Show HN: Nematoduino – Implementing a Worm on the Arduino UNO

by nategri on 10/3/2017, 2:51 PM with 14 comments
  • by thethirdone on 10/3/2017, 3:30 PM

    I was expecting a worm that would infect computers that tried to program Arduinos and then would infect more Arduinos.

    The actual content is cool in its own right, just not at all what I expected.

  • by have_faith on 10/3/2017, 4:40 PM

    One step closer to Ghost in the Shell!

    Great work, and seems like a very good learning device. Can't wait for more complicated organisms to be mapped and more complex sensors and electronics plugged in. The debate about what is and isn't consciousness is going to be kept alive for a long time.

  • by lawlessone on 10/3/2017, 3:35 PM

    Thanks for reminding me this exists..

    It's cool but something about it still makes my hair stand on end.

    I wonder would it be possible to build onto worm connectome?

    add ways for it to handle visual stimuli?

  • by fenwick67 on 10/3/2017, 3:41 PM

    As somebody with no idea how nematodes work, what does this model do? Does it basically try and find things that stimulate the chemotaxis neurons?

  • by nategri on 10/4/2017, 3:40 AM

    Author here. Thanks for all the awesome feedback, it's been a wonderful day :)

    For a 1 minute clip showing nematoduino's reaction to nose touch stimulation, with a comparison to a biological worm, check out this YouTube video I just posted: https://youtu.be/HIs7IbhaW7Y

  • by anfractuosity on 10/3/2017, 5:40 PM

    Semi-related, I was reading a book called Wetware - A computer in every living cell, and it mentions about William Grey Walter, who created simple robot 'tortoises'.

    There's some intriguing videos of them - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQE82derooc from the 50s.

    I'm just trying to find some schematics at the moment, it sounds like they used vacuum tubes.

    Obviously Grey Walter's robots will be far more simplistic, but I found them intriguing.

    The OpenWorm project is really cool too, I'm curious how well their model maps to reality now, whether it's possible or will be possible for the simulated model to produce near identical movement to a real c. elegans under the presence of certain chemicals.

  • by mrguyorama on 10/3/2017, 5:15 PM

    Now, it's just a short loop, but the gif in the project repo seems remarkably organic when compared to a similar bot that just uses 20ish lines of code to turn at walls. It even seems to pause and "think" at points

  • by cowabungamann on 10/3/2017, 6:15 PM

    I'm very inexperienced with C, but why does this repo include so much of the implementation in header (.h) files?