Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #02471
To: , beam beam@corp.sgi.com
From: Ed Spike spike@engmail.uwaterloo.ca
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 16:59:52 -0500
Subject: Re: hmmm...i wonder which subject
Hi
In 1990 I asked Mark Tilden to show his creations at the UW IEEE
MicroMouse contest in Toronto.
Mark and I both recognized that the MicroMouse was at a level which
few could get to without some previous experience.
Mark then coined BEAM; Biology, Ethnology, Analogy, and Morphology.
There are variations. For the younger group I tell them it means;
Building, Excitement, Antagonism, and Making.
---8<---
That is, and hopefully always will be the strong point of BEAM:
drawing people with little or no previous experience into a
fascinating hobby or even career. At the same time, supposedly
simple photovores and walking `bots do pose interesting challenges
to those who know plenty about electronics. And I think there is
room for a little more fun with suitably defined arenas and tasks,
where, for instance, groups of `bots could try to be faster at
collecting balls of conductive material then a single `bot, and
where those who think they can do better with a uC could have a go
too - as long as the *list* can somehow maintain focus.
But high science - it is not, and imho should not try to be.
---8<---
> But what I've been reading here is every bit as imflamatory. BEAM is
> clearly in danger of becomming a clique. There are many rumblings along
> these lines floating around this list.
BEAM has long been in such danger - in some eyes. I could quote
postings from 1996 along these lines. The fact is, that since the
wave of creativity displayed by Mark Tilden, Andrew Miller, Dave
Hrynkiw, Richard Weait and very few others, not all that much has
happened. That may give certain people a kind of excluded feeling;
they can't retroactively be part of the original action, and they
don't succeed in replacing the original circuitry with something
more attractive. You may be justified in blaming that on certain
limitations of the BEAM concept. But those limitations are
necessary to maintain the focus described by Ed Spike. Anyway,
blaming the original group is imho rather silly - assuming they are
who you mean by `clique'.
---8<---
> I am harping about a faster, cheaper way to evolve robotic behavior and
> design, very much in line with the BEAM philosophy of minimalisim.
> This is quite clearly a different thing that a CPU driven robot running
> Linux of something like that.
Well, I for one am hardly in your way. Do get on with it.
> But you (Steven) seem to be saying that if its got a CPU, it should be
> booted off of this list, based on your reading of the rules. This line
> of reasoning closes off a huge area of possible evolution, and for what
> good reason?
I don't presume to boot anything or anyone, I would merely find it
regrettable if the list lost its focus as described above.
> If this is an issue of the list rules (and it now appears to be
> just that) then I suggest we put it to a vote.
People vote with their feet. Turn this list into forum for
programmables, and the people it was originally intended for will
disappear.
Best,
Steve
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# sbolt@xs4all.nl # Steven Bolt # popular science monthly KIJK #
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