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Show HN: What would mechanical programming look like?

mockmechanics.com

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Re: Show HN: What would mechanical programming look like?

#141

Post by roryokane »

dmd wrote: post #106
peterkelly wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong thread; I think you meant to post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24917394

How does that even happen? Server burp?

It could be that they had multiple tabs open, were drafting their comment in an external text editor, and hit Ctrl-Tab one too many times before pasting their comment into the textarea.

Re: Show HN: What would mechanical programming look like?

#142

Post by felipereigosa »

ishouldmention wrote: post #122

The creator is very humble and didn't mention, so I will: You can support this awesome work on the Patreon site: https://www.patreon.com/mockmechanics Surely at least worth a few of your dollars.

Hey thanks for that, I hadn't seen the message until now, I really appreciate it!

Re: Show HN: What would mechanical programming look like?

#144

Post by felipereigosa »

Hey guys, I'm not sure if I should post this here or create a new post on the main page? I spent the morning implementing the music box that I talked about with @bigiain yesterday. I went even further and created a little submachine to load text file songs from the computer. I hope you like it. If you would like updates like this, follow me as MockMechanics on twitter and Instagram, and if you'd like to support my work I'm now on Patreon too.

Music player - https://youtu.be/Kz9GDBJuVwk

Re: Show HN: What would mechanical programming look like?

#145

Post by felipereigosa »

mryalamanchi wrote: post #143

This is brilliant. Do you think it will be possible to have abstraction layers that can be commonly used by everyone? Like dependencies/modules that can be imported and tweaked on giving them parameters.

Thanks. Yeah, one of the great inspirations for this project is Emacs, which I love. Emacs is so good because of the different modes that everybody can write. In the future maybe anybody can write a mode for MockMechanics (like the Avatar Mode that I keep talking about), we'll see.

Unless you are talking about the machines themselves? The copier machine for instance can be set to copy in place or not, it has a toggle button for it. So, yeah, people can build library machines with all sorts of toggles, sliders etc to tweak their behaviour, and then you can use those to build even higher machine abstractions.

Re: Show HN: What would mechanical programming look like?

#146

Post by scitechx35 »

This is so cool and exciting! I have always been fascinated by the idea of making a virtual world where you can build test actual machines so the cost of experimentation is really low. It would enable so many people to experiment innovate in the physical world.

Re: Show HN: What would mechanical programming look like?

#147

Post by felipereigosa »

scitechx35 wrote: post #146

This is so cool and exciting! I have always been fascinated by the idea of making a virtual world where you can build test actual machines so the cost of experimentation is really low. It would enable so many people to experiment innovate in the physical world.

Thanks! That's an interesting angle I hadn't thought about before. I mentioned in the site creating prototypes of real machines, but I was thinking more of you brainstorming your own ideas. Maybe people can create virtual machines, ask other users to use them in the virtual world, work out all the design bugs, then if people really like it (and it is physically feasible) build it in the real world.

Re: Show HN: What would mechanical programming look like?

#148

Post by scitechx35 »

felipereigosa wrote: post #147
scitechx35 wrote: post #146

This is so cool and exciting! I have always been fascinated by the idea of making a virtual world where you can build test actual machines so the cost of experimentation is really low. It would enable so many people to experiment innovate in the physical world.

Thanks! That's an interesting angle I hadn't thought about before. I mentioned in the site creating prototypes of real machines, but I was thinking more of you brainstorming your own ideas. Maybe people can create virtual machines, ask other users to use them in the virtual world, work out all the design bugs, then if people really like it (and it is physically feasible) build it in the real world.

Yes, that would be super interesting. Not sure about the specifics but it would be a great place where people could come and collaborate on projects (maybe in future). It's also such a great teaching tool for kids.

Just curious, is it a personal hobby project? How do you plan to sustain it?

This is definitely one of the most interesting project I have seen. Thanks for building it :)

Re: Show HN: What would mechanical programming look like?

#149

Post by felipereigosa »

scitechx35 wrote: post #148
felipereigosa wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! That's an interesting angle I hadn't thought about before. I mentioned in the site creating prototypes of real machines, but I was thinking more of you brainstorming your own ideas. Maybe people can create virtual machines, ask other users to use them in the virtual world, work out all the design bugs, then if people really like it (and it is physically feasible) build it in the real world.

Yes, that would be super interesting. Not sure about the specifics but it would be a great place where people could come and collaborate on projects (maybe in future). It's also such a great teaching tool for kids. Just curious, is it a personal hobby project? How do you plan to sustain it? This is definitely one of the most interesting project I have seen. Thanks for building it :)

Thanks, it started as a hobby project that gradually became more and more "the thing I do" as I noticed it's potential, whether it makes money or not. I'm investigating two routes right now, one is to see if I can get support through patreon, youtube ads and things like that and then eventually release it as open source. The other is to release it as a game on steam, maybe get funding first, but not necessarily. I'm leaning more towards the second one at the moment, people have pointed out that the project would have a wider impact that way.

Re: Show HN: What would mechanical programming look like?

#150

Post by gene-h »

This is pretty interesting. One problem I think the field of mechanical engineering has is that there is no high-level hardware description language to describe mechanical devices. Sure we have things like modelica which come close, but there are some pretty big disadvantages. It is very difficult to describe a work piece being moved through a factory and having operations performed on it with modelica. It is even a challenge to formally describe what mechanical devices do!

Honestly, I think Charles Babbage may have made the most progress in this area with his mechanical notation[0]. It is crazy that Babbage was able to design a the difference engine without any CAD software!

[0]http://blog.plan28.org/2014/11/babbages-language-of-thought....

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