Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #05206
To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: "John A. deVries II" zozzles@lanl.gov
Date: Fri, 09 Jul 1999 14:09:36 -0600
Subject: [alt-beam] Let My Robots Survive!
At 03:46 AM 7/9/99 , Steven Bolt wrote:
(ok, re-read the >Subject line again but like Charlton Heston did in
"Moses" with some similar bit)
>Most present robots require a very specific environment to work in.
>Part of BEAM is about extending the usefulness of `bots by making
>them capable of dealing with real world environments, like a house
>in normal use, an average garden, or even an average city.
Philosophically, yes. Absolutely no disagreement there.
Practically -- not a chance. In general, no BEAM robots are being designed
or built for "real world" environments. The worst they -usually- have to
deal with is:
a) cats
b) being stepped on (and how many people leave their beloved BEAMbots
sitting around on the floor in the first place???)
c) falling off the edge of a table
d) the horrors and rigors of a BEAM Jurassic Park. (um, this is supposed
to be semi-humorous so if you are getting angry, just delete this now...)
In any case, until true survivability in ARBITRARY "real world"
environments becomes a Big Deal among the builders in the BEAMworld, I'm
afraid this "wild robot" concept is... um... hardly worth discussing except
as an utterly intellectual exercise.
Zoz
p.s. actually, seeing as how we are all pretty sure that walkers walk and
unicores roll and we've got fairly 'efficient' motors and supercapacitors
and decent photocells and all that jazz perhaps we ought to be following
Tilden's lead: building robots with _skins_ that -can- survive better.
---------------------------------------------------------------
John A. deVries II
zozzles@lanl.gov
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