Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #12325



To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: "Ben Hitchcock" beh01@uow.edu.au
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 23:44:02 +1100
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: Curiosity killed the cat


Check out http://wollongong.apana.org.au/~ben/fred/ for the circuit and
description.


By the way, I think I've cured the 'long time lockup' problem: put a cap or
two across the motors. Thanks to Kyle Simmons for that idea! I used 0.22
uF and FRED has been happily popping away under my desk lamp for a good
three hours now. I'll update the schematics next week when I have time.

Just for fun I put FRED inside a clear sphere, miniball style. Who said
that the miniball was dead? It won't exactly break any speed records, but
looks kinda quirky.

Ben


----------
>From: Chris Weimann
>To: BEAM list
>Subject: Curiosity killed the cat
>Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 16:58
>

> ok what/who is FRED?
>
> -chris
>



12326 Wed, 22 Mar 2000 13:00:29 GMT [alt-beam] Re: Suggestions Anyone? beam@sgiblab.sgi.com "Mike Kulesza"

>The blue-gray background doesn't contrast
>well enough with the darker blue border, OR with black text.


Ummmm... where do you see black text? Do you mean the one in the mouseover
buttons or the section titles? Thats on a light sky blue background, and is
highly visible (at least on every computer and browser that i've tested)
Please tell me if you see things differently. I've also made the hyperlinks
in the news section in highly visible cyan, and mailtos in yellow. Those
also stand out from the darker grayish blue background. Maybe its browser
problems....

later
______________________________________________________



12327 Thu, 23 Mar 2000 03:22:08 +1200 [alt-beam] Re: Exclusive club or am I being blocked? beam@corp.sgi.com Justin >If my mention of "commercial use" in my 1st post caused me to be blocked,
>please tell me and I'll retreat with my tail between my legs :(

The "Acceptable Use" guidelines say nothing about this, thus it would
seem ok providing it met the other guidelines (eg is on topic, polite,
etc)

>If my newbie questions are just too stupid to warrant an answer, someone
>please let me know that also....

I wouldn't know - haven't read them :)

>If you need to "know someone" to be in this group, then so-be-it, but this
>silent treatment is a drag.....

Nope, it might just be apathy - your questions may have come soon after
similar ones or not interest very many people. On the other hand, I've
posted something twice now that has never appeared, but everything else
I post is fine. I think I'll try again. (And if someone is blocking
posts, for goodness sakes let us know so we can fix the offending
aspect. Common decency!)



12328 Thu, 23 Mar 2000 03:34:55 +1200 [alt-beam] Schematic index beam@corp.sgi.com Justin (AFAIK the original post never appeared, so I'm re-posting. ANyone have
any idea why the post would not appear?)

http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/rfws/bwi/index.html

It might look like there are a lot of circuit links on the Beam Web
Index, but there are _huge_ gaps to be filled (most of my bookmarks were
out of date). For example - there is nothing on the basic microcore -
the heart of BEAM! (Wilf's specialised/advanced uCore circuits were the
closest I had). I've seen _heaps_ of advanced or alternative photovore
circuits (demonstrating great ideas) that really should be there,
likewise solar walkers, and circuits to solarise walkers - there are
currently _no_ links (Bush Beam Tek had a lot of this, but my link is
broken). The Miller Solar Engine (among others) isn't there, and the
Sensor section is lacking (I also think sensor sub-systems such as the
capacitor-resistor "timer" arangement for feelers etc should also be
there), and the General section should ideally contain a host of
circuits that inspire new ideas and/or demonstrate procedures that could
be applied to BEAM, in addition to misc circuits that are directly
useful.

Look in your links pages - more BEAM stuff is not listed than is, you
should have no trouble spotting useful links that are not in the Web
Index, and send them to Bruce at Bruce_Robinson@telus.net
I've opened my bookmarks, now I wanna see yours, damnit! :-)



12329 Wed, 22 Mar 2000 08:09:53 -0800 (PST) [alt-beam] Re: GVPP Vision Processing Chip beam@sgiblab.sgi.com Lee Golden If anyone is interested, here is another article about
the GVPP vision processing chip that was being
discussed a few days ago on the list:

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2471855,00.html

Lee Golden
http://www.geocities.com/leemon1/Bots/Lotsabots.html

__________________________________________________
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Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
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12330 Wed, 22 Mar 2000 09:45:09 -0800 [alt-beam] Re: Exclusive club or am I being blocked? beam@sgiblab.sgi.com Bruce Robinson Justin wrote:
>
>> If my mention of "commercial use" in my 1st post caused me to
>> be blocked, please tell me and I'll retreat with my tail between
>> my legs :(
>
> ... (And if someone is blocking posts, for goodness sakes let us
> know so we can fix the offending aspect. Common decency!)

I never saw the original Justin. Who's it from, and how did you manage
to get it?

The only "blocking" on this list is:
- messages containing certain keywords, like "u_n_s_u_b_s_c_r_i_b_e"
(as zoz recently discovered) are automatically filtered out. Makes
sense, actually ... it keeps us from getting all those mis-directed
messages that are supposed to be sent to a different address.
- Spammers, when identified, get taken off the list PDQ.
- People who mess around with other people's IDs and so on may get
unplugged.

Aside from that, we're pretty much a self-regulated group. The list
admin might send a comment (not very often), but I've never heard of him
actually blocking a post.

Bruce



12331 Wed, 22 Mar 2000 09:35:43 -0800 [alt-beam] Re: Schematic index beam@sgiblab.sgi.com Bruce Robinson Justin wrote:
>
> (AFAIK the original post never appeared, so I'm re-posting. ANyone have
> any idea why the post would not appear?)
>
> http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/rfws/bwi/index.html

Watch it! That URL is obsolete. Change it to the new one.

http://www3.telus.net/rfws/bwi/index.html

My ISP changed names half a year ago. The old URL will die in September.

But more to the point, is this your re-posted message, or someone
else's?

I've had a few quirky things happen with e-mail, such as seeing one of
my postings appear on the list 2 days after I sent it. That could be a
problem with my ISP, or the mailing list ISP, or some system in between.

I also had no messages from anyone for 36 hours (impossible when you're
on this list :), followed by a huge dump of messages, including a bunch
of duplicates. I looked very much as though my ISP was able to receive
messages, but not pass them on for a couple of days.

Bruce



12332 Tue, 21 Mar 2000 22:45:00 -0500 Re: Muscle/Bio wire Sathe Dilip
> If you do a search on Amazon for STIQUITO, you will find a couple of
> books on this subject by the inventor of Stiquito. These books come
> with a kit for making basic Stiquito - no controller. Stiquito is based
> on Nitinol or muscle wire.
>
> If you want to do it from scratch & without paying for the book, go
> here:
>
> ftp://www.cs.indiana.edu/pub/stiquito/
>
> I think the .ps documents contain enough information to build Stiquito.
> Most of the other information there is dated in terms of buying kits
> etc.
>
> Dilip
> ------------------------------------------------------
>
> Bruce Robinson wrote:
> >
> > Lydia Smith wrote:
> > >
> > > Does any one know if you can use biowire instead of
> > > motors for walking 'bots?
> >
> > It has been done, but it seems to be a real power hog. The only link I
> > have so far is for a kit version that Richard Piotter built ...
> >
> > http://richfiles.calc.org/BORIS.html
> >
> > Bruce
>
> --
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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