Lego Turing Machine

http://legoofdoom.blogspot.com/

by kqr2 • 17 years ago

33 9 17 years ago

legoofdoom.blogspot.com

pkrumins• 17 years ago

I didn't like that it did not show some small computation like counting of 1 bits or any other trivial computation.

mct2• 17 years ago

I've spent some time pondering various methods of constructing a physical Turing Machine off and on for a couple years now, ever since I was introduced to them through mjd's Perl Quiz of the Week (http://perl.plover.com/qotw/r/024). However, all of my designs were deliberately non-electronic in nature. Personally, I find electromagnets, motors, and relays to all be aesthetically acceptable in this pursuit, but using a microprocessor to build a physical Turing Machine just somehow strikes me as... unappealing.

jodrellblank• 17 years ago

You say that as if microprocessors aren't physical...

RiderOfGiraffes• 17 years ago

I suspect "mechanical" would be a better word. Microprocessors are mysterious black[1] boxen, whereas relays, etc, are macro-sized and can be made at home by hand.

[1] For some definition of "black".

edgeztv• 17 years ago

Interesting fact about TMs - while their computibility is equivalent to computers, the Big-O time for common algorithms is (possibly much) slower. Many O(n) tasks on computers with RAM are O(n^2) on a TM. The only commonality with computers in terms of time complexity is the Polynomial vs. Non-polynomial boundary.

The same is true for any model of computation.

Despite this equivalence, it's orders of magnitude harder to program a TM than the ugliest assembly language you've ever seen. This is one architecture that desperately needs a compiler :)

kqr2• 17 years ago

Turing Machine Compiler:

http://www.breakingrobots.net/projects/tmc/

vivekkhurana• 17 years ago

I love this one... So can we say now that 'computing is a child's play' ?

sspencer• 17 years ago

The A-team theme really changed this from the "Whoa, cool!" category to the rarefied "People need to see this NOW!" class.

Awesome use of an NXT.

Lego Turing Machine

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