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From: altenbur@plains.NoDak.edu (Karl Altenburg)
Subject: Re: solar powered alifish things: which book?
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Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 18:11:07 GMT
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Bill Clagett (edge@iglou.iglou.com) wrote:
: in one of the popular books on alife, mention is made of some
: simple robots that someone has made which did relatively dull
: things, such as jump every once and a while.  i remember them
: because they were autonomous and ran on solar enery.  
: unfortunately, i have absolutely no idea as to which book it 
: was in which these were mentioned.  anyone else remember?  i know 
: that it was not Levy's book.

I'm sure your are taking about Mark Tilden's work, and the robots
he supports through his BEAM robot competitions.  I'm not sure if
his work is in any book yet, but there are several reports of 
his work in the popular scientific press.

Here are two articles for reference:

Dewdney, A.K. Photovores: intelligent robots are constructed from castoffs.
Scientific American Sept 1992, v267, n3, p42.

Malyon, John. At the Robot Olympics. Whole Earth Review Spring 1992, n74,
p80-84.

The second article includes a schematic for the design of a photovore,
a solar cell powered mobile creature.

The next BEAM competition is being held in Santa Fe, the first week
in May I beleive.

I beleive Mark is currently working at Los Alamos.

--
Karl R Altenburg				altenbur@plains.NoDak.edu
North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND  58105

All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God.  SIR THOMAS BROWNE
