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"...Suppose we want to build a fuel/oxygen generation plant or a human habitat on Mars.
With today's technology, we already know how to build the basic machinery, and we also
already know how to send payloads to the Martian surface...
The problem is that we can only send up to a ton or two at a time.
And so have to assemble the structures on the Martian surface - with the human operators still on Earth!.."
Spaceward Foundation
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You can ask how the preface above is connected to this site.
This story began long ago when I became interested in robotics.
I created my first PC simulator of a "spider" robot in 1996 when I was eighteen years old.
Since then I have designed several algorithms for autonomous robots.
It was a nice hobby for puzzling over many interesting problems. From simple ones like making the robot to turn or
move backward and forward on a flat surface to more complex problems like finding a safe path to a target point or
in-situ decisions when something goes wrong.
How to make a robot able to recognize hazardous pathless hills and pits?
How to make a robot able to escape from sinking in the martian sand without any human assistance?
How to make a group of robots able to coordinate their movements for building something?
etc., etc., etc. A long list of challenging questions.
As I have mentioned above, it was a nice hobby. But when I read that
NASA announces
Telerobotic Construction Competition I was really excited. I even tried to estimate how much it will
cost to create a small prototype and found out that just a small part of all expenses - 18 servo-motors needed
for 6 legs - costs at least $3000. And the total estimated sum (just for the prototype) was higher than $10K.
Too much for the hobby.
I was frustrated for a month till I decided that I actually want to turn all these virtual simulators into
a real life. This led me to the thoughts about getting money in some way (not criminal, of course :) ).
I didn't want to search for investors - this is not a kind of project that can bring some reliable income.
I just want to invest myself. Not even for the NASA prize (actually, I don't think I can withstand
the time limits of this competition) but for a challenge.
That's how I started my quest for some simple and attractive idea that could be quickly realized and bring some profit.
Two weeks ago I suddenly recalled once very popular
Game of Life.
Have you thought about the Internet as of some living
being? Some strange mixture of strict algorithms and chaotic events, growing, evolving,
developing new generations including all of us as cells.
The idea of this project was born from joining up the chaotic randomness of internet visitors
with the strict rules of the Game of Life.
Each visitor gives birth to a cell, which color and place are based
on the visitor's internet address. Groups of visitors from the same place generate a new
multicellular organisms, evolving, swallowing up the neighbours, living and dying. This gives you
a chance to see the life of the Internet being. And if you are a website owner you can subscribe
to the "Life of Your Site" service and show your visitors the life of your own site.
Your attention to the site, my ideas - together we will make the future :)
Sincerely,
Arty Sandler
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