Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!uunet!spool.mu.edu!cass.ma02.bull.com!petra!xylos!sje
From: sje@xylos.ma30.bull.com (Steven J. Edwards)
Subject: LEGO/Logo article in 1993.07 issue of _CACM_
Message-ID: <SJE.93Jun30171041@xylos.ma30.bull.com>
Sender: news@petra.ma30.bull.com (Network News)
Reply-To: sje@xylos.ma30.bull.com
Organization: Bull Worldwide Information Systems, Billerica, MA USA
Distribution: comp
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 22:10:41 GMT
Lines: 28

The 1993.07 issue of the _Communications of the ACM_ has an article
about the LEGO/Logo workshop at MIT.  Entitled "Behavior Construction
Kits", author Mitchel Resnick presents some the educational aspects of
using LEGO based robotic components.  Several color photographs and
diagrams serve to illustrate this popular level piece about
"programmable bricks" and how schoolchildren experimenters used them
to solve simple robotic tasks.  The article concludes with a twenty
item list of suggested activities that just might be of interest to
even older enthusiasts.

One of the projects discussed is a "smart" hamster cage.  One of the
students used an optical rotation counter on an exercise wheel to
measure nocturnal activity.  Connected to a Logo program, the sensor
detected a wide variance of wheel use: zero usage one night followed
by a quarter mile run the next.  It turns out (excuse the pun) that
this is easily explained for a female hamster: wheel usage correlates
with estrus cycle phase.  A multi-week sampling of a non-pregnant
hamster should clearly indicate the presence of a five to six day
cycle.  (Can one do Fourier analysis with Logo?)  Anyway, a quarter
mile run is not really that long; some authors estimate typical
nightly exercise wheel runs of up to five kilometers with adult
hamsters.

 [The above opinions expressed are my own; not necessarily held by others.]
  == Steven J. Edwards          Bull Worldwide Information Systems Inc. ==
  == (508) 294-3484             300 Concord Road                MS 820A ==
  == sje@xylos.ma30.bull.com    Billerica, MA 01821                 USA ==
"That Government which Governs the Least, Governs Best." -- Thomas Jefferson
