2003-12-11 - 5:29 a.m.

Absolutely hooked on Sodaconstructor. Have almost got a galloping machine figured out. It's been a few days in the making and tonight I've spent from 1:30am till 5am working on it. I ended up trying to throw a quickie articulated leg onto the working frame I've developed so far and although it looks like it will work as expected, I will need to redesign the frame and/or how the leg attaches to account for the angle with which the leg naturally rests with regards to the body. Basically, what I had was a straight vertical limb (to minimize weight) that kept hitting the ground on the forestroke. The articulated leg lifts up the toe by bending the knee. Since at full extension it is straight and at full contraction it forms an acute angle, at rest it has a pronounced crook in it, so the upper leg doesn't stick straight down from the body. That means the frame that holds the muscles and "suspension" needs to be tilted forward so I can't use a 4 point tension spring for the body anymore.

That's not really so bad since I think the body needs to be articulated to mimic the humping of the back. Watching my best attempt made me think the humping might be necessary to sync the motion of the front and back legs.

Ahh, that's it. A little back-of-the-envelope sketch just confirmed the sudden thought I had for a pretty optimized frame. By adding only two masses, I can get a very stable frame that allows both arching the back and "crunching" the stomach, and solves the problem of tilting the leg anchor points at the same time. :)

If only the interface to the program weren't so clunky. There really isn't any way around constructing complicated tension springs, and it will take hours just to implement the ideas I've thought of in the last 10 minutes. The biggest problem is that I really don't know if the thing will work after I'm done. I could spend hours only to find out the design I came up with doesn't function properly in the framework that the simulation provides.

The physics simulation is a little strange... if I leave my best yet galloper hanging in zero gravity and activate the legs, after a while the whole thing turns clockwise. Basically the "head" dips down and eventually it would end up doing a forward roll. Conservation of energy? It has to do with the strange way friction affects only the masses. Makes it a pain to attempt a design that is supposed to sail gracefully through the air since each mass gets dragged down as if it were underwater. If I lower the friction, then the motion of the limbs gets out of control and the legs want to spin around instead of going back and forth. I'll find the balance. I'm obsessed with this idea, I know it can be done, and I know I won't be able to leave the idea alone until I've done it.

Assuming I accomplish this thing, it's a sure deal it'll land in the zoo :)

Oh yeah, tonight I played NS for the first time in months and months and months. I was pondering playing online, almost decided against it cause of the sluggishness of the internet lately, then decided to use gametiger just to check and see if my pings were normal or not. 8 of the first 10 servers on my list aren't active any more, the other 2 were empty, but as chance would have it, the 11th was PruneJuice, my clan's server, and it had 5 people on it. I did a double-take, then launched CD and joined.

Too bad my monitor is too dark for me to be able to really play the game properly, but I did have a lot of fun hanging out with my old pals and playing some intense games. I really like the changes to the game.. it's been so long since I played it that my two favourite maps have changed quite a bit and I wasn't really familiar with them anymore.

Anyway. It's gotten so late I shouldn't think of going to sleep any more. It's 5:20 am and my goal is to get up at 9. Well, if I go to sleep now it will be the equivalent of snatching a 4 hour nap tomorrow. Considering the unlikelyhood of me chancing across 4 hours of completely silent undisturbed rest at Saara's, it would make a lot of sense for me to go to sleep now. Why do I always think of staying up all night? And why didn't I go to bed tonight after I finished playing NS?

I remember distinctly thinking that I should be turning the computer off when I was launching Counter-Strike. I guess I just hadn't gotten my fix yet. Funny thing is, when I first ran into the house in cs_estate, my senses were way more alert than they have been in ages. It seemed like I had all day to aim at the bot's head and blast him with my deagle, then handle the next just as quickly. There's just something about playing NS that makes my reflexes go through the roof. After a while of playing with the bots in CS, my brain just gets overloaded or something. I dunno. But for the first few rounds there, I would have been really leet on a CS server. I gotta do that next time.. try CS right after playing NS. Hmm.

So yeah, time to go read a bit. Shouldn't take more than 10 minutes before my eyes start crossing ;)

Oohh.. looking at the back of this envelope makes me so impatient for tomorrow so I can start this project.

Ohhh yeah. One last thing. Ps even. When I was constructing tonight, it took about 3 hours but I finally caved and lowered my mouse sensitivity. What a difference! All of a sudden it wasn't nearly as hard to construct exactly springs and place things just right.

Future self, please take care of naggling little details like that sooner next time, ok? :)

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