> Could you elaborate a bit more on “formalize mechanical devices”?
It made me remember yesterday's post about SparkFun's new Al La Carte thing ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24920043 ) - and now I want a service that lets me design a machine in this using it's "standard parts", and then order a physical version of it :-)
I wonder if some combination of lego/mechano style components, 3D printing, and magnetic electrical connections for batteries/switches/leds/motors could work? (Somewhat like this: https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/178314466469771331/ which I had as a kid way back...)
You know I had actually considered this exact thing you want a while back as a way to move forward once I had the program working. You could design all the graphs, logical connections on the computer then load them and just snap all the parts together. The main drawback I encountered then was how to implement the wagon since it can move in an arbitrary track path circuit. I'm not sure how that could be done. Another idea that's a little out there is that if someone could implement the basic building blocks using molecular parts, then maybe that's how we build molecular machines!
It made me remember yesterday's post about SparkFun's new Al La Carte thing ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24920043 ) - and now I want a service that lets me design a machine in this using it's "standard parts", and then order a physical version of it :-)
I wonder if some combination of lego/mechano style components, 3D printing, and magnetic electrical connections for batteries/switches/leds/motors could work? (Somewhat like this: https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/178314466469771331/ which I had as a kid way back...)