Newsgroups: comp.robotics
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From: altenbur@plains (Karl Altenburg)
Subject: Re: "That's not robotics; that's toy building"
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Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 21:04:37 GMT
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I wrote:
: >If you're going to build a robot of any size you're going to have to do some
: >research on sensors, actuators, and control relative to the applied

Jon Priluck jamcorp@world.std.com wrote:
: You dont really need to do any research, this is just something we seem to
: beleive.  If you want to build something all you really need to do is start
: building.  Then mess with it untill it does what you want.  You may not
: UNDERSTAND exactly how it does what it does or WHY it works; but these
: things never stopped the march of progress in the past. 

I agree that building a robot is one of the best ways to understand it,
along with the issues and difficulties related to it.  However, I was 
merely stating that once you start building, you will probably start doing
some form of research to get a robot working.  The research may not be
an investiagetion into some new control theory or the design of a new
sensor, but might be the type of reserah to answer questions like: 'has
this been done before?', 'will this sensor work in this environment?',
'is there an easier/less expensive way to do this?'  The answer to these
types of question may not be earth shattering, but it will require some
form of research to get them.

As a counter point to your statement, the progress of building a robot may
be slowed or stoped when one fails to reserach why a robot sub-system doesn't
act like one wants (a good example is IR noise sources and IR proximity
sensors.)
--
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
