> Taking a page from one of the essays or commentaries in _The Mind's I_ > (Hofstadter & Dennett, eds.), you could add a plug to the movable arm > and as one of the first training tasks, teach it to find an outlet and > recharge itself when power levels fall below 7 percent... > > -- > Cliff
Yeah, that's true, of course ;-) The "bumper car rink" idea was primarily posited for entertainment value... In your proposal, given the realities of contemporary battery chemistry, it would spend a lot longer plugged in than rambling around, but I guess that would just be its own peculiar cycle of life.... It would have to learn to read its own battery-power monitors too. Then it would have the psychological decision to make, at each point in time while plugged in, of whether to leave the wall socket to amuse itself before it's fully charged, or stand there bored and wait till it's fully charged.... And the introduction of new, longer-life batteries would completely change its psychology!! What would be better would be if its grabber arm and fingers were good enough to enable it to swap a series of batteries in and out. Of course, actuators of this quality exist and are in use in industrial robots, but they don't appear to be available for this inexpensive bot. -- Ben G ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
