Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #10471
To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: "Dennison Bertram" dibst11+@pitt.edu
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 14:13:46 -0800
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: BEAM: Tendency toward miniaturization
Personally what I've found is that BEAM devices really aren't too effective
when you scale them up. Since we are usually working with such small devices
we can overlook so many factors that otherwise are critical to design. Take
for example, huge walkers. I built a two motor one, which did work, but it
was aggrivating as hell. Much of the walking that is done is done with
'dynamic' walking. Bascially your robot does fancy controlled falling. Well
it's all nice, and if you notice your own walkers, they 'clop' against the
floor as the center of gravity shifts. Well this effect isn't so pleasent on
a large scale. Think of a large walker, which has it's leg lifted one and a
half feet of the floor, and then you shift it's center of gravity so it
falls on this leg. Suddenly you have the full weight of a gell cell battery,
a giant gear train and assorted mechanical components clomping down at high
speed onto your hard word floor. Not too pleasing. In addition the wire legs
that are kinda cute at our minature levels suddenly turn dangerous when you
scale things up. A flustered giant walker can damage furniture, and tear
skin (I know! My walker attacked me!). Certianlly a garage-only type of
beast. None the less, I think it warrents more investigation. One thing that
would be nice is if we could find a way to reduce the 'flailing' nature of
beam bot's legs. To walk around at large sizes you need lot's of clearence.
dennison
> Bigger means same volts more ampers. Means bigger motorcontrollers, means
> pain in the .........
>
> Note on my Big walker, I decided to go ahead and finish it, converting it
to
> a giant 5 motor walker, moving up from the 4 motor concept. I'll start a
> webpage in the near future, so members of the list can track my project.
>
> |___|
> -------O()O-------
> James Taylor
> URL: http://fly.to/springmeadows
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Jean auBois
> To:
> Sent: Saturday, February 19, 2000 2:03 AM
> Subject: BEAM: Tendency toward miniaturization
>
>
> > Isn't it odd that people are building smaller and smaller devices that
are
> > often more and more fragile? If there was ever a field that is moving
> > toward nanotechnology, this would be the one.
> >
> > However, I find it sort of discouraging that the larger projects aren't
> > doing very well. Mr. Tilden reported that some people wanted to make
his
> > Lampbot go faster so they upped the voltage, burning out a lot of stuff
> > (um... everything?) And he said that he wanted Roswell to walk in the
> > parade at Telluride but had horrid motor problems.
> >
> > I don't think it is because we _can't_ control bigger things with BEAM
> > technology -- perhaps it is just easier to build smaller things that
work
> > fairly well.
> >
> >
> >
> > Just food for thought.
> >
> >
> > jab
> >
> >
>
>
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