[Brian D’Agostino (050115.2300)]
I earn my living as a math teacher in an alternative public high school in New York City. I previously taught political science at the college level, did public interest work, and published peer reviewed research on the psychology of militarism. I was involved with the Control Systems Group for a number of years and the writings of Bill Powers and other CSG members influenced my political psychology research. I am currently getting interested in control theory and robotics. I’ve read Robertson and Powers’ Introduction to Modern Psychology and a few articles by Powers and Marken. I am currently studying high school physics on my own. Can anyone recommend any of the following:
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Good kits for building robots. I’m interested in something introductory, but ideally something I can also eventually build on to create more sophisticated designs. I would like to take an HPCT approach and I am therefore looking for kits that enable the builder to program robots in this way.
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Good articles, books, or other texts (including websites) that can help me get up to speed on elementary robotics, including the engineering and control theory needed to practice robotics as a hobbyist and to eventually teach it to high school students.
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Good articles, books, videos or other texts (including websites) that address philosophical questions about the similarities and differences between artificial, animal, and human forms of intelligence and intentionality and about the social, economic, political, and ethical implications of automation and artificial intelligence. I am especially interested in any such materials that might be written at a level assessible to high school students.
Many thanks.
[From Rick Marken (2005.01.16.1200)]
Brian D'Agostino (050115.2300)--
Can anyone recommend any of the following:
1. Good kits for building robots. I'm interested in something introductory, but ideally something I can also eventually build on to create more sophisticated designs. I would like to take an HPCT approach and I am therefore looking for kits that enable the builder to program robots in this way.
I recommend the Lego robotics kit. It makes all the electrical connections easy and you can program it to take action based on the value of sensor inputs. I never got too far with it, but that's just because it works better with a PC than with a Mac, and I had just gotten a G4 laptop a few weeks after I got the Lego set (my wife has a PC but I am reluctant to try to convince her that playing with Lego toys is more important than whatever she is doing). Even on a Mac there are ways to program the Lego robot block but I just didn't have the time to work that out.
2. Good articles, books, or other texts (including websites) that can help me get up to speed on elementary robotics, including the engineering and control theory needed to practice robotics as a hobbyist and to eventually teach it to high school students.
See Bruce Abbott's description of his robot building project at:
http://users.ipfw.edu/abbott/pct/hexapod/HexapodProject.html
There are some web references at the end of that article.
Best
Rick
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Richard S. Marken
marken@mindreadings.com
Home 310 474-0313
Cell 310 729-1400
[From Brian D’Agostino (2005.01.18.634)]
Thanks for the robotics info, Rick. I had heard of the Lego kit but didn’t know whether it would support a PCT approach. This looks like a good kit for me to start out with. Also glad to learn that Bruce Abbot is building on Richard Kennaway’s work.
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[From Rick Marken (2005.01.16.1200)]
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I recommend the Lego robotics kit. It makes all the electrical connections easy and you can program it to take action based on the value of sensor inputs. I never got too far with it, but that’s just because it works better with a PC than with a Mac, and I had just gotten a G4 laptop a few weeks after I got the Lego set (my wife has a PC but I am reluctant to try to convince her that playing with Lego toys is more important than whatever she is doing). Even on a Mac there are ways to program the Lego robot block but I just didn’t have the time to work that out.
See Bruce Abbott’s description of his robot building project at:
http://users.ipfw.edu/abbott/pct/hexapod/HexapodProject.html
There are some web references at the end of that article.