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Comments on Bush Robots - Fingers On Your Fingers On Your Fingers...
From Heinlein to Moravec to MacLeod - bush robots are cool. (Read
the complete story)
| "Science Fiction Theatre April 16,1955,screenplay by Lee Berg from a short story by Jack Finney.
Check out the "Sonic Broom", a very sophisticated abstraction for its time and our's.
Great Site!" (Mike Russo 10/29/2005 11:17:57 PM) |
| "The name of that episode was
"Time Is Just A Place".
Sorry!" (Mike Russo 10/30/2005 12:31:15 AM) |
| "Robert L. Forward has also used the concept of the bush robot in some of his science fiction. They could even subdivide and break off small parts for personal robots that rode the shoulder of humans." (Bill 10/30/2005 8:02:55 PM) |
| "There are also references to bush robots in some of Robert L. Forward, including 'Flight of the Dragonfly (1984) and 'Rocheworld' (1985)." (Bill Christensen 10/30/2005 7:09:24 PM) |
| "A few days ago, my 8 year old daughter and I developed this idea: Monkeys for Hands! I'd buy a set, for sure. You could even have whole monkeys, with tails, for feet. Anyone knows that monkeys have hands instead of feet, so this arrangement would make for 16 hands. That's 80 fingers! One could play all the instruments in the band, or tie the worlds most intricate fly! (a type of tiny fishing lure. Of course, the body would have to be the max. strength, min. mass, and the head much bigger to acomidate all the extra dexterity. This guy would be kreeepy!" (Brian 11/1/2005 10:19:51 AM) |
| "Bush Robots....
a political observation? You decide..." (Offlogic@foxblocker.com 11/3/2005 6:45:45 PM) |
| "The best SciFi example of this I've read is in Robert Forward's novel Rocheworld. Not a great novel, overall, but some really awesome tech ideas in there." ( 11/10/2005 9:44:00 AM) |
| "Finally! A sure-fire solution for those pesky nose hairs!" ( 11/13/2005 7:25:31 AM) |
| "Almost finished reading "Rocheworld". Man, I love that whole concept of the "Christmas Bush/Branch" and it's "imps"! It hasn't been featured in a movie yet, has it? That'd be a fun bit of CGI!" (Chris Johnston 8/20/2008 4:15:20 PM) |
| "How did you manage to miss Rocheworld by Robert Forward, the reason Moravec came up with the idea in the first place?
from the rocheworld technical appendix:
The "hands" of the Christmas Bush have capabilities that go way beyond that of the human hand. The Christmas Bush can stick a "hand" inside a delicate piece of equipment, and using its lasers as a light source and its detectors as eyes, rearrange the parts inside for a near instantaneous repair. The Christmas Bush also has the ability to detach portions of itself to make smaller motiles. These can walk up the walls and along the ceilings with the tiny cilia holding onto microscopic cracks in the surface. The smaller twigs on the Christmas Bush are capable of very rapid motion. In free fall, these rapidly beating twigs allow the motile to propel itself through the air. The speed of motion of the smaller cilia is rapid enough that the motiles can generate sound and thus can talk directly with the humans.
Each astronaut in the crew has a small subtree or "imp" that stays with him or her to act as the communication link to the main computer. Most of the crew have the tiny imp ride on their shoulder, although some of the women prefer to keep theirs in their hairdo. In addition to acting as the communication link to the computer, the imps also act as health monitors and personal servants. They are the ideal solution to the perennial problem of spacesuits ... scratching an itchy nose.
The imps go into the spacesuit with the humans, and more than one human life was saved by an imp detecting and repairing a suit failure or patching a leak. In fact, there are two computer motiles with each suited human. The personal one that stays with the human, and the spacesuit motile that stays with the suit. This motile is usually outside in the life-support backpack, but can worm its way inside through the air supply hose."
there is even a picture in the book:
http://fennetic.net/pub/irc/christmas-bush.png" (ben lipkowitz 2/9/2009 1:30:45 PM) |
| "I've been unable to find a good quote for the site; thanks for providing one! See the entry for Christmas bush motile robot. Also, according to the introduction to Rocheworld, the idea Christmas bush robot was 'jointly conceived' by Moravec and Forward. Thanks for reminding me; I've also fixed the link for the cool fractal zoom." (Bill Christensen 2/9/2009 3:46:54 PM) |
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