Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #02499
To: Steven Bolt sbolt@xs4all.nl
From: Bob Shannon bshannon@tiac.net
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 19:58:45 -0700
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: BEAM and newbies, programmables & cliques...
Steven Bolt wrote:
> It's nice if some of the `long ago' people hang around long enough
> to answer the usual questions about fleds and such, ponder
> variations on simple circuitry and generally help to keep BEAM
> alive as today's equivalent of the crystal radio. BEAM was intended
> as entry level mechatronics:
Crystal radio and enrty level mechatronics?
I dont beleive this is what LANL is studying.
> 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.
Understood, this is the hc14, 1381 and fled list then.
> But high science - it is not, and imho should not try to be.
I think the great god himself would disagree.
> 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.
In terms of evolution?
It seems that some time ago this list was looking for type 3 solar
engines
and photovores that can reverse.
Well, with fewer parts than most 2 motor walkers we now have a photovore
that can do all that and several orders of magnitude more.
But thats off topic?
> That may give certain people a kind of excluded feeling;
I'm sure it will.
> they can't retroactively be part of the original action, and they
> don't succeed in replacing the original circuitry with something
> more attractive.
Ahhh, again, PICBOT II. Why is that 'less attractive', simply because
it has a programmable device?
So what!?
> 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'.
Frankly I dont see it like that at all.
I really like BEAM, but I see it differently. Helping new builders is
very nice, I've exchanges lots of emails with people, and occationally
swapped parts and such. In many ways its a great community.
But the desire for 'new and cool' designs, BEAM evolution has been
very clear to me. Its also implicit in the 'original work' you speak
of.
But that work is still going on. People do not need to become part of
it retroactivly at all, they become part of it proactivly.
By building new things, not by maintaining focus on specific circuits.
We dont seem to use the happy birthday singer anymore now do we?
> People vote with their feet. Turn this list into forum for
> programmables, and the people it was originally intended for will
> disappear.
Do you think that there is a real danger of this?
No one has suggested that the focus of the list would change in any way.
We dont have a turbot focus, or a walker focus. So why do you think
that
discussing the details (including source code) of a smart photovore
would
endanger this list?
I'm not even remotely interested in endangering this list, but I'll
vote.
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