Beam News Archive August 98
August 30
Thanks to Lee for spotting a mistake in my Walker Ver2.2 schematic. Please
e-mail me if you see an error...I'm only human.
The BEAM tek FAQ site is off-line for the remainder of the month. The
Old site is still up, if your really
deperate. Brian's site exceeded his servers monthly transfer limit. A testament to one of the best BEAM sites
around...second only to mine of course ;-). Cheers Brian.
The BEAM Meta-URL List site has
been updated with more URLs. There's now over 650 urls to choose from!
August 29
The 7th Annual Western Canadian Robot Games
are going to be held on November 14, 1998 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Hmmm...maybe I'll skip school
and go over to Calgary for a while...sound like a plan? I think so! Contact
Craig Maynard for details.
August 28
Brian's BEAM page has been
updated with pictures of his photovores and his current projects.
Four sites have been added to the
BEAM web ring since I last checked. Is your web page on it?
August 27
Ian has updated BEAMcentral. Look for more updates in
the following weeks.
August 25
Just received a couple TPM motors from Solarbotics.
These things are incredibly tiny and well worth the price. Here's the stats. I'm going to build an all surface mount "MicroVore" just to see how small I can
make it. Hmmm...sounds like contest material to me...details to come...
August 23
Wow...sorry about not updating for so long. I've been busy to say the least.
BGMicro is selling pager motors for 99 cents
each or 10 for $7.50. Quality unknown and quantity unknown.
The Dallas Personal Robotics Group will be having a roboticscontest September 12th at 12pm to 3pm in
the Infomart room 1061 in Dallas Texas. See the DPRG
website for more details.
August 16
The surplus gearmotors from Techmax are gone already...did you get yours?
I'm going to be updating this page and totally restructuring the page design. My plans include
adding a lot of Javascript so make sure your browser is up to date. Sorry if it goes all to hell
in the next two to three weeks.
August 15
This surplus shop
has some great high quality, cheap gearmotors. Thanks to Shivakumar Gopalakrishnan for this
one.
The Robo Expo was great. I saw Craig's new hunger and predator boards in action and the Parallax
boys were out there in full effect. I suggest you see it if it's coming to your town.
August 14
Tommorrow is the LA stop for the Robo Expo. Since I happened to be still on vacation in the area
...I think I'll stop by. Details can be found at
The RobotStore.
August 12
Brian has announced his
new beam site.
August 10
It's my Birthday today!!! 20 years old...geez...where did the years go?
August 08
Check out Gaston Groisman's Cyclops
FLED photovore.
August 07
Solarbotics has updated it's site and product list.
Dave now stocks those long awaited "TPM" motors, 1381 (5 kinds), rubber wheels, photodiodes,
miniball spheres and some new caps. Look at the "What's New" page to see site updates. You
asked for it...you got it!
September 1998 issue of Electronics Now has an article on Mark Tilden's micro satellite SatBots.
No new or useful information but a testament to the growing popularity of BEAM none-the-less.
August 04
Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 11:58:32 -0600 (MDT)
To: chao@intergate.bc.ca
From: "Mark W. Tilden"
Subject: Re:
"Thank you very much. I'd greatly appreciate it if in the future, you
could keep me informed on the latest and greatest from your lab...time
permitting of course. I feel like the innovation in the public sector
is stagnating... everybody seems lost. We are all curious about your
work but no one know what direction to go to try and build on your
work. Well...anyways...I don't want this to end up being another
whinny e-mail begging you to finish the next segment to Living
machines, Robotica Principa I think it was called...so thank you for
your reply and any updates in the future would be immensely
appreciated."
Chiu. The short answer is we need serious, irrifutable, repeatable biomech
experiments published and read before anyone can even start to take the
stuff seriously. However, publications like that don't sell in the modern
world, so I run the edge between science and appearance. Fortunately, they
aren't so far apart as you might think, but until I can get many others
than myself working on some of the fundemental issues, it'll stay a hobby
with phenomenology.
Recruitment continues.
markt.
August 03
Date:Mon, 3 Aug 1998 17:28:56 -0600 (MDT)
To:chao@intergate.bc.ca
From:"Mark W. Tilden"
Subject:Re:
"I am very curious to know what kind of research your focusing on right
now. What aspects of BEAM are you working on and what direction do
you think the technology is heading. I realize the scope of this
query is quite large but I really would appreciate the best response
that time allows."
Hey Chiu. Currently I'm working on two main projects: the nature of
biomech social systems by building a robot chess set of wheeled bots with
replaceable heads and reconfigurable Nv controllers, and the study of adept
meso-scale (hand sized) limbed machines for real world survival. Basically
a brain and body project for two different sponsors. To solve both, I'm
working on developing the smallest hextile boards ever using SIOP
technologies, pre-populated so I can reduce my bot development time from
weeks to days. First prototypes are in and they're not perfect alas. More
work to do.
On the side, I'm also working on space bots, advanced competency brain
designs, the theory behind nervous net controls, and my big Roswell robot
sensor head.
Where the technology is heading is a difficult question as so much depends
on the capricies of the market and politics. We need a big, visible demo
of the technology showing its' ability beyond conventional control systems
and it's looking more and more like it'll be space. Have a meeting with
JPL in two weeks. Will know more after that.
Good to hear from you.
markt.
August 2
Dennison Bertram has an idea on memories that I think is worth investigating. Look at the top two
e-mails. I strongly agree with his views that the innovation in BEAM
Tek has tapered off and is stagnating. It seems the e-mail list is now catering to the fledgling
newbie who's trying to learn basic electronic theory instead of the BEAM technologist striving
for a superior BEAM creature. This is compounded by the fact that none of the "small-gods" as
they once were called, haven't been heard from in ages. It is my hope that the signal to noise
ratio increases for the sake of the advancement of the technology without sacraficing the growth and
education of the younger/beginner crowd. If this is possible remains to be seen.
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