Slashdot Mirror
Phototropic Solar-powered Robots
timbong writes "Have you ever wanted a small, cheap robot that you could build for about $20? (depending on whether you buy new/scrap parts and what motors you use) Then check out this tutorial it requires some soldering experience but it really isn't very hard. If you want a kit check out solarbotics, they have some interesting stuff like walking analog adaptive robots."
When I was in High School and early college, (20+ years ago) Radio Shack had these project books using transistors and early IC's (remember the ubiquitous 555 timer, and the IC op-amp?).
About that time, I sent away for a book I found in a catalog entitled something like 'How to Build a Robotic Pet' It was a thick book and covered everything from motive power to sensory circuits. The brain was based around a 6800 (no, I didn't leave off a 0) and was programmed in straight hex.
I never actually built this robot, but it taught me quite a bit, just thinking about building it and making improvements on it with more modern technology.
Radio Shack sells very few of the component level stuff any more, things that filled my High School day dreams: resistors, capacitors, diodes, triacs, breadboards and basic IC components like 555 timers, op-amps and flip flops. Is this component level understanding of electronics going away? I made some nifty little things, such as a burglar alarm using a triac, some resistors and a photocell, hooked up to a chirper circuit made from a 555 timer and an IC amplifier.
Mark has been doing this for quite a while. He was showing them off on a college tour in 1994 when we saw him at MIT. If your cable system carries it, there's been a special running on Discovery Science that includes this stuff that's worth the watch
These BEAM robots - among them the featured one - are in most cases nonprogrammable, hardwired machines like photovores. While small, simple robots have a certain fascination, quite a number of them are extremely "dumb" (because hardwired). It can be quite a lot of fun to work with these, though.
Pitsco sells solar panels that can power the Mindstorms Motors. Unfortunately, they can't power the RCX + motors. Check out:
http://www.pitsco.com.
Get the Pitsco Catalog. It has tons of Lego stuff, as well as do-it-yourself supplies.
You can make proximity detectors with the flex sensors sold by Pitsco. They're the same sensors as in the Nintendo Glove Controllers. For more info on homebrew Lego stuff go to Mike Gasperi's Homebrew Sensors page:
http://www.plazaearth.com/usr/gasperi/lego.htm.
If you watch TV news, you know less about the world than if you just drank gin straight from the bottle.
The title should probably use "Phototrophic" (literally "light-eating", deriving its energy from light; from the Greek "photos" for light and "trophein" for "to eat") instead of "phototropic" (meaning "seeking the light"). Plants are phototrophic when they use photosynthesis to make food, and they are phototropic when they grow to turn their leaves in the direction of the sun.
I follow (more or less) Mark Tilden's work for about 6 years already. What you probably do not realize is that he pretty much solved the problem of modeling insects (insects are automata unlike mammals). In this respect all these LEGO robots (or any other CPU/code based robots) do not even remotely approach the the ingeniously (means - simply) designed creaters. I recommend everybody to pay attention to this invention, this is the only known to me example of getting inside the complex system of brain with not yet recognized consequences for the neurotechnology.