Navigating without a keyboard and the human body.
I am still unpacking from my Sophomore year at Clarkson, and seem to have misplaced my mouse, and my touchpad on my laptop is acting all weird-like, so I am trying to navigate the Interweb with only a keyboard. Sometimes it is easy, like getting to blogger. Other times it is really hard, like WinAmp or Quicktime.
But it's nighttime, and I don't want to go to bed, so I'll tell a story as to how amazingly coordinated the human body can be. Maybe it's becasue I've spent so much time around Mechanical Engineers, who try to make a machine do everything, but I was bring food back from a dining hall one time and had to use a door. Let me detail the situation:
In my left hand, I had one of those styrofoam lunch containers. In it was a wrap, french fries, and bountiful ketchup. Balanced on top of this closed container was a banana, and a bowl of chocolate ice cream, with chocolate sprinkles.
In my right hand I was holding one of those cheap pepsi cups, made of the waxy - cardboard stuff, filled with Dr. Pepper.
My left hand was uterlly unable to use the door handle, and my thumb, index, and middle finger of my right hand were holding the cup in my right hand. Too much pressure and I'd squeeze the Dr. Pepper right out of the cup, and to little and it would fall to the ground, wasting the precious Dr. all over the floor.
So I had to use my ring and pinkie finger to open this heavy door without altering the pressure my other fingers were pressing on the cup. I managed to do that, and swung the door open and caught it with my right foot (which means I was balancing on my left, with my food balancing in my left hand). I then pushed the door open enough for me to scramble into the building, without spilling or dropping anything.
Now just imagine the programing and designing that would have to go into a machine (or robot) to do the same task. The balancing, and the delicate pressure on the Dr. Pepper cup, and the precision use of the right ring and pinkie fingers...it would be crazy...and expensive.
But it's nighttime, and I don't want to go to bed, so I'll tell a story as to how amazingly coordinated the human body can be. Maybe it's becasue I've spent so much time around Mechanical Engineers, who try to make a machine do everything, but I was bring food back from a dining hall one time and had to use a door. Let me detail the situation:
In my left hand, I had one of those styrofoam lunch containers. In it was a wrap, french fries, and bountiful ketchup. Balanced on top of this closed container was a banana, and a bowl of chocolate ice cream, with chocolate sprinkles.
In my right hand I was holding one of those cheap pepsi cups, made of the waxy - cardboard stuff, filled with Dr. Pepper.
My left hand was uterlly unable to use the door handle, and my thumb, index, and middle finger of my right hand were holding the cup in my right hand. Too much pressure and I'd squeeze the Dr. Pepper right out of the cup, and to little and it would fall to the ground, wasting the precious Dr. all over the floor.
So I had to use my ring and pinkie finger to open this heavy door without altering the pressure my other fingers were pressing on the cup. I managed to do that, and swung the door open and caught it with my right foot (which means I was balancing on my left, with my food balancing in my left hand). I then pushed the door open enough for me to scramble into the building, without spilling or dropping anything.
Now just imagine the programing and designing that would have to go into a machine (or robot) to do the same task. The balancing, and the delicate pressure on the Dr. Pepper cup, and the precision use of the right ring and pinkie fingers...it would be crazy...and expensive.
posted by Benjamin at 8:11 PM
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