05502 [alt-beam] BEAM and CPU's

Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #05502

To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: Ian Bernstein ian@beam-online.com
Date: Sat, 31 Jul 99 10:55:54 -0600
Subject: [alt-beam] BEAM and CPU's

Hi again

After giving this some more thought.... From what I've seen BEAM is very
good for creating simple robots that can say, walk and back up when it
bumps an object. One of these can be easily put together by almost anyone
and it gives a certain 'adaptive' behavior. It also seems that as soon as
you want to add multiple sensors and give the bot more gaits the circuit
just grows dramatically and becomes very complex. I haven't even seem
Mark attempt very many complex bots with lots of sensors (this could
change with Roswell, he has PIR, IR, Light.....). If the basic circuit
gives the adaptive behavior then why attempt to create a huge complex
circuit to handle the sensors. Why not just use a cpu. The only advantage
I can see would be the cost. All you would need is a BS1 and they are
really easy to program.

I'm up to the challenge and just wanted to see what you guys thought
before I start. Also how many motors should I use, 4? And I was thinking
of using servos but leave the pot in there and hook it to the stamp so it
could tell roughly where the motor is.

Laterz

*-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-*
Ian Bernstein "aka - Synet" The Master Builder

E-Mail - Ian@beam-online.com
BEAM Online - http://www.beam-online.com
Quote - You know the great thing about tv? If something important
happens anywhere at all in the world, no matter what time of the day or
night, you can always change the channel
- Jim Ignatowski

Home