BEAM
MacGeek117
Posts: 747
Has anyone built BEAM robots? If so, how well did you like it?
bugg
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Boe-bot: $229
Toddler: $249
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Post Edited (bugg) : 3/28/2005 3:36:52 PM GMT
bugg
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Boe-bot: $229
Toddler: $249
Learning Google is your friend: priceless
Post Edited (bugg) : 3/28/2005 3:36:52 PM GMT
Comments
Be warned that some of the BEAM bots are no longer easy to scrounge components for and staying within the pure BEAM tradition might be a dead end at this point. For instance, solar panels are getting more efficient and the BEAM solar engine needs to be revaluated with the higher power outputs. In some cases, the solar panels can now actually act as battery chargers instead of capacitor chargers.
I have been looking at the BEAMS and they seem far more ideal and efficient for locomotion of a robot. Very little power is wasted. The locomotion can be driven by simple relaxation oscillators to handle several legs and motors. It can also be reversed and it can accept digital control of turns or stoppages.
From all this, I still envision using a microcontroller for the sensor and calculation portion of the robot to operate as a clearing house for navigation. While the microcontroller is busy with peeking around, the BEAM locomotion can keep on moving with little or no input from the navigation side or it can be put in a wait state with nearly no power consumption.
So, this is not a question of BasicStamp versus BEAM. It is a question of how do you want to combine the two into a more efficient and interesting robot.
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G. Herzog in Taiwan
bugg
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Boe-bot: $229
Toddler: $249
Learning Google is your friend: priceless
Here are a couple pics of one of my photopoppers. Cool...after years of ignoring it, I placed it under a lamp to take the (poor) photo, and off it went! Loyal as a hound!
Here's a (poor, sorry) photo of a solar "wind" chime that I built using the same BEAM solar engine. It chimes about every 2 - 3 minutes on a sunny day, and 5 - 6 on a cloudy say. The tinkling really brightens up a room. I gave away 12 of these for Christmas presents and I still get complements on them. The electronics is housed in one of those plastic "bubbles" that you can get goodies out of from a gum machine. I attached a suction cup so it can be stuck to a south-facing window. My niece has only North facing windows, but hers works regardless.
If anyone's interested, I can provide details.
I really think the hybrid concept is best: a controller such as the Stamp acting as a conductor in an orchestra, and BEAM circuitry responsible for the lower robot functions. This is exactly what Rodney Brooks of MIT hit on with his "Subsumption architecture " ai.eecs.umich.edu/cogarch3/Brooks/Brooks.html After all, that is how we are wired. Do you consiously think about breathing? Or pumping your heart? No. We have circuits that do that fior us. Our higher cognitive functions are reserved for directing how our lower functions are to be used. It makes no sense to have a processor such as the Stamp be responsible for every little thing the robot must do. Let the processor direct higher functions while BEAM takes care of the survival!
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Name: Bruce Clemens
Work:· Clemensb@otc.edu
Good Stuff on my Blog: http://theDeadBug.journalspace.com
just my 2 cents.
·· I'd be interested in details of your Solar Wind Chime...Thanks!
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
If anyone's interested, I can provide details.
Yes, I would like the details, I have a lot of different sized tempered aluminum tubes, and stainless steel
tubes I can use!!!
Anyway - back to BEAM.
The comment that BEAM are intelligent robots from unintelligent component is a bit wrong. BEAM provides primarily locomotion and very little sensor. If you try to look at it as intelligent, I would get that you would have to call an ameoba intelligent.
Nevertheless, it does efficiently provide the locomotion center of the brain stem, so that you can use a BasicStamp for more symbolic and abstract funtions [noparse][[/noparse]such as mapping and communication].
I hope someone else can recognize the difference.
Anyway it looks like the solar wind chime just uses sun via a spin of a motor to get the chimes to sound off. So all you have to do is find a suitable SE [noparse][[/noparse]solar engine] plan for yourself. IT IS A REALLY NEAT APPLICATION for people that have sun, but keep their windows closed.
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G. Herzog in Taiwan
I actually didn't claim that BEAM robots are intellegent. I said they display "intellegent behavior from inherently non-intelligent devices ".
Many people who work with BEAM claim they have observed behavior that appears to be "intellegent" beyond the capabilities of the components. Mark Tilden, the "godfather" of BEAM has claimed that "Walkman" his famous BEAM creation that he built out of scrounged tape-player parts, exhibits learning characteristics which allow it to walk most efficiently after learning an optimal gate. He also claims that it can negotiate traps and barriers better after doing the task more than once. This robot has only a few transistors, and no digital processing at all.
The "nervous neuron" circuitry at the core of BEAM uses digital buffer gates that are cross coupled and interlinked in complex ways. They are also forced to operate in an analog realm. Little is really understood about the waveforms that underlie these circuits. If there is potential for intellegence to arise from the verge of chaos, it is here in this realm.
I believe, as I stated in another post somewhere else in this forum, that there's Ph.D. fodder in BEAM.
Yes, the solar chime is simply a solar engine which spins a charm that hits the chime rods. To those of you who are interested, I will post a link to the project as soon as I can get stuff uploaded.
Bruce
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Name: Bruce Clemens
Work:· Clemensb@otc.edu
Good Stuff on my Blog: http://theDeadBug.journalspace.com
Here is the story on the solar chime, including BOM, schematic, and a (untried) PCB pattern.
Bruce
thedeadbug.journalspace.com/?entryid=39
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Name: Bruce Clemens
Work:· Clemensb@otc.edu
Good Stuff on my Blog: http://theDeadBug.journalspace.com
Oh ya and the only beam project I built was the sunseeker kit from solarbotics(I really like their mini Siemens solar cells). But now with the microcontrollers, I tend to shy away from hardware solutions. The Miller Solarengine is very useful nonetheless. I used the sunseeker to keep solar panels·directed towards the greatest source of light energy.
Post Edited (Jonb) : 4/1/2005 5:19:44 AM GMT
Actually, this is probably one of the most exciting directions in robotics. It seems to allocate resources and systems in a fashion that is similar to evoluton. It moves up from a purely reflexive stage, through learned responses, and finally to symbolic data accumulation and processing.
The little BEAMs just prove that the reflexive stage is all that is needed for locomotic and collision control. You overlay that system with a higher form of navigation, and a system of observation. Then you have something that can draw a map or maps of its world to be called on by the locomotion, the navigation, and the observation so that the knowledge of its world can grow. Finally, add the ability to accept and perform specific tasks via some communication with its master - you have a pretty sophisticate robot AND the locomotion is BEAM, the OBSERVATION could be BasicStamp, the NAVIGATION could be BasicStamp, and I suspect the mapping would take a Single Board computer with more RAM capacity.
My only problem is that I have been spending more time thinking and playing with robots than actually paying attention to my employment here [noparse][[/noparse]teaching English at a university level]. Since I work freelance, it has been getting a bit financially scary lately. I really want to build more robots, what do you do when you can't pay the rent and your 7000 miles from home? I still haven't learned C programing either.
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G. Herzog in Taiwan
Post Edited (Kramer) : 4/2/2005 11:00:03 AM GMT
bugg
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Boe-bot: $229
Toddler: $249
Learning Google is your friend: priceless
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http://costaricabeam.solarbotics.net/Circuits/SolarEngines_Main.htm
On its most basic level power comes in Via a Solar cell (usually), is stored in a capicitor In a basic FLED (flashing LED) the FLED acts as a switch when enough power is stored in the Capactor the power is discharged to the motor(s). No matter what engine you pick this same basic principal applys.
For some insperation of some truly ART worthy BEAM projects check out:
http://www.botsculpture.com/beamart.html
Or join the BEAM group through Yahoo. Its is a very active and interesting group.
Ray
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bugg
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Boe-bot: $229
Toddler: $249
Learning Google is your friend: priceless
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Is this the circut you are trying to understand?
Ray
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Sorry I don't know if the 1381 is analog or op amp, I can tell you its Transistor-like and acts as the trigger, (in a normal FLED the LED does this but the 1381 is much more efficiant.)
Solorbotics sells kits, http://www.solarbotics.com/products/index.php?search_id=15 ,they have the assembly instructions you could take a look at. BEAM bots are fun to build for what they are, if you haven't tryed one I highly recommend it.
Ray
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Alright bugg here is a brief explanation of the circuit, I will only explain one arm since they are identical.
The heart of the circuit is the 1381, the output (pin 1) is high if pin 2 is greater than pin 3 by the internal voltage difference (several values are availible). The 1381 turns on when enough power is being supplied by the solar cell and enough light is hitting the photodiode. The feeler acts like a override reset so that the 1381 is not triggered when the feeler is in contact with something. When on, the 1381 causes the 2N3904 to conduct thereby turning on the motor, to the best of my knowledge the 2N3906 is being used as a near constant voltage·reference for the motor, since the voltage across the motor is the same as Vbe of the 2N3906 (roughly .6-1V depending on the active mode conduction curve of the '3906). If someone else knows of another function the 2N3906 serves, please correct me. The motor is switched off when any of these conditions occur:
a) the solar cell stops producing enough electricity
b) the photodiode is no longer exposed to enough light
c) the feeler is activated by the photopopper running into something.
Post Edited (Paul Baker) : 4/6/2005 10:14:58 PM GMT
bugg
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Boe-bot: $229
Toddler: $249
Learning Google is your friend: priceless
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G. Herzog in Taiwan
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Name: Bruce Clemens
Work:· Clemensb@otc.edu
Good Stuff on my Blog: http://theDeadBug.journalspace.com
bugg
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Boe-bot: $229
Toddler: $249
Learning Google is your friend: priceless