Mark Tilden
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Mark W. Tilden is perhaps best known for his invention of BEAM robotics and the WowWee Robosapien humanoid robot. He is a robotics physicist who produces complex robotic movements from simple analog logic circuits, often with discrete electronic components, and usually without a microprocessor.
Born in the UK in 1961, raised in Canada, he started at the University of Waterloo then moved on to the Los Alamos National Laboratory where he developed robots such as the SATbot which instinctively aligned itself to the magnetic field of the earth, de-mining insectoids, "Nervous Network" theory and applications, interplanetary explorers, and behavioral research into many solar-powered "Living Machines" of his own design. He now works at WowWee Toys as a consultant inventing biomorphic robot-based toys; including B.I.O. Bugs (2001), Constructobots (2002), G.I Joe Hoverstrike (2003), RoboSapien (2004), Robosapien v2 (2005), Roboraptor (2005), Robopet (2005), Roboreptile (2006), RS Media (2006, co-developed with Daven Sufer and Maxwell Bogue), Roboquad (2007), Roboboa (2007), and the humanform Femisapien (2008). [1].
Mark and his robots have been featured on several television specials, such as "Robots Rising" (Discovery), "The Shape of Life" (PBS), "TechnoSpy" (TLC), "Extreme Machines - Incredible Robots" (TLC), "The Science behind Star Wars" (Discovery), as well as many magazines, newspaper publications, websites, and books.
Mark was a technical consultant for the robot scenes in the 2001 movie Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.
He also employs a flee of 60 robots that clean his house for him. (In an article from the WASL)
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- EvoSapien - A website dedicated on Hacking the Robosapien Robot, lots of mods, and useful information, schematics, codings, pictures, videos, including the new line of Robots Mark Tilden created
- EvoRaptor A Website dedicated to the Roboraptor, pictures, videos, internals, videos, hacks.. lots more created 2005 by M.W Tilden and Wow Wee... and hacked by fans and the community.
- RoboCommunity - The official WowWee Robotics user community
- Superstreng Podcast- A September 2006 podcast interview with Mark Tilden, conducted by Eirik Newth for Norwegian science radio show Superstreng
- Robotsrule - Detailed information site on many commercially available entertainment robots.
- Solarbotics - On-line store for parts, plans, kits, and history of BEAM robotics.
- BEAM Discussion Group - On-line discussion group of BEAM robots, builders, events, and history.
