Amending Book-8 Robots

[Carlobrand]

So, I've been working on bots the past few days, working from Book-8. A few issues came up which led to questions about how we might make some tweaks to Book 8. We have some quite interesting forays into robotics in the modern era, some of which might be duplicated by Book 8 - I think I could manage a Roomba - but some of which seem to be beyond Imperial technology.

From a link provided by Ulsyus:
http://www.wired.com/2013/05/insect-robots/

And then something the Air Force is hoping for:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z78mgfKprdg

And then this curious bit from Harvard:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1t4M2XnIhI

And these little flyers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQIMGV5vtd4

So, here I ask a question: How can we "tweak" the rules to expand the future of robotics and make some of these things possible?

First thought is to kill the "Slave module," or radically revise it. These little things are operating from computers sending them radio signals - or in some cases signals through wire. All that's really needed is the radio; a "slave module" could be a simple chip that takes the radio signals and passes them on to the various components.

Second is to shrink the components. One assumes the components in Book 8 are mostly TL8 components. The fusion reactors are higher tech, as are the more effective processors, the tentacle limbs (???) and gravs. Visual sensors and such do not have a tech level, nor do the basic propulsion systems (wheeled, tracked, legs). The most basic chips appear at TL8, so you can build a crude bot at that TL using those components. Fuel cells do not have a tech level, though MT say's they appear at TL10.

Not sure how to do the shrinking thing. Best examples are radio and laser comms, maybe evolve something like that. For some systems, like the legs and arms, we could draw on the advanced metals and come up with slimmer, lighter high-tech alternatives based on the stronger metals.

I'll come back to this with some more developed ideas, but for now I'm interested in what ideas others might have.

 

[mike wightman]

There are two technologies that Traveller got totally wrong - computers and materials.

Modern lightweight composites (carbon/boron laminates etc) and the potential of graphene based material and electronic science would revolutionise robot construction.

Do you have MgT High Guard?

There is a neat system in that for reducing the size of systems for ships that could be adapted to robot components as TL advances - it also allows for adding advanced options instead of reducing size.

 

[Ulsyus]

I got chatting on the weekend with a guy (at a 5 year old's birthday party my youngest was invited to!) who works for a research mob on a team developing printed polymer solar panels. You know, printed like modern polymer banknotes. He said they work as well as old solar cells, but the team has to push up their efficiency before they start producing them. These things are as thin as paper. This is the sort of tech, like computers and materials, that CT has missed out on but we started to see in MT.

Is the concept of a positronic brain based on actual or analogous to molecular circuitry? I ask because molycircs aren't included in the tech listing for T5 (just an enabler rather than something wondrous themselves?). If a positronic brain is listed as being effective at TL12, then working molycircs could be available at TL 10 or 11.

PS: Kids are so handy sometimes as enablers to meet people who have great ideas for games...