New Toy
Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 9:55 pm
In robotics: a new idea using old low technology (flywheels and magnets) has made a unit of a self-configuring self-moving structure into a simple complex of magnets and slides, powered by flywheels and capable of self-assembling into structural components with programming that is being developed as I write this. For example, self-assembling scaffolding that can support a sagging building while the residents are rescued.
I note one obvious flaw: the Curie point of the magnets. This would make the units unusable in a fire. But first things first: they work, and it appears to be a well-funded project.
Imagine, instead of the finger-joint-sized metal diamonds of the "replicators" from the Stargate TV series, something the size of your palm, a cube, assembling much the way the Stargate replicators are depicted as doing. Obviously their basic unit- the equivalent of the little crab-like things the replicators are depicted as using- would be larger than a person. The goal of course is something like the replicators; in the article they talk about the Terminators, from the Arnold movies of the last couple decades. These are said to be built up of self-replicating units, but microscopic ones; thus when they morph they appear to flow.
If the Curie point problem can be cured, wouldn't it be nice to be able to send a replicator-thing into the heart of the malfunctioning reactor, and no one has to die to fix it? Just a thought for an idle Saturday afternoon's contemplation.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 105235.htm
I note one obvious flaw: the Curie point of the magnets. This would make the units unusable in a fire. But first things first: they work, and it appears to be a well-funded project.
Imagine, instead of the finger-joint-sized metal diamonds of the "replicators" from the Stargate TV series, something the size of your palm, a cube, assembling much the way the Stargate replicators are depicted as doing. Obviously their basic unit- the equivalent of the little crab-like things the replicators are depicted as using- would be larger than a person. The goal of course is something like the replicators; in the article they talk about the Terminators, from the Arnold movies of the last couple decades. These are said to be built up of self-replicating units, but microscopic ones; thus when they morph they appear to flow.
If the Curie point problem can be cured, wouldn't it be nice to be able to send a replicator-thing into the heart of the malfunctioning reactor, and no one has to die to fix it? Just a thought for an idle Saturday afternoon's contemplation.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 105235.htm