Subject:
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Re: robotica on TLC
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Fri, 6 Apr 2001 06:50:26 GMT
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Original-From:
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Steve Baker <sjbaker1@airmail.SPAMCAKEnet>
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Reply-To:
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SJBAKER1@avoidspamAIRMAIL.NET
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Viewed:
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4138 times
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"Russell C. Brown [RR-1]" wrote:
> If the idea is to make the science cool, I wish they would actually describe
> the machines.
Even without that, it helps. My 10 year old son used to tell the kids at
school that he built Lego robots that could really drive around and do things
and the other kids would roll their eyes and mouth "Geek...Nerd..." etc. Now
they are *VERY* interested - I think these various cheesy programs have made
that change. Not that they learned any science from the show - but maybe
they now have a little more respect and interest in that kind of thing.
It sure beats WWF wrestling and Pokemon.
I'm also a HUGE fan of that other British series "Scrapheap" (known as
"Junkyard Wars" here in the USA - because...em...well)...a bunch of guys
are dumped in the middle of a massive junkyard with the task of building
some maniac machine in 8 hours from only the scrap laying around them.
Two teams do this - and at the end the contraptions they build compete
in some way. Some of these contests are *AMAZING* - walking machines
that have to carry all four team members in a race, airplanes that
have to carry one person aloft, submarines, rockets, cannons, demolition
machines, you name it!
The Jeep that was modified to be a walking machine was a sight to behold!
That series really *does* push the science - quite a bit of the
show is taken up with discussing the engineering merits of the
teams approaches and there are little science inserts explaining
why one method is better than another...cool stuff - by *FAR* my
(and my son's) favorite TV show.
> BattleBots frustrated me terribly because it was littered with
> cheesy commentary but never explained the inventiveness that went into these
> contraptions. It was stuff like "contains 2 wheelchair motors" but never how
> they were employed--obnoxious because most of the robots have two wheelchair
> motors yet they produce very different results.
The British Robot Wars series was a *little* better at that - but not as good
as you'd like.
However, on the plus side, most of the competitors have web sites where you
can get a lot of the techy details and email the builders directly with
questions...they seem to be quite a friendly and approachable bunch.
--
Steve Baker HomeEmail: <sjbaker1@airmail.net>
WorkEmail: <sjbaker@link.com>
HomePage : http://web2.airmail.net/sjbaker1
Projects : http://plib.sourceforge.net
http://tuxaqfh.sourceforge.net
http://tuxkart.sourceforge.net
http://prettypoly.sourceforge.net
http://freeglut.sourceforge.net
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: robotica on TLC
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| (...) Look into getting your son and yourself involved in the First Lego League. I judged some competitions last fall and it was a blast. Very worthwhile. (...) I too am a big fan. Though I would prefer it if they weren't quite so obvious about (...) (24 years ago, 6-Apr-01, to lugnet.robotics)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | RE: robotica on TLC
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| I must sadly agree with you, Steve... Though what Dean suggests would bring some real technological ingenuity to a drab genre, no fully-autonomous robotic device is going to beat a human-controlled telerobotic device for quite some time. [And I will (...) (24 years ago, 6-Apr-01, to lugnet.robotics)
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