Newsgroups: comp.robotics.misc
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From: "Jonathan W. Mills" <jwmills@cs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Stiquito Not Dead, But Moving to New Home
Message-ID: <1995May22.183925.29718@news.cs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Computer Science, Indiana University
Date: Mon, 22 May 1995 18:39:18 -0500
Lines: 82

Dear Robotics Enthusiasts,

I apologize for not posting this publicly sooner.  You deserved a
status report on the Stiquito project much earlier.  Before I go
into detail, you will receive your kit if you still want it.  If
you do not (and I have had some people cancel), send me e-mail and
your check/cash/money order will be returned via first class mail
or airmail if overseas. 

If you do still want your robot, I am finally (thank God) out from
under the triple whammy of tenure (I got it), a once-every-ten-years
departmental review (I get to keep my lab), and learning to live with
diabetes (it never goes away, you just cope).  What this means to you
is that the trickle of kits I was able to ship during the past year
will become a flow, and all orders received will be shipped.

But, I have decided NOT to accept any more orders:  after shipping
more than 2500 kits, it is time for someone else to take over.  I
have tried to get the vendors of nitinol to take over (no go); have
tried through our technology transfer office to get a local minority
owned business to handle the kits (no go); have negotiations in
progress with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to supply kits (their
lawyers are looking at it).  All in all, no one was willing to take
over.  Jim Conrad, Professor at Arkansas University at Fayetteville
may be able to get a small business going to supply Stiquito Kits
to accompany the book he is editing.  I deeply hope he succeeds!
(And the book will come with a Stiquito II kit in the back, where
other books put their floppy disk.)

Over the past year as the backlog has built up, I have hoped that
these other sources for Stiquito would take off, but they didn't.
I have tried to respond to those of you with urgent needs (projects,
birthdays, etc.) but have not always succeeded.  Those of you who
have gotten kits have been sent them Fed Ex at my expense, because
the Stiquito project was originated as a not-for-profit, at-cost
project, and there was no money for such things.  There was also
no money for staff salaries, and budget-cutting across the country's
universities hit the Stiquito project, too.  Support from my
department clericals at time-and-a-half overtime would have quickly
put the project in the red;  I know, I costed it out.

So we are back to where we were when this project started.  I
personally pack and ship your kit, deal with all the administrative
demands of a project, providing you a very inexpensive hexapod robot.
You cannot buy the materials in the kit any less expensively:  the
nitinol in the kit alone is worth more than $10.

So in closing, here are the main points:

	- If you no longer want the kit, send me e-mail.

	- If you do want the kit, it will ship within the next three
	  weeks (hard date:  by June 15, 1995).

	- I am no longer taking orders, because...

	- Jim Conrad's book will have a Stiquito in it, and Jim is
	  going to figure out how to put it there!  :-)

I apologize for all the delay.  I never expected that thousands of 
these robots would be requested.  And while I have tried very hard
to deal with this odd sort of success (for a professor), it is now
time for me to finish the project, hand it on to Jim, and get back to
the robotics research I started out to do with Stiquito:  build a
miniature, analog-subsumption-architecture-driven hexapod robot, and
see how a colony of them behave.

There -will- be more Stiquito papers, and with Jim's book looking
like it is a go, you will be able to obtain a Stiquito to experiment
with after I have shipped the last one.

Sincerely,
(and with warm regards to all who have supported Stiquito,
and who contributed to the 14,000 email messages I received),

Jonathan Mills
Associate Professor
Computer Science Department
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana 47405
W: 812-855-4317
H: 812-331-8533
