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MECHANICS 11

The executioner’s argument was, that you couldn’t cut off a head unless there was
a body to cut it off from ...The King’s argument was, that anything that had a
head could be beheaded.
—Speaking of the Cheshire Cat’s smiling head,
from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

So now we’ve spoken of energy, software, reliability, management, signals, and data.
Mighty ephemeral stuff all that. Lest we forget, robots must be made of bone and gris-
tle! Rubber, steel, plastic, fiber, and ceramics are the true stuff of robots. Just as many
electrical engineers fancy themselves to be great mechanical designers, I’m still wait-
ing for my invitation to deliver the keynote address to the American Society of
Mechanical Engineers. All that said, I can pass along some tips and tricks.

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