the way. Ultimately I hope to build a larger robot that I have given the working name "ENIMAL" (electronic animal).

My son has begun to join me in this hobby. With his being the athletic type, and me being anything but athletic, it's nice to have an interest we can share and work together on.

Well I'm sure that's more than you really wanted to know about my dreams, and my life, so I'll quit here before you fall asleep.

If you want to get in touch with me for some reason, you can email me at droidmakr@yahoo.com or look for me on yahoo or msn messenger. I use the name droidmakr on both.

So long,

Droidmakr         February 2 - 2000

Updated August 6 - 2001

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