I’m starting a “Sure! Sounds Great! Let’s talk about that!” thread that welcomes and encourages conversation about odd-ball configurations that are patently unreasonable.
IMHO - “Hobby” robotics is, by definition, “unreasonable” in the same way that taking an Atari XE (16 k of RAM), and hardware-hacking it to run a full 64k, sans schematics, technical specifications, etc. is “unreasonable”. Why not just go spend the few extra bucks and get The Real Deal, without having to solder chips, filter capacitors, wires, ribbon cable, and whatever else to make a Radio-Shack daughter-board hack-job memory expansion work.
I absolutely agree. This is NOT reasonable, and that’s what makes this so much fun!
Have you ever seen a “tractor pull”? (Otherwise known as “What happens when you decide to add ‘just one more’ Xavier board to your 'bot!”)
From the name, you’d expect, (and “reasonably” so), to see some John Deere and/or International Harvester and/or Kubota and/or [insert name brand] farm tractors engaging in some honest one-upmanship.
Though probably descended from some reasonable parantage like that, it has rapidly become UN-reasonable.
These are heavily modified machines that have only a vague resemblance to traditional farm equipment; sporting three, four, or even as many as SIX supercharged, nitro-burning big-block V8’s trying to drag a specially designed sled the furthest across a dirt-and-dust-filled display ground.
Like nitro-burning top-fuel dragsters, it’s the shear UN-reasonableness that makes it fun.
These things AREN’T “tractors”, they’re distortions painted green, orange, or whatever with a large set of “tractor” wheels on the back and prboably cost the large part of the total GNP of some smaller countries.
And that, my friends, is why they’re fun.
A real-life farmer can only spend so much time looking at the “amber waves of grain” extending off to the horizon, or the three-thousand-seven-hundred-and-fifty-first cow teat without going absolutely hog-crazy!
And so it is here too.
Robotics can be whatever you want it to be.
Do you want dull-and-boring? A simple 'bot running a simple O/S? No problemo! A Dexter/MR GoPiGo, batteries, a copy of the latest-and-greatest GoPiGo O/S, and you’re set to go.
But maybe, just maybe, there’s that little wiff of nitromethane that hangs around in the back of your skull from days gone by - and “dull” just doesn’t cut it anymore.
Maybe you have visions of not just a “GoPiGo” but a GoPiGo!
Alright, you can’t afford six supercharged nitro-burning V8’s - we get that.
Perhaps a couple of insanely overclocked Xavier boards, (mounted in a “V” with a BIG fan of course!), driving a 'bot with more cameras than the CIA, (AKA “The GoPiGo From Hell!”), would be an acceptable substitute?
Reasonable? When did “reasonable” become a requirement?
Go for it!
Write about it!
Share pictures and swap lies, just like the farmers do while drinking cold brews and watching these behemoths dig up the fairgrounds!
What say ye?
