I am posting what I know, and most of the "skills" I have are in
electronics and the solid state. I want to add to this community and hope
to gain VIP at some point. But the worthiness isn't there yet.
So without further ado, here is my tutorial on simplistic life simulation,
via minimal components and basic theory on electronic components and
analog robotics.
First off, what is BEAM? BEAM stand for Biological, Electronics,
Aesthetics, and Mechanics.
BEAMs use analog components to simulate neurons response to environmental
stimulation.
You could do the exact same thing, very robustly providing more sensory
and locomotion IO with microcontrollers(AVR's, PIC's, Stamp's, ETC) and
code. But that would defeat the purpose of a
simple control system,
which uses analog control flow and
much cheaper components.
We will be going through one of the most popular BEAM cores, the Zener
Solar Engine. What I'll be going through is based on Mark Tilden's circuit
using a zener diode. You can find a similar circuit using FLED's(flashing
light emitting diodes) known as the FRED engine by Ben Hitchcock or by
stringing diodes in series to drop the voltage trigger.
Now that we have defined what BEAM is, and established where it came from,
lets look at a required parts list.
1) 1x NPN transistor
2) 1x PNP transistor
3) 1x 2.2 ohm Resistor
4) 1x 4700uf Electrolytic Capacitor
5) 1x Zener Diode
6) 1x low voltage/current motor (pager motor)
7) 1x Solar Cell
Lets break down the components needed, so we know what each does and how
they work.
First we'll start with the simplest component and work our way into the
more advanced components.
Resistors:
A resistor, does as the name implies, resist current. Resistor restrict
current flow, based on OHMs law. I = V/R. I = current, V = voltage, R =
resistance. I'll let you look more into Ohms law
here because it is
better explained than what I can do. Oh, and this applies to more than
BEAM, learn it, love it, apply it.
Capacitors:
A capacitor either acts like a battery(DC voltage), or acts like a
filter(AC voltage). It is used for decoupling weak current draw, or can
help filter analog waves. Like resistors, tis explained better
here. Will will be using
electrolytic capacitors.
Electric motor:
I will only touch on this because it pretty much falls into mechanical
engineering. The only thing you really need to know is it usses coils and
earth magnetics to function. You can find much more
here. All you really need to
know it that we are using low current motors such as the vibrator motors
found in pagers and low mechanic products.
Transistors:
These are the important things. Not only in BEAM, but in what you are
doing now. The processor your computer is running on right now is made up
of billions/trillions/(whatever comes next) transistors. These are the 1's
and 0's of the world we love so dearly much... You have two different
kinds, NPN and PNP. PNP stands for positive-negatave-positive
less
common, and NPN stands for negative-positive-negative
most used
. The only thing you need to know is that the are switches. Yeah, like
the light switch you are using illuminate the room you are sitting in (!light like me lol). The NPN and PNP come from how they work. NPN passes
negative voltage through it and needs a positive voltage to trigger this
flow, PNP is the opposite in which is lets positive voltage flow it the
negative (switch) or base is triggered. You really need to read most all
of this
h3re.
Diodes [zener]:
Diodes are the first transistors, transistors are based on diodes (via pn
& np junctions). I know I stress transistors, but diodes are the true
heroes. Diodes allow current flow in one direction, and in one direction
only. Your already know what diodes are believe it or not. Every time you
see a light on your electronics you usually see a diode. LED's or light
emitting diodes, are diodes that emit light, they are
most all of the
time use in professional or hacked together productions. The give
status, or data transfer physical recognition. You can find more
information
here(just as, if
not more, important that transistors). Now a zener diode serves as a diode
does. But the difference is, it has a break down voltage. This means that
when the diode can't support reverse voltage, it breaks down and survives
the current in the reverse voltage and it flows that way, instead of
breaking down and melting or producing the magic white smoke some of us
know.
Solar Cell:
You already know what a solar cell is. I am more than sure you have used
a calculator that has a solar cell for power. You and I alike have coverd
that square (segmented by faint lines) with our finger, and watch the
numbers slowly disappear. Usually to 5318008 upside down
( . Y . ) lol... But really, immature jokes aside, the solar cell is like the
battery. It collects energy->voltage/current from light emitted from the
sun and other sources. You can find a wealth of info on solar energy
here. For even more
energy producing products that further you from the "grid", see
this
(Thank the mid-evil death-ray, relay this is where it started).
Mind blowing tech that helps all of us.
In the heart of hacking, you can find these components in everything. Go
to your local thrift store or donated items, and you can source these
parts for $0.00 dollars in any currency. You may even have these part
laying around in dead circuit boards. Remember, most of these passive
parts are still good, it is usually the IC's that cross over to the circuit
in the sky.
Now that we know what we are working with, and hopefully understand how
they work. Really, go read the links provided, they will help here and in
further endeavors in the solid-state.
....Okay, now that we know what we are working with, go read
this. It will
aid you in reading schematics that are going to be in this tutorial.
You know what we are working with, and know how to read the "blue prints",
so here is what we are going to do.
http://library.solarbotics.net/circuits/pix/SE_Zener.gifcouldn't get img tag to work Now comes the interpretations. I
did not develop this circuit, but
will go into the inner workings.
Okay:
The high farad capacitor starts charging through the zener diode(mc4742),
until to the base of the PNP(2n3906) transistor. Once the current
on the base is met to trigger the PNP(2n3906), current flows to the NPN
(2n3904) base, thus triggering the motor to turn on. Once the motor is on,
and in turn feeding to the zener diode and base of the PNP(2n3906) the
circuit stays on. But as stated in the wiki on zener diodes says, this
diode has a reverse trigger voltage. Since the motor is on and feeding
current to the zener at this point, current builds on the zener in the
opposite direction. The motor then triggers the reveres function of the
zener and pretty much shorts back to the capacitor, and starts the cycle
again.
This may be alot to take in, especially coming from a non-solid-state
background, which is why the links to wiki is so important.
You might be wondering what this has to do with nature and neuro processes
in the brain. Think of this as controlling the left leg of an insect that
feeds on the sun for food. This leg will only trigger when it gets enough
food, then when the food is no longer present, it will trigger locomotion,
knowing that it had food and wants more. Now, add another one of these
"cores" to the other leg you need for linear locomotion, but in a reverse
manor to promote linear locomotion (not exponential, or else you'll be in
circles because both trigger in the same environmental conditions). Just
think, you have one working in the same manor as the core stated above,
and another in the same manor but with reversed biased triggering core,
think NPN->PNP instead of PNP->NPN, controlling a second pager motor for
the other core(leg). You will get moment in the direction of light, on
which it feeds. The second you remove the light source, or move it back
and to a different direction, the cores will pick up on it via capacitor
charging time thus, delay the trigger cycle in a manor to depict zero turn
towards the light.
This is known as bi-core locomotion. It can be applied to walking,
swimming, beeping, spinning, and vibrating locomotive techniques in the
BEAM world.
Hell, even with one core, applied to underwater BEAM you could make a bot
to sit in your fish tank. When the core is idle and charging from the
lights above the tank it sits on the surface of the water via some
almost weak flotation. Then once the core is triggered, the small motor
spins a propeller on the bottom of the vessel pulling the unit down to the
bottom of the tank. Once the charge(capacitor) is spent, it goes back into
charging mode, thus turning off the motor and in turn makes the vessel
float back up to the surface of the water. You can do this with the
single core engine I talked about. Use the LED in series method with
LED's and the simple bot will tell you when it's eating or spending
energy.
You can build these bots with PCB, or get into the true hacking sense and
build them free form to truly exercise your soldiering/hacking skills
such as
this
using two FRED cores.
Well, that is about all I shall cover in this tutorial. If enough interest
in this arises, I might continue the tutorial to contain higher level
BEAM's using IC's, and then maybe eventually work into using code to
produce the same results via embedded systems(it gets exciting when I get
into Video feedback via OpenCV and other means). But for now, work on the
basics.
Also, this interest doesn't go to just BEAM robotics. Once you step into
the solid state and learn to work with flip-flops, ADC, timers,
comparators, and other juicy stuff; you will know what truly goes on in
your computer. IE flip-flops, decade counter etc = RAM; comparators
timers, switching transistors, etc = CPU. And this kind of stuff just
gets my rocks off. Program and exploit all you want, but once you know
what the electrons are doing when the buffer overflow happens, you are a
god among monkeys.
Well, thanks for reading.
Oh, and since I shown you some boobies, here is the ASCII vagina to
accompany the bouncy bulbs of joy. ({}) mmmmmmm.................I would have put this in the tutorials section, but as it doesn't pertain
to security, it's going here.
REF:
BEAM_
http://library.solarbotics.net/circuits/default.htmElectronics_
http://www.youtube.com/user/kipkayOther_ and yeah tiss a hot chick </me drool>.
http://www.youtube.com/user/jeriellsworthPS:
Any font formatting was done by evilzone.org, this was supposed to be in all size 10 font. I've noticed it copies very literally from the sys clipboard, colors/size/font/etc included. If you spot any sever errors such as dead/broken links please inform me. I want this info available to everyone with correct ~correct citations.
