Back in 2007 I was involved in a project to document, in the most simple way, all about BEAM robotics. BEAM is Biology, Electronics, Aesthetics and Mechanics. It is a type of robot whose objective is to mimic simple inset lifeforms. Yes, the pursuit for an electronic cockroach is on!
Aside from using a simple design, a BEAM robot should display behavior similar to that of an insect and be self sustaining. Although many BEAM robots use batteries, many also use solar panels to comply with the last requirement. Microcontrollers and advanced processors are frowned upon while simple analog circuits are more acceptable.
The result of this project was four documents, each discussing a specific BEAM robot, such as walkers, line followers, solar rollers and photovores. Each document is independent of the others, at the cost of content being duplicated. I am making these documents available for anyone that is curious. My objective is to update these documents. First I would like to consolidate the four into one document and secondly I would like to present original designs. The original goal was to explain BEAM robotics by describing existing designs. It is time to define a new goal.
In addition, I also prepared a short video presentation introducing this topic. The video can be found at the following link:
The four original BEAM documents are available here for download for anyone who is interested or just curious. Enjoy!
Salvador
Download links:
Line Follower:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwHoDS_llfwSTFVEcy1iWFBNRjA
Photovore:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwHoDS_llfwSc3ZBcjVSZS10MjA
Solar roller:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwHoDS_llfwSeFVGY0M0SjMydVU
Walker:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwHoDS_llfwSTndEbXc2bXpiVms