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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?

#21

Post by Animats »

That looks like Working Model, from Knowledge Revolution, from the early 1990s. That was a great little program for Macs that let you build 2D machines. It was too slow and the physics engine was primitive, but I used it to figure out how to do robotic legged running up hills.

The CEO went on to found Roblox, which is much more successful.

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

#23

Post by luminati »

felipereigosa wrote: post #5
dkersten wrote: post #4

That's pretty cool! It seems like a weird mixture of physical contraptions (lego/meccano etc) or minecraft redstone circuits, and something you'd see in Media Molecules' Dreams (especially the graph-motion). I just watched the Tetris video and it reminded me of this mechanical pong game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBoe3yM9IKs What inspired you to create this?

Thanks and that pong game is a great idea for my next machine, unless someone beats me to it! If I recall correctly the very first thought that led to this project was thinking about how to formalize mechanical devices, they have a language of sorts to describe chess games, same with choreographed dance I think. I was thinking how can I do that for machines without all the extra stuff like heat and friction, but I pi…

Could you elaborate a bit more on “formalize mechanical devices”? That has really piqued my interest especially since you mentioned dance choreography as an example. Do you have any examples/prior art you found interesting?

One of the topics I occasionally like to think about is how to formally describe manufacturing steps in some structured/programming language. Maybe your program could be it. Would love to hear other folks’ thoughts on this too!

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

#24

Post by felipereigosa »

luminati wrote: post #23
felipereigosa wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks and that pong game is a great idea for my next machine, unless someone beats me to it! If I recall correctly the very first thought that led to this project was thinking about how to formalize mechanical devices, they have a language of sorts to describe chess games, same with choreographed dance I think. I was thinking how can I do that for machines without all the extra stuff like heat and friction, but I pi…

Could you elaborate a bit more on “formalize mechanical devices”? That has really piqued my interest especially since you mentioned dance choreography as an example. Do you have any examples/prior art you found interesting? One of the topics I occasionally like to think about is how to formally describe manufacturing steps in some structured/programming language. Maybe your program could be it. Would love to hear oth…

Well, I was really into formalizing stuff when I was in college, you know proving that a cryptographic algorithm was correct by formalizing them as black boxes talking to each other, that sort of thing. Then I just started thinking about how to formalize mechanical things. One of the very things I remember is coming to the conclusion that all motions of a machine can be implemented as a combination of linear and rotational motions (and that's where the two things that move on mockmechanics, the track and the wagon, come from), but I don't know if that is true. But I don't really have any prior art, I had a 2d version that didn't work years ago but I think I lost it.

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

#27

Post by felipereigosa »

gitgud wrote: post #25

One of the best things I've seen in a long time on here. It reminds me of a few different games; "Little Big Planet", "The Incredible Machine" and of course "Factorio" but this synthesises the best part... Inventing machines!

Thanks, one of the great things about creating a program where other people can create things is seeing them inventing things you wouldn't even think of, it's so open ended. Alan Turing and those other guys had no clue what we would do with his idea. I'm looking forward to see what people will make with this. (Not that I'm comparing myself to Alan Turing!)

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

#28

Post by felipereigosa »

frompdx wrote: post #26

Awesome project. Can you share which libraries you are using with this project?

org.clojure/clojure obviously, org.clojars.nakkaya/vecmath, org.clojars.nakkaya/jbullet, batik and lwjgl. All the other stuff, the opengl shapes and whatnot I wrote myself over the years, mostly to learn how to do it. In fact I probably can speed up this program a lot by not using my own code for those parts where libraries are available.

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

#29

Post by JoshTriplett »

This looks amazing. Several times in the last couple of decades, as graphics and physics engines have evolved, I've built little prototypes whose main goal was "this should work using real physics and mechanics", and then built things like marble machines. Games like Crayon Physics always felt so limiting; they were only about things bouncing off each other. I'd like gears that turn and mesh, light that diffracts, motors that naturally work in reverse as generators, and the ability to build machines that use more than one of those effects without any special-casing.

I look forward to playing with this, and extending it!

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