Thanks to Jeff James, LEGO, and everyone here at Nxtbot for inviting me to guestblog. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to talk about one of my favorite subjects: robots.
Fancying myself something of a generalist/whole systems guy, I always like to look for patterns that connect my interests, so in talking about robots, I’ll likely be touching on some other, related subjects. These include computers and the Internet (natch), the open source movement, the “do-it-yourself” ethic/hardware hacking, distributed/ubiquitous computing, biomimicry (i.e. taking design inspirations from nature), industrial design, and “appropriate technology.”
One of the things I like about robotics is that it sort of forces you to have to know at least a little about a lot of things. A good bot builder needs to know about everything from mechanical/electrical engineering and computer programming to the nature of intelligence and how bio-brains and nervous systems work. You know you’ve become something of a little Leonardo when you find yourself playing with the half-gnawed chicken bones on your plate and thinking to yourself: “Ah, so that’s how they ‘actuate’.” And when you start thinking about how you could reverse engineer the neighbor’s cat, you know you’ve been spending too much time deconstructing the world with an eye towards constructing your own artificial one. But then, that’s one of the many cool things about robots, they actually make you look more deeply at the natural world to gain a deeper appreciation for how it works. At least, that’s been the case for me.
I’d love to see a discussion about what real/natural-world designs have served as inspiration in your bot building. [Gareth Branwyn]
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