The two versions of the book published in 1985 (and no - that is not me)
A bit of history...
In the summer of 1984 I came out of one of last my A-level exams and one of my teachers - Mr Phillipo who taught me electronics and Physics - stopped me and said words to the effect 'there's this local chap who is looking for someone like you for a job he needs help with' (obviously being a good teacher he would not have finished a sentence with a preposiiton...)
Anyway I was interested and I went to meet a man called Richard Pawson, who was writing book about robots. What he wanted me to do was to come up with projects which a home hobbyist could build and connect to their home computers of the day (BBC Micro, Commodore 64, Sinclair Spectrum etc).
Richard had been kjsfjbsjfhb of personal computers in the late 70s early 80s and had worked for Commodore and others - I already knew of him since my father had a PET and we used to subscribe to a magazine called CPUCN (Commodore PET Users Club News) for which Richard wrote.
The book was called 'The Robot Book' [ISBN xxxxxx] and basically I did most of the practical design work for the projects in the second half. Richard was the writer and driving force as he had the basic ideas - I knew little about robots at the time, my programming worked but was unstructured and sloppy when I started and I needed inspiration and guidance. As a job it could not have been better - building things with Lego and Fisher-Teknik then interfacing them to a computer and writing the programs. (or is it programmes?)
Richard Pawson's book and a spread showing the first robot project I made for it.
The publisher of the book (Lionel Bender) liked the practical second half and had the idea of producing a children's book with much simpler projects using techincal Lego and he wanted me to write it. He proposed to produce it for the 2 most popular computers of the time in the UK - the Sinclair Spectrum and the Commodore 64. I was only 18 at the time and I could have earned a lot more money, but my parents encouraged me to take the opportunity for many good reasons. I was taking a year off before University and so it all fitted in perfectly. The contracts were signed and I started in January 1985.
Production
I had little to no knowlegde of publishing despite having worked with Richard Pawson on his book and so Lionel took care of that side of things. I would come up with projects, Lionel would approve or reject them and then I would refine them. Once I had completed the physical deisgns and programming, I would write the instructions and sketch the 'circuit diagrams' and of course produce the program listings. Lionel would then edit my writing with the designer and get the page layouts done. I had my Father's secretary's 11 year old son (Ben Matthews) test the projects to see that the instructions made sense. I would spend my days playing with Lego and writing the programs, sketching and sending off bundles to Lionel. I tended to work late into the night - I liked the deadlines and was often saved by the fact that in those days I could post a package in Reading at 2am and it would get to London the next morning.
The projects
We had chosen the Commodore 64/Vic 20 and Sinclair Spectrum as there were readily available interfaces for them, the VicRel and the Robotek. The interfaces were not electircally identical and were a bit limited so the projects did not get too complicated and limited what we could do
As the title of the books suggests, its aim was to get readers to build robots which could be controlled by their computers. I aimed to make the projects start easy and be possible to build with a limited collection of Lego, so the first projects are very basic. The Walking Android only starts and stops by the user pressing buttons on the computer. The Whirly Turtle can only drive forwards and spin on the spot and the computer gets no feedback from either so it does not 'know' what is happening.
When I got to The Lift I wanted to teach really basic closed loop control - without using fancy technical language. Lego did not make any sensors at the time for detecting position or rotation and so I had to invent ones which anyone could make. This is where I came up with the switch design using tin foil and paper clips - items which I thought most people would have at home. If a standard suitable microswitch had been readily available, I would have used that. It was not perfect and I suspect many constructors would have had problems trying to make the switches open and close reliably on the rotation of the gears - not to mention problems with switch bounce. I have however always believed that the most enjoyment and wisdom is acquired during the construction - people always learn most from things not going smoothly rather than from things working first time.
The later robots use more motors and were designed for those who wanted to go further. I suspected that few children would have more than 1 motor and would perhaps need to team up with friends to make these projects - but I was proud of some of my mechanisms which use 1 motor to close a gripper and then lift once an object was grasped.
The Drawing Machine/Plotter was really my dream at the time - I loved watching real plotters drawing diagrams and wanted to make my own. Again I had to limit myself to as few parts as possible. The pen lift was difficult to implement hence using a homemade electromagnet - it was not particulalry strong and so could not lift a pen very far.
The Polar Arm worked very well - I never used it to play chess, but I suspect it could have done with enough programming. Again I implemented a gripper which lifted up once it had grasped an object. I wonder how many people built it - with 3 motors maybe some schools or people with big Lego collections.
Conclusion
I finished the book in late April 1985 and went back to working with Richard Pawson who had set up a company called Personal Robots. My title there - Design Engineer - I would do some electronics, mechanics and programming. The book came out and went on sale. My year out was passing by quickly and I went up to University in October. Studies and University life took over. A Dutch version of the book came out which was a bit a surprise to me - different styling and with a snappy title.
I guess it means roughly the same, but why not William?
It was great fun and I loved doing it
Last updated 6th November 2009