Page 11 - Anatomy of a Robot

00_200256_FM/Bergren 4/10/03 11:54 AM Page x
X PREFACE
Off in the corner, a bit cowed and unsure of himself, was the youngest competitor.
Let’s call him Sam. He may have been 13 and was there with his mom. They, too, were
making changes without good results. I approached Sam’s mom, discretely asked per-
mission to help, and joined their team. Without going into the theory, I explained that
the robots were all too fast and powerful for their own control systems. I recommended
slowing down Sam’s robot by adding more weight at the back end. We finally decided
to build a sled for the robot to drag and set about finding the materials. With the race
deadline approaching, Sam himself came up with the solution. With a quick glance to
ask permission, he grabbed his mom’s handheld camera and slipped the wrist strap over
a post on the rear of the robot. We confirmed the robot could still move slowly down the
racecourse line towing the camera. Sam took the batteries out of the camera until it was
near the right weight. All too soon, race time came and we had to halt our experiment.
One after another, the older competitors’ robots raced down the course only to stray
off the black line and be disqualified. A couple of the robots did finish after wandering
around lost and wasting a good deal of time. Eventually, the time came for Sam to race
his robot. He placed his robot on the starting line, plopped his mom’s camera down
behind it, confidently put the wrist strap on the rear bumper, and pushed the start but-
ton with a bit of ceremony. As Sam’s robot left the starting line, it lurched forward, tug-
ging the camera behind it. The crowd started to buzz and I watched the highly amused
advisors talking among themselves. It was clear some of them understood what was
going on.
To make a long story short, Sam’s robot reliably chugged around the racecourse and
he won. The look on his face alone was worth the effort. Sam’s nominal reward was a
kit for a bigger robot, but I think he walked away with much more than that.
After the race, Sam was eager to know how I knew the solution. I took Sam aside and
gave him a glimpse of the college-level mathematics and graphs that were behind his
victory. My intention was to stimulate his curiosity and point him in the direction that
would lead him to further accomplishments. I went home feeling wonderful, proud for
myself, and happy for Sam.
After all, everyone seeks direction in life. We experience a feeling of comfort when
we discover that our problems are definitive, comprehensible, and tractable. To build a
successful robot, it takes a disciplined approach. Many pitfalls are possible, but they are
not inevitable. The subjects you will have to master are many and difficult, but not
incomprehensible.
To be clear, it is not the intention of my book to teach you how to build a robot. Others
can find the nuts and bolts better than I, but if you want to come away enriched with the
seminal knowledge of the academic and professional disciplines necessary to be suc-
cessful in the field, then this book is for you. Each major discipline is the subject of a
separate chapter. Each chapter will cover the basics but will also lead you to theory and
reasoning that can capture the imagination. For each discipline, legions of engineers
and professors spend their entire careers sweating the details.
Sam, if you’re out there, I hope one of them is you.