Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #00796



To: beam@corp.sgi.com
From: George Rix rix.g@bmts.com
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 17:28:30 -0500
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 otherwise 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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