Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #05074



To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: JVernonM@aol.com
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 14:07:10 EDT
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: Something funny with the 1382 voltage triggers?


In a message dated 7/7/99 10:29:40 AM Eastern Daylight Time, sbolt@xs4all.nl
writes:

> Yet that's where BEAM fails. It's all-tinkering, all trial & error,
> glorifying the `use' of components outside their specifications,
> put it together, pray to the lords of BEAM and hope it does
> something. There is very little to help a newbie to progress
> towards proper design. One might get the impression that anything
> *but* trail & error is actively discouraged, if you look at the
> range of circuits which are supposed to be BEAM
Yes, I see your point. One could even say that Tilden himself relies on the
trial and error method to make these things. Further, the bots themselves are
engineered to use trial and error to function randomly. It would seem that
BEAM IS trial and error. I'm not sure how you change that if it is so all
encompassing. And I really am having problems seeing how BEAM would ever come
up with, say, a manipulator that can pick up a certain object, ignoring
others and doing something meaningful with it using that criteria. But, aside
from all that, it is still a great way to pull kids away from video games and
get them to pick up a soldering iron. Getting them to realize that they are
doing weird things and that there is a conventional method to these
components is the hard part. I do wonder if it really matters in the end. If
a newbie wishes to learn "proper use" they will. If they just want to build
something cool without knowing what's going on inside, they will. Perhaps,
just getting them interested is the real hurtle. And BEAM puts them over that
one quite well. There are many online who I have seen start out with asking
"which way does a resistor go in" who are now discussing advanced neural
nets. Not many, but they are there. I think this indicates that BEAM isn't so
much of a bad influence after all.
Jim

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