Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #04359



To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: SG sparkyg@seark.net
Date: Tue, 08 Jun 1999 23:04:02 -0400
Subject: [alt-beam] thoughts from a day at the zoo


ok, scuze me if this is wayy to trivial or primative, but something has
been buggin me for a few days till a thought came to me (dosn't happen
often, hence the fact I'm sharing it) while pushing my nephew in his
stroller at the zoo.

I am very much the novice and newcomer to all things BEAM and wouldn't be
getting anywhere at all if it wasn't for the helpful kind souls who have
been generous enough to throw pearls of wisdom down upon me here in
intellectual darkness from their illuminated balcony of Beamland.
(You guys know who you are, and you should be getting
some goodies in the snail mail, .. some spoils of my
scavaging pager shops and radio-shack employer friends)
Anyways, I digress...
My little walker seems to be coming along fine (based on the "Compleate
Walker" Schematic found at Ian's site -{BEAM ONLINE}) i have moved from
the breadboard stage to succesfully soldering the circut to a little IC PCB
from radio shack. and the LEDs are blinking nicely... (actually gives a
newbie quite a sense of accomplishment,
(till a friend walks in and says "So what! it's jus
blinkin lights.. My X-Mas tree does THAT!")
But I hope to someday move up to more advanced challenges and the novice
beamer strts to dream of things like 4 motor walkers and "heads" and
thingies like that...
what has been buggin me is that I had never seen it succesfully explained
how you get a walker to "turn" when a sensor is triggered due to the fact
(i guess) that the mechanics and chaos theory are somehow related here.
Chiu has a three motor jobby that he explains simply has the reverser turn
the middle motor, and that seems to werk.. but I was wundering what else
you could do...
ok, now here is where the zoo comes in... i was pushin the stroller, and
we stopped to look at some Madagascar ringed Lemers or sumpthing, and the
side walk was at an incline, the stroller has to lock (one for each back
wheel) that you can activate by simply pushing down on a lever near the
wheel with your foot. (you've all seen em) after we saw the lemer go to
the bathroom, and scratch its butt, we decided it was time to go. I
realesed the brake (flippin lever up w/foot) on ONE wheel, and started to
push, the stroller went around in a circle as applied the force. Using the
remaining locked wheel as a pivot (a good one).
sooooo... i thought hmmmm... maybe thats it, say you had a four motor
walker with a "Head". the head turns toward the light (lets say you want
it phototropic, or "voric" or watever) and then locks on leg in place the
leg remains locked, (simply not turned on) till the body is in line with
the head and then all leg motors are operational again.
There.. all that to say that small thing. I guess i'm sharing this cause i
have been up at night wundering just how do you get the thing to do that..
lemme know if this is simply a laughable solution and you guys have moved
on to much more efficent methods...
just my $.02
-Sparky


------------------------------------------------------------------------

eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/alt-beam
http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications



Home