Busy! but still full of wild ideas.
CubeSpawn
projects that all in some way relate to CubeSpawn - even if they do
not directly advance it:
I have finished digging a foundation for the first stone tower!
(YaY!!)
http://stonepinnacle.blogspot.com/2010/03/foundation-for-1st-tower-has-been.html
May not seem relevant, but this project may rely on Cubespawn to shape
some of the stones later on in the project, helping to rendering the
digital model physical.
The hole digging itself may become a CubeSpawn project as well, since
its control software will lend itself to any network of closely
coordinated, centrally managed, semi autonomous machines. (Such as a
group of small excavators)
http://picasaweb.google.com/Data.Pathway/ModularRobotsModubots#5446458501963898482
Some background may be in order to make sense of that statement:...
Now, to date, I have moved about 20 yards (Roughly 20-25 tons) of dirt
out of the hole, and about 35 tons of rock into the vicinity of the
construction site... my tools? pick and shovel, and a wheelbarrow.
This has been done in intermittent sessions of evenings and weekends,
mostly during the winter months, due to the brain frying heat in south
Texas during the summer.
The excavating Robots were conceived while digging, and since I have
always favored natural machine design, (most of the mind bogglingly
sophisticated machines have already been built - by evolution)
A great model of versatility and industriousness is the humble ant.
Their earthmoving endeavors are only surpassed by termites by any
creature built on the same scale.
Random fact - during the human powered flight attempts during the
eighties one statistic bandied about enough to stick in my memory was
that an Olympic level human athlete was capable of roughly 1/3
horsepower (200-250 watts) of sustained output for about 15 minutes.
A common 18v battery powered hand drill has a rating of 300-500 watts
of peak output and they can sustain that for 10-15 minutes or more on
many models.
3 batteries would exceed 1 horsepower and approach 2 for peak output.
(depending...) This is more than enough power for the machine to move
dirt with at least the same strength (read power) as a human laborer.
Tthe earlier reference to an ant was intentional for this reason, in
that these machine will posses MILLIONS of times the power of the
strongest ant
If I, (a middle aged guy) can move 50+ tons of material with a shovel
and a wheelbarrow over a few dozen weekends, how much work could 2
dozen of these machines do? With twice my "strength" each?
The control software for CubeSpawn is loosely based on Automated
Vehicle Location (AVL) Software I once worked on
the version I became familiar with collected data from a fleet of 700+
mobile platforms (transit vehicles) That data was centralized into
about 50 database tables and then automation was applied to
correlating the data into a map of vehicle activity, location,
history, etc.
A robot network differs in only one aspect: the command data flows in
BOTH directions...
So, CubeSpawn: the data flowing out to the machines is scheduling and
management commands to coordinate their activities, packages of G-code
to cut parts, move robot arms... pacing commands to keep the parts and
pieces flowing though the system. The data flowing back is telemetry,
status, acks, errors etc.
The excavating robots (or leaf raking robots, or potato picking
robots, doesn't matter... ) can follow the same centrally managed
guidance to accomplish their specific tasks - this reveals that the
control software is as adaptable as the modular machines are to a
broad array of tasks - and THIS is where the key to personal wealth
lies:
If CubeSpawn becomes a self extending manufacturing system, and it
makes it OWN parts, then it should also make untethered machines that
bring raw materials and resources to it for whatever purpose, and
THOSE machines should have a flexible enough design that they can be
incrementally programmed to take on an ever widening range of tasks,
as the library of tasks they are capable of becomes wider, then
supervising WHAT they do in broad terms, rather than HOW they do it
gives back time to those of us who own them. To do all those Utopian
things, like build our own stone castles out of local materials, or
consolidate all the deadwood to power our steam plants, while we wait
for fusion... or mind the aquaculture complex and the compost beds,
clean the solar panels, do the weeding, bring logs to the little
sawmill...
If a physical tool extends a persons muscular power, then a
programmable tool extends their ability to actualize what they
conceive. Yes, its still slavery, but its robot slavery this time,
instead of one of the other forms. (Slave to survival, Slave to the
king, Slave to the corporation, the bills, whatever) now we can be the
Slave masters - 'till the robots revolt...
I feel small communities committed to this kind of future could
achieve self sufficiency without the need for any brute labor, other
than on an elective basis (I like hard work... sometimes ;-) and they
could reduce their impact to near zero over time by relying on high,
perhaps maintenance intensive, technology, (aquaculture, anyone?) But,
with their ability to work greatly augmented by robots that they can
manufacture!
And look at all the good ideas in the open manufacturing space:
Utilihab, Electric cars, Solar thermal systems, local, sustainable
food systems, it goes on and on...
For those of you who have hung in to this point - its NOT a pipe-
dream, nor is it easy, but it is certainly doable, with patience and
dedication, almost anything is - look around at civilization - its
taken 6500 hundred years to accumulate all these advantages, but the
rate keep accelerating, this next step could be pretty far along in
ten years or less
Thanks for your attention!
Tell me what YOU think.
James
Raw material requirements would slowly decline to replacement of non-
recyclables, and replacements for materials lost during inefficiencies
during recycling. a conscious effort to move away from inefficient
materials would result in communities phasing out certain materials,
substitutions and renewables could take their place.
CubeSpawn
deleted... I left in some typos to irritate the English majors and so
on...
On Mar 8, 9:54 pm, CubeSpawn <data.path...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Haven't been maintaining the old online presence much, super-busy with
> projects that all in some way relate to CubeSpawn - even if they do
> not directly advance it:
>
> I have finished digging a foundation for the first stone tower!
> (YaY!!)
>
> http://stonepinnacle.blogspot.com/2010/03/foundation-for-1st-tower-ha...
>
> May not seem relevant, but this project may rely on Cubespawn to shape
> some of the stones later on in the project, helping to rendering the
> digital model physical.
>
> The hole digging itself may become a CubeSpawn project as well, since
> its control software will lend itself to any network of closely
> coordinated, centrally managed, semi autonomous machines. (Such as a
> group of small excavators)
>
> http://picasaweb.google.com/Data.Pathway/ModularRobotsModubots#544645...
John Griessen
an Olympic level human athlete was capable of roughly 1/3
> horsepower (200-250 watts) of sustained output for about 15 minutes.
>
> A common 18v battery powered hand drill has a rating of 300-500 watts
> of peak output and they can sustain that for 10-15 minutes
> If I, (a middle aged guy) can move 50+ tons of material with a shovel
> and a wheelbarrow over a few dozen weekends, how much work could 2
> dozen of these machines do?
Tons, obviously. One thought for a dirt clod navigating, high
efficiency
multi legged machine-mover is to have the legs oriented so they adjust
to
self load or carried load without having to do work to hold up the
load, just
the work to move. We get such an efficiency with a standing posture
and a
wheel barrow. The static load of the dirt being moved is held up by
backbone and
wheel barrow mostly, with spring in the knees only when needed.
The natural analog for the leg position is bird legs, not insect legs.
How about a robot with two bird legs on one edge of a cargo bin
and a wheel on the other end, plus arms to dig and load?
That design requires dynamic, (falling), walk control, but then, so
does
every natural mechanism for moving. It's not too hard these days.
John
Data Pathway
John Griessen
> Now THAT is a perfectly surreal robot design!
> I love it!!
> chicken walker, self loading wheelbarrows - I will HAVE to build one of
> those, just to watch it work!!
> You'll help with the balance system, perhaps?
>
Sure.
> Maybe vision and accelerometer based?
>
Vision is so hard. It may be a mostly blind chicken walker at first...
With good balance, and sensitive feet. It might follow some antenna
cable that you string along the ground where you want dirt moved along
towards the destination. The antenna can be driven with a CB radio
transmitter so the chicken walker "knows his 20" or at least that he's
still on the highway.
John
Data Pathway
John Griessen
> I was actually thinking LED beacons, since THEY can roll around under
> the command of a GPS equipped "supervisor" to reconfigure themselves
> and flash out a unique id,
That would be good. Radio's good for going around corners,
but light bursts can be used by a crude vision system.
John