6 ms·

I'm not sure that it's my most interesting, but I want to someday make robotic fireflies. I'm about to leave the East Coast to go to Stanford, and I don't want

I'm not sure that it's my most interesting, but I want to someday make robotic fireflies. I'm about to leave the East Coast to go to Stanford, and I don't want to live in a firefly-free world. I thought about trying to import them and have them breed, but apparently most species like humidity and standing water, which the Bay Area isn't too long on. I'm also not sure if they could find stuff to eat out West. So robots are the logical solution. I realize it's going to be really hard to make something that small that's light enough to fly that blinks a light, has enough power to go for more than a few minutes, and can have the logic I'd like it to have. (In a perfect world, I'd like it to randomly roam campus for a few hours and then come back to where I launched them from.) Also, my friend who's into robotics tells me that the US government has put a lot of money into robotic insects (for spying?) and not really gotten anywhere. Nonetheless, someday I hope to make this happen, even if it doesn't quite have all of the features that it has in my mind.

jherdman 16y ago
> I thought about trying to import them and have them breed, but apparently most species like humidity and standing water... Thank you for not doing that. The last person to have an idea like this introduced those god damn Starlings to North America. Mice came here in the same fashion (i.e. human intervention).
- tansey 16y ago
  And let's not forget mongeese in Hawaii started out as just 8 little critters on a boat 130 years ago. The population is estimated to be in the millions now.
- mattmichielsen 16y ago
  If you ever get a chance, watch this movie: http://www.badmovies.org/movies/canetoads/ http://www.badmovies.org/movies/canetoads/
johnfn 16y ago
Hey, cool, you're coming to Stanford? I'm class of 13. We should meet up sometime.
overdrivetg 16y ago
...another logical solution could be breeding/genetic engineering a strain that would enjoy the environment out here. That would be a fun project, actually =)
JoeAltmaier 16y ago
...and goldfish!
anatta 16y ago
I grew up in Illinois and live in Los Angeles now, so I miss fireflies badly. Would you be willing to give up the complexity of the original organism for the function you enjoy? Basically they hover there and emit a soft pulse. To get this functionality we might not need all of the extra crap in firefly anatomy, just a rough approximation. "All we need" is to create some hovering device (a tiny helicopter) affixed to a tiny LED with an oscillating dimmer. We can make a big one first affixed to a wire and then start miniaturizing it. If you want to try this out I'm down to help out. I miss fireflies so bad :/ Side note: I know jack shit about robotics but this sounds like a fun way to learn.
- rick_2047 16y ago
  Umm... Just a thought. Why not use those tiny uC for that. You can get pwm to dim LED (and that too randomly). The only problem is that every motor I can think of, which would enable it to fly would make it to heavy (or I have all the principle of mechanics wrong).

jherdman 16y ago

> I thought about trying to import them and have them breed, but apparently most species like humidity and standing water... Thank you for not doing that. The last person to have an idea like this introduced those god damn Starlings to North America. Mice came here in the same fashion (i.e. human intervention).

tansey 16y ago
And let's not forget mongeese in Hawaii started out as just 8 little critters on a boat 130 years ago. The population is estimated to be in the millions now.
mattmichielsen 16y ago
If you ever get a chance, watch this movie: http://www.badmovies.org/movies/canetoads/ http://www.badmovies.org/movies/canetoads/

johnfn 16y ago

Hey, cool, you're coming to Stanford? I'm class of 13. We should meet up sometime.

overdrivetg 16y ago

...another logical solution could be breeding/genetic engineering a strain that would enjoy the environment out here. That would be a fun project, actually =)

JoeAltmaier 16y ago

...and goldfish!

anatta 16y ago

I grew up in Illinois and live in Los Angeles now, so I miss fireflies badly. Would you be willing to give up the complexity of the original organism for the function you enjoy? Basically they hover there and emit a soft pulse. To get this functionality we might not need all of the extra crap in firefly anatomy, just a rough approximation. "All we need" is to create some hovering device (a tiny helicopter) affixed to a tiny LED with an oscillating dimmer. We can make a big one first affixed to a wire and then start miniaturizing it. If you want to try this out I'm down to help out. I miss fireflies so bad :/ Side note: I know jack shit about robotics but this sounds like a fun way to learn.

rick_2047 16y ago
Umm... Just a thought. Why not use those tiny uC for that. You can get pwm to dim LED (and that too randomly). The only problem is that every motor I can think of, which would enable it to fly would make it to heavy (or I have all the principle of mechanics wrong).