I know I’ve been saying this since the beginning, but I’m still inspired by Walter Innis’ tortoises[1] - and I think you can finally start to see it in this project! I’ve given them (singular them!) a body, and hooked them up to motors so they can race around to their hearts content!!! (or really, to the guides content???). Sticking to the idea of giving them as much freedom as possible, I’ve created an action table for the five movements they can do, and use random to let them choose how they want to express themselves! I find it cool to see how the same random sets can allow for so much reaction, and how the emotions I gave them affect how I perceive the physical. Take random (3,4) as an example – it basically means they wiggle back and forth but when the ring is purple, they’re shaking in fear as opposed when the ring is multi-colour, and they’re rocking back and forth to comforting themselves! The only thing to note, is that I’ve added movement there’s a lot more unsure – so they are easily spooked and need to be calmed down.
The academic text that is more closely connected to my work this time was Robot Programming: A practical Guide to Behaviour-Based Robotics[2].
I kept one thing in particular in whilst creating my bot – a robot must accommodate the shortcomings of its sensors and actuators or it won’t be ass effective[3]. I knew that I didn’t play around with my sensors as much as I had wanted to – I had planned on adding photocells and making them light sensitive, didn’t add any contact reactions – but I believe the code and actuators helped make the shortcomings become a part of the program. My bot is cute, clumsy, scared, and just coming into the space. They’re exploring and living the way they want to in to moment and that brings me so much joy.
Small Production Note:
I’d like to explain why I’ve titled this project as I did. As I finally was able to add motion to my bot, I was super excited to let them zoom around to their hearts content. So after making sure everything was good when connected to my desktop, I hooked them up to my 12V battery pack from tangible – only to find that the motors would struggle to turn on. I decided to turn it around by testing it connected to my laptop, and was smacked in the face by what my mom constantly says to my brother and I – “stop taking your electronics for a walk”.
In the case where she would tell us this, she is referring to the fact that we tend to walk and watch/read on our phones. So it was hilarious to me when I went to her with the finished project, and got to say I was taking my electronic for a walk.
Works Cited
Skitterbot. “Grey Walter’s tortoises”. Youtube, 20 August 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLULRlmXkKo
Jones, Joe and Roth, Daniel. Robot Programming: A practical Guide to Behaviour-Based Robotics. McGraw-Hill Education TAB, 2004
