FIGURE E

Here the Metrowerks environment can be seen during program development. Click picture for a larger image.

As you can see, the code can be directly manipulated, and the effect of graphics routines on the Palm device's screen can also be inspected. Figure F shows the specific Palm GUI that we use for the sample robotics programs available for your download.

FIGURE F

Here's the specific Palm GUI used for the sample robotics programs.

There are more potential applications than we can possibly list. You can imagine everything from a new Palm-based alarm "clock" that not only beeps but nudges its owner, to a gaggle of Palm robots communicating using their infrared ports and behaving like a mound of termites. The possibilities are, as with software development, endless.

Our hope is that a community of Palm roboticists will emerge, sharing software as well as physical modifications of their Palm robots with one-another. Robotics is enchanting because it's not just on the screen of a computer. Real robots have a physical presence because they move in the physical world. A bug in your program doesn't necessarily require just a reset. Your bug may actually force you to dive for your robot as it crashes to the floor or chases the cat. Robots are engaging. Palm devices are cool in their own right as well. Marrying these two technologies together has real potential.

Greg Reshko is an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon University majoring in Computer Science. Matt Mason and Illah Nourbakhsh are professors at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. You can reach them at pprk@cs.cmu.edu.