I have been working on drawing out what my "spiderbots" will look like, as well as determining more exatly what mechanisms they might use in ord to mine materials. I have also been working on what I want them to be able to do. My list includes: the ability to convert rock-like substances and biological substances into energy and materials, the ability to produce some form of thread or "silk", the composition of which might depend on the environment in which the bots are working, and to be able to secrete some sort of hardening agent, such as concrete or plaster. I haven't determned whether to have multiple sizes of bots, or how to represent and differentiate them, but I think that I may use them. I am also planning on the ability to nano-manipulate materials in order to create new bots and to process certain materials. It occurs to me that in the case of underground mining, A lot of material will be produced that will not be used by the bots, so it will need to be moved above ground. In this case differentiation may be a very good idea, with certain bots better adapted to transportation than others. It might also make sense to have "Queen" bots specifically focused on making new bots and material refinement. Although all bots would have to ability to make additional bots and refine materials, on larger scale projects it would make the most sensee to be able to specialize the bots for efficiency. Alsoo, this cvery sl bots that speci in repairs once structures were established and and in scouting when resources were bein gathered.
I also found that there are bacteria that "digest" rock, so I may incorporate that as well.
http://discovermagazine.com/1996/mar/rockeatingslime731
One of my ideas for a final presentation is to creat some sort of "technical" drawings like this:
Here are some other drawings I have done:
And these are other ideas I had for a final.
Here are some images that I am looking at for inspiration for my final drawings. I am also looking at images from my past journalsfor inspiration.
