When I woke up, the dinosaur was still there. Been working on it for three days and nights straight, my exhausted eyes could now scan through the intricate architecture of its tiny, rusted brawny metal body. It lay there, lifeless on the matrix keyboard in the Intelligence and Controls Laboratory. Next to it stood the stack of fat books among the disordered collection of wires, chips and soldering instruments and all the other paraphernalia. With the backdrop of brown wallpaper and the dull looking computer, this little robot dazzled in my eyes as my brain flushed with vibrant dreams. I visioned this dinosaur robot to be the coolest and the most efficient officer in few months’ time.
The thrill of building the first one of such artificial officials that were to proliferate and prosper in the intelligence systems for the next quarter century was beyond what words can contain. With the ‘primitive capabilities’ draft set and the neuromorphic chips and micro WIFI adapters’ layout designed and soldered, I now had to write those magical assembly statements that would spring this lifeless skeleton to life and my career and dreams to flight. The endeavor of programming the micro-controller would involve tonnes of myriad algorithms, kilos of lines of code, as many of documentation, more of bugs, hours of decoding and debugging and many many scores of coffee mugs. The raindrops pattering over the verandah outside is such soothing therapy. I’m energized now.
The art of coding is one of the most creative fields and the dive into the ocean of unknown technology, the stroke of a brush dipped in the golden spell of excellence. I’m blessed to be here to watch this closely as technology gets weaved into the fabric of everyday lives.
Other than static functionality, I aspired to furnish this little artifact with autonomous faculties. Biology inspired neural networks would help real-time movement and flight learning along with event based action selection. Crash revival was a far fetched but deep seated yearning in my brain. The next step would be the establishment of secure, encrypted wireless connection between the controller system and my robot. Multiple encryption protocols were in consideration to be chosen from.
A function at a time was my pace,
Vision, on-ground motion, flight, airflow sensitivity, all in line,
A character at a time I began to type,
Test, run and analyse,
Minimise and optimise,
Reduction in power, cost and size,
And to be really really precise,
An espionage agent in making,
One had to be very well organised.
Yet another day I spent working on my machine and dozed off again on the same PC system I had the previous night; to wake up the following morning and realise, the dinosaur still lay there, each day, growing wise.
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