>Hara Ra wrote:
>
>> I agree that it is ambitious. However, building the components needed to
>> pickup and join Lego blocks should be feasible with a limited budget.
>>
>> Bernard:
>I think a critical issue with a macro assembler is positioning. Once you can
>position components accurately and verify that they are there, you can also
>position work tools and build the components. I don't think lego blocks
give you
>a lot of inherent clues about their position. Still, I agree availability
is a
>big plus. A lot depends on the functionality of the active components they
>provide.
>
I've been on tours of a number of manufacturing plants. There are a lot of
ways to guarantee that a part is identified by type and properly oriented
and positioned. For example, with LEGOs, put a steel BB into the center of
each block. An arm with an electromagnet can pick up blocks and drop them
into a sorting hopper. Once the Lego Block is lying on its side, the bar
code can be read by a supermarket scanner which is orientation independent.
Unidentified blocks go back to the hopper for another try. Identified
blocks are handled according to their type.
> I've been thinking about macro-assemblers for a long time. The model I have
>been thinking about I call the Universal Fabricator Replicator (UFR), on the
>principle that any engineering project needs an obscure acronym :-). It
useful
>feature is that it can disassemble anything it builds. Building one off
things
>out of generalized robust components seems likely to be more expensive than
>using bulk technology. But when you can download a new design for you living
>room, and simply disassemble the old one to make the new, you are into a
whole
>new ball game. Like nanotech, you drop much of the bulk transport and central
>manufacturing. Even with nanotech, it may be energetically cheaper to
assemble
>large objects from largish (millimeter?) components.
>
I did the calculations for nanotech, with micron sized components. At least
100x energy savings. Something like a tube about the size of cable tv coax
can deliver liters per minute to a home. With accelerations of 10 KiloGee
available in the distribution system, 10 minute delivery from across the
country. As with many things, 99.999% of the block types will be available
within 100KM. Some of these can be data blocks, a single block can hold
several hours of HDTV. Video on demand with a vengance!
>
O--------------------------------O | Hara Ra <harara@shamanics.com> | | Box 8334 Santa Cruz, CA 95061 | | | | Death is for animals; | | immortality for gods. | | Technology is the means by |
O--------------------------------O