Common robots use a programmable microcontroller, which means some kind of computer, to make decisions. The more complex the behaviour of the robot the more complex the program in the microcontroller. Anyone who has already had some experience programming a robot can acknowledge this. With every new task the robot has to perform the complexity of the robot rises exponentially. It gets harder and harder to find and fix errors and to make the robot respond properly to its environment. Most developers would simply put much more effort into the "brain" of a robot to accomplish their goal. But the principle of BEAM offers another solution: Make the robot simpler by removing the microcontroller and use minimalist electronics instead. The results are much cheaper robots that can perform the same task even more efficiently than the microcontroller based ones. Another advantage of BEAM robots are that anyone can build one without even spending (much) money. The parts are easily available by reusing old components out of technoscrap. If you want to build a robot with a very simple behaviour "the common way" you'd probably spend about 50$ to 100$. If build a BEAM bot you might simply be able to do it for free. So if you want to know more about BEAM Robotics the following sites offer excellent information:"http://www.solarbotics.net/"Solarbotics"http://www.beam-wiki.org/">BEAM Wiki. Special thanks toBEAM Robotik for writing the post and his website is http://beam-robotik.blogspot.com/ !
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