Carol Svec

This book was a wonderful journey through our sense of balance. Rather than being one definitive aspect of our being, balance is distributed through three primary sense inputs. There is the semicircular canals of the inner ear, our proprioception, and our vision all contribute to our sense of balance. There are many ways for the sense of balance to be thrown off, but most of them can be done on a shoestring budget. When Carol Svec talks about balance being delicate, she isn't kidding; one input being disrupted can be compensated for, but any more than that and you will fall into a heap on the floor.

Balance is something you don't really even think about until you don't have it. The brain usually orchestrates balance so seamlessly that we don't even have to think about it. You merely adjust your one foot like so and the other foot in another way and you don't topple over. However, proper balance is one of the trickiest things for a robot to do. Most designers get around this by giving it tank treads or more legs to stand on, but a bipedal robot is a dream of mankind. Now we only have to wait and see how long until a robot can stand on two legs. After Checkers, Chess, and Go were conquered, I suppose that might be the next thing for a computer or robot to do.… (altro)