Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #05323
To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: "John A. deVries II" zozzles@lanl.gov
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 16:06:03 -0600
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: LEGO lawnmower
At 01:47 PM 07/20/1999 , Slip wrote:
>-lol- Good idea! Is that a LEGO 'Storm' set he built it from? Or was the
>RF(what appeared to be antennae) circuit built by himself?
It wasn't built from the Mindstorm set: apparently there are a number of
kits with controllers sold by LEGO, including one called CyberMaster. The
CyberMaster is fairly similar to the RCX (the controller in the Mindstorms
kit) but I believe it was aimed at a younger audience. The "antennae" are
actually just springy tubes and aren't RF at all -- you will notice that
the motor & blade unit is basically hung by two hinges and the springy
tubes are used to keep the blades at the right height (more or less.)
A couple of interesting points:
This robot is NOT safe. There is no guard for the blades at all.
The guy who came up with the robot says that he needs wheels that provide
better traction. A suggestion was made that he use bigger wheels. I guess
an addition to that would be to suspend the motor & blade unit from the
center-bottom of the robot -- that would at least provide a little
protection from the blades.
I've got a question:
Does this robot really require wheels? It seems to me that most of the
bodies of BEAM walkers don't maintain anything -close- to a constant height
from the ground (except perhaps Stryder and Roswell). Given that there is a
"most innovative method of movement" contest going on, has anyone given any
thought to problems like this?
Zoz
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