Newsgroups: comp.robotics
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From: jdcook@mv.mv.com (John D. Cook)
Subject: How to find out how (almost) anything works.
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Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 00:46:37 GMT
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Hi all,
 
 Here's a little tidbit of info Tom Cicatelli tuned me into I'd like to share.

Suppose you want to know how something works  (happens to me alot).

Well you can:

1) Sit and wonder
2) Grab your handy book on "How it Works"
3) Look it up in the college physics book and guess.

or, do what Tom tuned me into, 

-Look up the PATENT INFO.

To get a patent, you have to tell the Patent Office exactly how your gadget
works and what parts it needs to work so, for a few bucks, goto your local
library armed with patent numbers and request the Patent Info.

Patents tell you how things work.

It takes a couple weeks to get the info back but its well worth it, esp if
you want to take some off-the-shelf item and glue it to your bot with 
"just a few changes".

This worked for me and Tom, he looked up the info on an electronic stud
finder and we found its a capacitance probe that picks up _anything_ 
near it and gives an indication of how close it is.  Now, we have probes
with four digital outputs (or four voltages into one analog input with 
a resistor ladder) that pick up anything at close range.  Bye bye IR
reflectors, hello capacitance probes.

O yea, the device is a Zircon electronic stud finder and sells for about
$20 each.  Really cool too, only one IC and one circuit board.
(no endorsement intended)

Happy patent hunting!

-John C.
-- 
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John David Cook   | "Accomplishing difficult tasks is the | Build Robots,
jdcook@mv.mv.com  |  most satisfying."                    | Love Animals.
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