Subject:
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Machina Speculatrix Reproduction
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Tue, 2 Mar 1999 02:46:39 GMT
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Viewed:
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973 times
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Over fifty years ago W. Grey Walter started building three wheeled, turtle
like, mobile robotic vehicles. These vehicles had a light sensor, touch
sensor, propulsion motor, steering motor, and a two vacuum tube analog
computer. Even with this simple design, Grey demonstrated that his turtles
exhibited complex behaviors. He called his turtles Machina Speculatrix after
their speculative tendency to explore their environment. The Adam and Eve of
his robots were named Elmer and Elsie ( ELectro Mechanical Robots, Light
Sensitive. )
I have started to recreate the basic structure of the turtles using LEGO
Mindstorms. Grey's turtles used a front wheel drive tricycle style chassis.
The propulsion motor sits in the fork of the front wheel assembly and moves
with it. The steering motor is mounted to the body and rotates the steering
assembly trough a worm gear. The light sensor is rigidly fixed to the
steering assembly so that it is always pointing in the direction of travel.
For more details please go to:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Michael_Gasperi/walter.htm
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Machina Speculatrix Reproduction
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| The Smithsonian Institute has one of the second generation Grey Walter robot turtles in its collection. I have obtained a high quality photograph of it and added it to my web page. It really is worth seeing. For more details please go to: (URL) (26 years ago, 11-Mar-99, to lugnet.robotics)
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