beam-robotics.com - Unofficial FAQ

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1. What does BEAM stand for?

BEAM stands for:
Biology
Electronics
Aesthetics
Mechanics

2. How do I get started in BEAM?

You can start by getting the book, "Getting Started in Electronics" by Forest M. Mims. Don't forget to read ALL of this book. Some people skip some parts and then ask questions in newsgroups that could have been answered easily if they had of read the book.
Then once you are done that, you must know how to solder and you are ready to make your first robot. You'll need to get parts and I would suggest Digikey or Solarbotics. Try building a solar roller first, then make a couple photovores. Once you are done that, try to make a walker. Then you will be ready for the last step which are the really advanced projects like 2 DOF (degrees of freedom) heads and such.

3. What is soldering/How do I do it?

Soldering is melting lead, flux and rosin (usually what it's made of) onto electronic joints. This binds them together and is conductive so your current will flow. You should already know what soldering is and how to do it if you picked up the book that I suggested in question 2. If you don't already know how to solder (which you really should if you picked up those books I suggested) then you can look here, but it won't be as much a help as the books and practice.

4. What are some other BEAM sites?

Check out the links page for some other BEAM websites.

5. What is a solar roller?

A Solar roller is a robot that is very simple to build and runs off of a solar engine (also known as an SE). There are many types of solar engines. There is the FLED version, the 1381 volt detector version, and the diode version. A solar roller simply hooks up a motor to the solar engine and has a base structure to hold it up.

6. How can I build a solar roller?

Check out the Schematics page and choose from a 1381 or FLED engine. This should be enough, but if its not just email me and I'll help you out.

7. What is a photovore?

A photovore is just like two solar engines put together. They will (with the use of other components) walk towards light. If you add touch sensors then it will also avoid objects when it hits them. Photovores can be constructed multipul ways. The first is to "fake" a photovore which I have a tutorial on here and the other way it to build a true photovore which you can find a tutorial on over at Chui Fangs site. He has an excellent one up there.

8. How do I build a photovore?

Check out the Schematics page and click on the tutorial for the photovore. This should be enough, but if its not just email me and I'll help you out.

9. What is a walker?

A walker is a robot that as the name suggests, walks. It has 2 or more motors, and uses motor drivers + gear motors to controle the legs. The motor drivers can be H-Bridges if you want really effective drivers that are very cheap. You can add many things to a walker like sensors, a head (light seeking, heat seeking, whatever) or maybe even better vision.

10. Where can I get 1381 Voltage Dectors?

Finding 1831's can be a very difficult task unless your get them from Digi-Key or Solarbotics. You can also try the beam trading post, but it doesn't seem too active these days.

11. How do I build a walker?

This is going to take a while, but it should be up under the tutorials section in a long long time. I'll update these pages the second I put up a tutorial on how to build a walker.

12. What is a symet?

A symet is simply a solaroller that is symetrical in form. It can get around many objects because of it's shape. The motor on a symet is usually from a walkman and there are typically 3 caps to make it look nice and preform well.

13. What is a bicore and how do I use it?

A bicore is the motor driver of a walker and a suspended bicore is the motor driver of a "light seeking head". To make the bicore useful in a head you will have to replace the resistor with two polarized photodiodes. If you aren't using the 74AC240 IC for your bicore then you will need and external(?) motor driver called and H-Bridge.

14. What is a H-Bridge and how do I use it?

An H-Bridge is a motor driver that can be used in heads, walkers, or anything requiring lots of power. (Generally power more the 100mA) It's very easy to construct an h-bridge and an advanced BEAMer can make on with some practice in about 10 minutes. They are very effective and generally cost less then a dollar each to build.

15. What is a microcore and how do I use it?

A microcore is the brian of a walking robot thats made with a 74xxx14 chip. More on this later.

16. Where is the best place to get parts online?

I would have to say that some of the cheapest and best places online to buy parts would be:
Digikey
Mouser Electronics
And the not so cheap places but still really good are:
Solarbotics

17. How can I contact you?

You may contact me (Brad Rowland) at digitaliz@home.com
Or on IRC using the undernet server in #beam

18. Do you have web page hosting?

Short answer = Not yet. Long answer = I hope to, but that won't be until I move to a virtual server. Then my web address will be www.beam-robotics.com and I'll offer web space + subdomain names. (e.g. yourpage.beam-robotics.com) If this does happen, then it might cost like $5 per month, but I'm hoping that hosting will be free.

19. What services do you offer?

So far I will do the following:
- Scan photos of your robots. I'll do this for free. If you want this, contact me.
- I have a little shop set up on these pages but it's not active yet. I'll post a comment in my news section when the shop becomes active.
- Any other suggestions? Contact me and tell me.