12 Oct
2013
12 Oct
'13
3 p.m.
On 10/11/13 7:44 PM, "ben" <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:
On 10/11/2013 5:59 PM, Mark Tapley wrote:
Did you really post that to this group? I'm so happy that there are
efforts to teach children what's happening underneath the hood of their
fancy iToys, through whatever means (and robotics seems popular). If we
do not keep the computer visible, who among them will consider computing
as a career? Who will be our next innovators?
Besides, "brain of a rabbit" is not dissimilar from "eye of newt" in
terms
of technology: such cyborg concepts are still mostly fantasy. Even if it
really worked, what's the rabbit-brain's motivation to do what I want it
to do? The microcontroller does what I tell it to do because it has no
choice. I don't want a tool that decides whether it wants to work today,
or just eat timothy hay. :-) -- Ian
All,
Two of my kids are competing in this years BEST robotics design
competition. Rules are here, FYI:
http://www.bestinc.org/b_game_rules.php
The competition is to build a robot which will assemble logic
element stand-ins into logic gates and CPU elements (not actual ones,
everything is sylized so that the robots can be made out of easily
available macroscopic materials). However, an important element of the
competition, on which the older child is working, is to write a
"business case" for such a robot - do market research, in essence, and
convince investors why such a device is useful.
Why not just "Use the brain of a rabbit".
But does this topic look out of focus ... Nano Machines have been doing
this for billions of years ... it is called * LIFE *.
Ben.