In search of Braitenberg's vehicle

Its been a while that i wrote my last blog about amateur astronomy and my little experiences, adventures in life with it. I kept thinking for some time about next topic that I really want to share with everyone and this was in my mind every time but then I thought I should complete this little project and start writing about it. That way at least the name of my blogspot will have meaning. Anyways I'm trying not to make this blog too technical but yes i think this will be first semi technical output today for everyone.

Why I couldn't complete (lame excuses!)

• I guess i was/am very near to its completion but it took so much time and energy already that I think i am thinking to give up when i know i'm near to the finishing boundary.
• Besides the 5 days and well nights too of a week suck all my energy to work on anything that requires my brain to function properly.

I think these excuses are already enough to make my point that "I failed to what I wanted to do as small project" PERIOD

Was it fun...Indeed!

But the knowledge and fun that I had while working on this mini project was out of the way and the joy was enormous. I can only compare it with a piece of code or small software design in office makes me in good mood for couple of days.

Background

The reason lies in the fact that, I get very fascinated watching all those sci-fi movies where Machines take control of humans. When I see or read about on How machines started to react (better word stimuli) to the environment around them, it makes me think why we can not develop one on this basic principle. So that is my motivation to create a vehicle/mechanics which will react to outer stimulus e.g. "light".

So while reading and surfing on the net I came across two sites, one is a new Studio from Microsoft a.k.a Microsoft Robotics Studio which provides all the GUI/API's required to control your robots and the second one is Society Of Robots. This one is really informative active site for all beginners enthusiast who wants to create the robots as hobby.

And It All Started..

Author has given a challenge from Society Of Robots that if you spend $50 you can make your own robot and even primary school kid can do it. So well it hurt my ego (and same time make me happy that i can create my own!). Then I started to look after all the component i need and from where i can get it. Most of them I never heard it before because they were all electronics part...well yeah I did my graduation in Physics but hey it was 10 years back!

I had pity basic questions on what is the name of those parts and then where they used, how they used etc. but soon i had completed the list of things I would need to buy which drives me to another interesting place in Mumbai - Lamington Road.

This is the place on earth where you can almost everything of electronics world, from small resistors, capacitors to big HDMI output LCD tv sets at very cheap price.