Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #00768
To: beam@corp.sgi.com
From: "George Rix" rix.g@bmts.com
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 10:30:32 -0500
Subject: [alt-beam] Co-op reincarnation
Hey!
Does anyone remember that co-op experiment that was filling the list not to=
o
long ago? Well, recently I was discussing wasps and bugs and BEAM robots
with a friend of mine who absolutely loves BEAM=8Beven though he knows nothin=
g
about it. We got to thinking about having a central hive and then
drones=8Blike wasps and bees and ants=8Bas robots that would live in something
approaching symbiosis. We then remembered (well I did anyhow) that it was
theorized (at the least) that you could influence a microcore with a CPU.
So, we figured, what if the hive was a CPU-based robot that would send
pulses out to the drones via an IR LED. Thus, it could control the bicore o=
r
microcore-operated drones, and tell them roughly what to do, and then they
would carry it out remotely. You could have some sort of an IR tether, so
when they got too far to get the IR pulses very clearly, the hive could
demand to know just what they thought they were doing and order them back
into its territory. Also, they could send back information and tell the hiv=
e
what the heck was going on with that missing drone, and also why the cat ha=
d
grown metal whiskers =3D)
If we could make it dynamic, so it could alter it's own program and learn,
we could have a really neat, if almost completely useless (for those BEAM
lawnmower types out there) community. We could make the drones only respond
to a very specific frequency (like a remote control) and have the hive able
to alter the frequency of these pulses and signals, so it could communicate
to specific drones. This sounds pretty far-fetched, but it keeps me in mind
of Mark Tilden's idea (at least as I read it in my Equinox) that BEAM robot=
s
could be used as robot bodies that could handle the walking, while a brain
would map the tasks and such. Maybe we could have the drones refuel at the
hive, and maybe they could try and find enemy hive's robots and bring 'em
back so the hive could take 'em over (maybe a flip-flop could facilitate
this?) and thus get more drones. Maybe eventually they could mine-sweep in =
a
gigantic ballet of bots, getting blown to bits whenever the hive made a
lucky guess.
Heck, for those BEAM lawnmower types (we know you're out there!), maybe the
bots could have little rolling clippers like the old hand-powered
lawnmowers, and could cut your grass for you! And mine-sweep your front law=
n
at the same time so you don't have to employ the kids from down the street
=3D)
Anyhow, that's my idea, and I figured that it's innovative enough to provok=
e
some reaction, whether flaming or no. So, have fun with it, and if anybody
would like to collaborate with me on this (preferably someone with skills a=
s
to CPU programming), just drop me a line. Maybe we could get a bunch of
people together en masse to build, like was intended with the original co-o=
p
experiment.
Signing off,
Rob Rix
'If anything can possibly go wrong, it probably already has'-Murphy's law
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