Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!news.Brown.EDU!qt.cs.utexas.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!wupost!csus.edu!netcom.com!park
From: park@netcom.com (Bill Park)
Subject: Re: Flying robots...
Message-ID: <1993Feb19.035546.3636@netcom.com>
Followup-To: comp.robotics
Summary: The MIT Media Lab built robot blimps in the 1980s.
Bcc: park
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
References: <1lv6npINNbkd@bowen.rick.cs.ubc.ca>
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 03:55:46 GMT
Lines: 49

In article <1lv6npINNbkd@bowen.rick.cs.ubc.ca> c1a192@rick.cs.ubc.ca
(Oliver Erik Seiler) writes:

> Well, if you couldn't figure out the subject line, I'm planning on
> building some sort of flying robot. This will be based on some sort of
> blimp/balloon structure, ...
> 
> My questions are:
> 
>  - Has anyone heard of someone doing this (or for that matter, has
>    anyone here done it) and know how hard it may be?
> ...
> -- 
> | Oliver Seiler          + Erisian Development Group +  Amiga Developer  +
> |                        +--------Don't squeeze the varfehgnugen!--------+
> | c1a192@rick.cs.ubc.ca  |           	  (604) 683-5364                 |
> | oseiler@nyx.cs.du.edu  | POB 3547, MPO, Vancouver, BC, CANADA  V6B 3Y6 |

The MIT Media Lab built blimps controlled by a computer via a radio
link.  Look at the 22nd page in the colored-plate section of this book:

Stewart Brand, <The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT>, New York,
     NY, Viking Penguin, Inc., 1987.

... very strange: I can't find an ISBN number anywhere in my copy.
There is also a paperback edition.  Both editions were being
remaindered at knock-off prices here in California about two years
ago, so they may be difficult to find now.  Worth buying.  The
hardback has a neat rainbow hologram on the front cover that shows
letters floating at different depths about 1/2" above and below the
cover.  I think I recall something about a certain pattern of the
letters spelling out some Word of Power familiar only to Tech Tools.

The computers were programmed to make the blimps act like fish: They
swam around in the atrium of the Wiesner Building.  They had simple
sensors that allowed them to orient themselves in relation to walls,
each other, and electrical supply contacts (their "food").  Their
behaviours included feeding, schooling, and seeking "comfortable"
temperatures.  The blimps were part of Alan Kay's Vivarium project.
The "blimp cadets" used a neuron-like graphic programming language
developed by David Levitt, called "HookUp."  With it, they created
rudimentary fishy brains that produced these behaviours in the blimps.

"Off we go, into the wild, blue ... er, atrium!"

Bill Park
=========
-- 
Grandpaw Bill's High Technology Consulting & Live Bait, Inc.
