OT: So you like analog? Check this out: analog robots!

[smoguzbenjamin]

I found this website after watching a discovery channel show on robots. These are all-analog robots! they do a certain thing, recieve input that they have touched something or are going to touch something or hear something and whatnot, and stop, change task for about 10 seconds (turning around for instance) and go on what they were doing. Digital schmigital.

Here's the link: //www.solarbotics.net. It's sometimes hard to navigate but you get the hang of it. I'm gonna build myself an analog robot!

[Ge_Whiz]

I've heard that analog robots using germanium transistors respond more smoothly and sweetly than their silicon sisters... :lol:

It always makes me laugh when I see these projects for little digital robots programmed to wander about a floor, realise from sensors when they get stuck, and then back out or turn around based on instructions from their little microprocessors. When I was a kid, I had a 'Tricky Tractor' that did exactly that, based entirely on a simple mechanical linkage. No silicon needed. Wish I still had it to show the geeky programmers...

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

The original analog robot:

http://www.epub.org.br/cm/n09/historia/turtles_i.htm

www.bcp.psych.ualberta.ca/~mike/Pearl_Street/INTD554/pdfstuff/Tortoise.pdf

[smoguzbenjamin]

A robot that works by mechanical linkage alone? Sweet...

[The Tone God]

http://www.kiddstoys.co.uk/ravbonk.htm

Andrew

[bobbletrox]

These are all-analog robots!

Thanks for posting this!!  I haven't had a chance to check out these things until now, but man, this looks stuff looks like great fun.  Check out this bot -it's called a Photovore because it seeks out light- and it looks slick:

http://grant.solarbotics.net/images/Photovores/simple_vore-IMG_2854.jpg
http://grant.solarbotics.net/images/Photovores/Underneath-IMG_2857.jpg

Check out how simple it's schematic is...it runs on little more than an octal buffer:
http://grant.solarbotics.net/images/Circuits/BBPV_CL.gif

This one is 24mm x 33mm, solar powered, and uses a 33000uF gold cap for power storage:
http://home.wanadoo.nl/m.m.avos/images/solar_speeder.jpg

You've gotta love the philosophy behind these things too.  They're called "BEAMbots" for Biology, Electronics, Aesthetics, & Mechanics, and the whole design ethic is to use scrapped parts where possible and make them as simple as possible.  I'm gonna give it a go  

[smoguzbenjamin]

I've been looking around and reading through a bunch of FAQs etc, tor eally get an understanding of these 'creatures'. Every time I learn more, I get more and more fascinated It's amazing, simple, and sweet. I just need to find some geared motors and I'm all set ghehehe :twisted:

[The Tone God]

If you want to find more about BEAM robots look up a guy named Mark Tilden.

Andrew

[smoguzbenjamin]

That was the guy on the discovery channel program He builds walking robots out of a single walkman in an hour! I gotta get me a broken walkman..... Wasn't he the founder of the whole BEAMbot thing?

[The Tone God]

That was the guy on the discovery channel program He builds walking robots out of a single walkman in an hour! I gotta get me a broken walkman..... Wasn't he the founder of the whole BEAMbot thing?

Yeah kind of. He was teaching at the University of Waterloo in Ontario which has become Canada's equivilant to MIT. He started the BEAM thing around there. Mark is a intersting/funny/weird guy. He has some funny stories like what he did with his TV remote.

Andrew