samplebot - 2001

cheap yellow quadruped samples floor surfaces for noise and motion

The 'samplebot' project is another simple application of a quadroped robot for making noise. Samplebot is equipped with a recording arm and instructions that are generated on the fly by its own actions. Once the machine is initiated it will begin to sample and process sound from the surface it is walking on - data is then extracted from this sound and converted into commands for the next phase of action. This next phase of action may be, for example, to move on, sample more sound, go to sleep for a few moments or a sequence combining all three.

In some ways the program is only partly digital as it is embedded in and comprised of the robot's environment. In coding terminology the robot runs its own 'Main' but in order to continue functioning it must extrapolate its 'SubRoutines' from the situation in which it finds itself. It contradicts the notion that the organism is active and motivated and the environment is a passive space or resource because here the environment "programs" the organism, steering the robot to sample another patch of floor, another set of instructions.

The robot uses a customised version of the same basic chassis from lynxmotion as the robot in 'small work for robot and insects'(v1). At the end of the long arm is a large piezo transducer working like the stylus on a record player which is swung back and forth on the surface at varying speeds and pressures. The captured sound is passed into a max/msp programme which processes it and extrapolates new commands for the robot.