Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #00780
To: beam@corp.sgi.com beam@corp.sgi.com
From: George Rix rix.g@bmts.com
Date: Monday, February 22, 1999 8:36 AM
Subject: RoboArm
>Well, I recently made a real work of art out of LEGO technics. It's a
>Robotic Arm that uses motor power and pneumatics (I only have one motor,
you
>see, whereas I have four large pneumatic pistons). The thing is perfectly
>balanced from front to back, you can move it into any position freely, and
>it's so well balanced it won't budge on its own, and is all black and
yellow
>too, making it the coolest thing I've done with my technics hands down.
>But anyhow, I have a question regarding it.
>Two, actually.
>Firstly, would it make any sense to (if I had motor power controlling the
>entire thing) use a BEAM circuit to make it both solar and to drive it, or
>would I be better to use some other drive system. Say, hypothetically, I
>wanted it to reach towards a bright light source and try and grab at it.
>Could I use BEAM for that, would it be the best (or cheapest or coolest or
>whatever) option (including, say, a CPU, or various other
>non-BEAM-philosophy-and-tech-conforming circuits), would it be possible at
>all, or would I be stupid for thinking of this?
>Secondly, could I then put it on some sort of a mobile device‹BEAM or
>otherwise‹and have it interact with the platform so it could control its
>motion and vice-versa?
>Or am I stupid for even thinking about BEAM and LEGO in the same second?
>Anyhow, please respond,
>Signing off,
>Rob Rix
>'If anything can possibly go wrong, it probably already has'-Murphy's law
>
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