User:Droidmakr
From BEAM Robotics Wiki
My given name is Clifford L Boerema Jr.
I am a Bible believing Christian, the oldest of 6 children and over 30 grand children. I have a stepson in the Navy, a son and daughter of my own, and so far, three wonderful grand daughters.
I was born in Michigan in 1956, but spent most of my formative years living in New Jersey, with a short stint (about 2 1/2 years) in up state New York. I have lived in Illinois since 1972 and my wife (Susan) and I currently reside about an 1/2 hour west of Chicago,
I have worked as an electronics technician for more than ten years, and as a major houshold appliance service technician before that.
I have been called a techno-geek by my friends and a robo-geek by my wife. I love science and technology and actually enjoy reading technical papers and publications.
I also enjoy Science fiction movies, Classic Rock (especially the Beatles), as well as various forms of Hard and Alternative Jesus Music (Steve Taylor, Guardian, Resurrection Band, Stryper, Bleach, P.O.D., MXPX, The 77s, Skillet, Five Iron Frenzy, Audio Adrenaline, etc).
My hobbies include Robotics (obviously) and to a lesser extent, Home Automation. I am also a frustrated drummer.
The name "Droidmaker" (with the "e") came from a poem that I wrote. I eventually started using it as a CB handle. I had been using “Glass Onion” (from the Beatles song of the same name]) as a handle, but I had become so interested in designing and building robots, that it seemed like a good time for a name change.
I later tried to use the name "Droidmaker" as part of an email address and as an online handle, but unfortunately someone else had claimed it. So I decided to drop the "e" and started using the spelling “Droidmakr”. I suppose it was all for the best as I quickly came to prefer this somewhat unique spelling, and have stuck with it over the last twelve or more years.
To help maintain my claim to the name, I signed up for every free email account that I could find using the name "Droidmakr". I don't actually use most of those email accounts, but it did servre to tie the name up long enough for me to make it my own. I’m kind of glad I did that, as the name seems to have developed a certain reputation (good or bad) and a little respect. It makes me feel good to know that in some small way, I am leaving my mark on the world. Even if it is only in the cyber world 8^)
I had two great dreams as I was growing up. The first was that I would be able to explore space. That one was pretty much killed off when congress started cutting NASA's budgets, after the success of the Apollo program. That's when the human exploration of the solar system was basically abandoned for robotic planetary probes, and the comercial developement of orbital space.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against this development, I just expected, or should I say hoped that there would be a greater emphasis on manned exploration of space.
Oh well.
My second dream was to build a robot. I first fell in love with robots when I was in about second grade. I watched a movie on T V Called "Tobor the Great". Tobor was not only the coolest looking robot I had seen up til then, he was also the first robot I'd seen that was actually the good guy. I did not see Robby (the robot in the movie "The Forbidden Planet") until several years later.
Well I was hooked on the idea of a machine that was capable of independent operation. My earliest (I believe I was in third grade) attempt to build a robot was a human form made out of an orange crate. The head was just a board with a face drawn on it with a crayon, and nail in place. I could move the arms and legs, and pretended that it was a real robot. Hey, I was a kid with a good imagination, and kids can get away with things like that without looking completely weird.
As the years past and I grew up, a real functioning robot seemed like it too would remain nothing more then a dream. Then one day while looking for a book on interfacing the Synclair ZX81 computer, that I had built from a kit, I found the book...
"Building a Real Working Robot" by David L Heiserman.
Although it was a fairly simple machine, it sparked a revitalization of my dream. I became convinced that it might actually be possible to build a truely autonomous robot. So I began to seek out everybook I could find on the subjects of, designing digital circuits, using microprocessors, Robotics, AI, how the Brain and nervous systems function, etc.
I eventually started building a somewhat large machine with two drive wheels, one arm and a head. I named it "G.O.A.M.I.R" (pronounced "Go - Mir") which was an acronym for...
"Goal Oriented, Adaptive Machine Intelligence Robot".
I was not able to complete that project due to the time and expense of raising my two wonderful kids. That and the fact that the room i had been using as a shop became my son's bedroom when he was born. I still have the basic structure in storage. Someday I may resume that project.
But my children grew up and I my income improved so I took up the hobby again. This time though, I was going to use a little different approach. I decided to use ideas and concepts that are more directly inspired by nature. I began to build several small robots using them to work out the kinks in my ideas.
Ultimately I hope to build a larger robot that I have given the working name "ENIMAL" (electronic animal).
Well I'm sure that's more than you really wanted to know about me, my life and my dreams, so I'll quit here before you fall asleep. If you want to get in touch with me for some reason, I can be reached by sending an email to "droidmakr at yahoo".
Enjoy the day,
Cliff
