The instructions are simple: make an artificial fly as close in size to an actual fly as possible. The entry that's the smallest and replicates a fly, everything about it, will win... well, the future, because the technologies you'd have to create to do this would be worth a lot more than some one time pile of cash, no matter how big it was.
The contest wouldn't end when a fly sized, fully functional analog fly won the contest, the shrinking down could continue. To win, your flybot must:
1- Be able to fly navigate sufficiently to avoid being swatted using visual and other sensory mechanism.
2- Be able to take air samples and process them to find fuel supplies.
3- Be able to gather and process these fuel supplies.
4- Be able to seek out other roboflies and reproduce.
And all this computing power on a the head of a pin.
From an article I read years ago:
"Flies can therefore process a vast amount of information about proper motion and movement in their environment in real time - a feat that no computer, and certainly none the size of a fly's brain, can hope to match."
But forget about the brain, the motors you need to fly around changing wing angles in microseconds, the chemical processing system and reproduction? Not in our lifetime.
I've suggested this before, we might consider dumping the digital world and start emulating nature's analog/electrochemical approach to making everything we create look dumb. (Let's not compare a computer to a human brain. A human brain can make a computer, a computer when asked to make a human brain would sit there with one of those spinning wheels for 15 minutes before saying "Please Try Rebooting Me".
The first entries might be the size of a desk and incredibly dangerous when they started flying, (which would be a bonus) but each step towards miniaturization might bring with it new discoveries and technologies.
I'm calling this an Olympic style event because there would be many different categories, the aeronautic, the chemical, the analog computing, there might even be a blurred line between cellular biology and current electronics technology. Cellular analog microchips for instance.
Progress could be made a bit at a time until we basically start creating analog life that's so advanced life itself has branched into a 3rd kingdom.
It would be a fascinating journey.-- doctorremulac3, May 22 2021 The brain of a fly https://www.mpg.de/...ng-motion-detection [doctorremulac3, May 22 2021] Neuroscientists Wirelessly Control the Brain of a Scampering Lab Mouse https://spectrum.ie...campering-lab-mouse [Voice, May 22 2021] Hybrot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HybrotA hybrot (short for "hybrid robot") is a cybernetic organism in the form of a robot controlled by a computer consisting of both electronic and biological elements. The biological elements are typically rat neurons connected to a computer chip. [Voice, May 22 2021] You said solid bone. https://www.youtube...watch?v=mDqsgbtpDLk [doctorremulac3, May 23 2021] I put it to you that the biomechanical parts of a fly are excellent ways to perform those tasks. So which of those natural parts will you forbid to be duplicated? Especially for the digestion of food and extraction of energy. If you allow duplication of the parts of a fly I can give you one tomorrow. If you don't, what's the point in demanding highly efficient methods we already know about be ignored?
//not in our lifetime//
I dispute that. We're dealing with unknown unknowns, but like a jigsaw puzzle the puzzle of life is easier to put together as you progress.
As for the idea, I'm giving it a solid bone for lack of inventiveness.-- Voice, May 22 2021 // 4-// A bit of a leap but everyone needs goals.
Although, if you want reproduction from inorganic life, transformers would be the evolutionary line. Fly becomes nano 3D inorganic printer with plasma holes in all the whiteware.-- wjt, May 22 2021 //I'm giving it a solid bone//
Heh heh. You said solid bone. (link)
But seriously Voice, I think robot concepts are common, but setting a clear goal of miniturization with very clear finish lines like that isn't. It sets the bar too high for modern technology to reach setting the stage for new, potentially breakthrough approaches to getting mechanical, chemical and electrical jobs done.
You can take the trillions of on / off switches we use and get them down to the size of atoms theoretically, but why? Why not explore how nature did it with mushy analog stuff?-- doctorremulac3, May 23 2021 But reproduction, really. Isn't that just asking for extinction.
Let the sentient in-organics work reproduction out for themselves.
I suppose the brain eventually does get to a point where it subconsciously wants a way out.-- wjt, May 23 2021 Great link a1. Admit it, in the back of your mind you're trying to figure out how to do this.
And it's not about just making a dumb fake fly, it's about paving new ground and new technologies to achieve this seemingly silly goal.
My cousin's in the robotics industry, I'm going to suggest she take this to her company to get their opinion. Engineer's like to have fun too. Theoretically that is.-- doctorremulac3, May 23 2021 Ok, but the front is eh?
But then again, that's your brain, not your mind which I guess would be your brain's software maybe? The organ stuff is being controlled by the firmware? Eh, probably no analogy there.
But the front of your brain should probaby be the correct thing to say. So:
Admit it, in the front of your brain you're trying to figure out how to do this.-- doctorremulac3, May 23 2021 Hmm, that book looks really cool.
I picked the fly because it's about the most amazing machine in the universe that we know of. Glad somebody else appreciates that.
That being said, I hate flies and do whatever is necessary to terminate their annoying (though amazing) existence should one enter my house.-- doctorremulac3, May 30 2021 random, halfbakery