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Make little moving junkbots, examples: Mark Tilden's.
Most equipment can be scrounged from old parts that a University would gladly donate to get rid of (for instance, Capacitors, resistors, etc.etc.) There are also parts in old electronics just thrown out at the dump, and the kids get to learn how to read information on the electrical components.
Oblig. Wikipedia Article

The idea of BEAM robots (BEAM is an acroonym for Biology Electronics Aesthetics Mechanics) is that they use analog circuts and many of them are very simple and cheap to build but do kind of interesting things and have solar cells and look really cool. There are also more complicated ones... and ones that you can buy in kits and such. Anyway, the nice thing about the above sites (particularly BEAM-online) is that they explain lots of basic robotics stuff and include links to other places with more info - and you don't need to buy a book.

That would be Mark Tilden. He is primarily responsible for the BEAM (current site here) robots, lots of which are based on the bicore circuit and other novel simple circuits(read at the sites!).

Rather than a top-down method of robot design, where you take a brain and make it do cool things, his idea is to decide some basic function you want to accomplish--like walking--and design the simplest circuit that is able to do that. Then pick a new function (say, seeking light) and build that circuit. Hook the two together, and now you have a walking robot that seeks light. It is a more biological method to robot evolution.

If you like the idea of making a functioning insect-robot out of the parts from an old Walkman cassette player and a pocket calculator, you'll love BEAM robotics.

Jim

I can just see this processor, mixed with a bit of Mark Tildens analog AI research to really advance Artificial Intelligence. For the uninitiated Mark Tilden discovered that by tying a group of only four or so transistors and sending a regular analog signal through it he could get small robots to walk, and indeed do an amazing number of things, including optimize it's path and even remember it's solution for a small amount of time(about 3 or 4 seconds). Not only that but when given a certain stimulus need (example make them solar powered and have only one are of light they would compete with other bots to gain access to better light. Indeed a lot of the behavior that these little bots produce is so complex and life like that he has spent a long time just documenting behaviour. Now give a set of these bot's circuits the ability to "optimize" the speed of the signal, and a few stimuly and let it play. If the stimulous was for "human approval" some input from a human indicating good or bad.... Heck what do I know, I'm non AI researcher but it always sounded cool to me :-) For more information on Mark Tilden go to BEAM Online

The philosophy of BEAM robotics

BEAM stands for Biology, electronics, asthetics and mechanics

It is basically the name of a hobby about this very subject, taking trash and creating eye pleasing and working sculptures out of it.

A few links:
Solarbotics, a kit reatiler
A great site, full of links
A nice example of a BEAM robot

BEAM stands for Biology, electronics, asthetics and mechanics

It is basically the name of a hobby about this very subject, taking trash and creating eye pleasing and working sculptures out of it.

A few links:
Solarbotics, a kit reatiler
A great site, full of links
A nice example of a BEAM robot

I remember seeing a show on this guy a while back and being pretty impressed with his results. His machines could have their legs bent and broken and still manage to keep moving (helps not to bother with error checking I'm sure).

I have to wonder what could be accomplished if the whole thing got more hobbyists working on it. After all many of his schematics are on Beam-Online and appear to be reasonable for amateurs to build.

Sorry, I was rushed last time and didn't get a chance to get the link working here's a link to some wired interviews (I coudn't link directly to one) and here's some pics of the actual robots.

Anyone interested in 'insect-like' robots will want to do some reading on "B.E.A.M. Robotics", B.E.A.M. stands for Biology, Electronics, Aesthetics, and Mechanics. Bascially, it is the idea, codified by Mark Tilden (linus to beam roboticists (sp?)) that says that roboticists (sp?) should start by building/adapting simple autonimous robots, capable of small tasks. Each successive robot (the next one you build) should be slightly better. If we continue this (un?)natural evolution we should come up with life-like machines. Simple. Elegant. Capable.

See this Google search to start: http://www.google.com/search?q=beam+robotics

To we the appetite, here is a small gallery of Tilden's bots.

Mark Tilden (the father of BEAM) and his robots have been featured in Discovery Channle programs.

Pager motors are one of the perferred devices for imparting motion in BEAM robotics. Look here or here, for starters -- there are tons of BEAM sites out there...

During this seminar, he was talking about using his method of robot-building and applying it to satellites. (There's an article here.) Basically what Mark was saying is that there's a fundamental problem with current satellites; they're digital. And digital components don't like the harsh radiation of space. Plus, NASA's so-called "microsatellites" weigh in at over 600 lb. Not very "micro", if you ask me.

What he was proposing is whipping up a crop of "nanosatellites", maybe as big as your head, all out of analogue components (which he usues exclusively, at least last that I saw), which don't need to be radiation-hardened for space. Plus they're dirt cheap, and you can make them by the thousand.

NASA's "faster better cheaper" may be so, but it's all relative. If they really wanted that, they'd send out a fleet of Tilden's nanosatellites. Send 100 to Europa... some with cameras, some with infrared, some with spectrometers, some that talk to the others and beam back data to earth... and I'd bet it would be a lot cheaper than the Mars rover ever was.

If anyone has more Tilden links, please post them. He's done some amazing work, but I can't seem to dig up any large cache of web sites about his work. Pity - it fascinating!