Copyright 2004 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use. in Software

Integrated barcode data matrix in Software Copyright 2004 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click Here for Terms of Use.

it offers. The design allows Chew Toy s saws to strike an opponent and keep on spinning and doing damage instead of stopping abruptly. The motors that power the saws are mounted on a support structure welded to the front of the robot. The saw motors also run on 24 volts instead of the recommended 12. When in battle, these motors get only intermittent use; thus, the reduction in life span from this hard usage should not pose a problem. If one motor should blow out during a competition, the second one will be able to power the saws. These motors were found through a surplus supply catalog. Although I had no specs on their design, and I knew nothing about who made them, they were inexpensive and testing proved they had the necessary torque and would work well for their intended purpose. The arm was originally intended to right the robot if it were turned on its back, but then it became a weapon in its own right. The arm is made out of angle iron bought from a local hardware store. Welded onto the ammo box and attached to the front is a little bent piece of steel with a hook. The initial welding on Chew Toy was farmed out, and one of my teammates who had welding equipment (and skill at using it) did later welds. The original arm conception has evolved considerably, and the appearance changed as we continued our improvisation. Things were added as the inspiration hit us. The old motherboard and perforated metal screening were attached as armor. The 2-by-4 with nails was incorporated to make sure the robot could right itself should it be flipped. The nails, and the reach they added, were necessary to accomplish the flipping. When the arm is lowered (Figure 14-5), the nailed 2-by-4 gives the robot additional protection. More of the armor in the form of circuit boards, perforated metal, and another 2-by-4 to protect the robot s rear was added when construction was nearing completion.

of options to distribute vertically. In either case, choosing Spacing creates equal spacing either vertically or horizontally between your selected objects. Objects can be evenly spaced within one of two areas. Use the Extent Of Selection option to space objects evenly within the width and/or height of the area occupied by your selected objects. Use the Extent Of Page option to space your objects evenly within document page dimensions. Choose a vertical and/or horizontal spacing option together with Extent Of Page to apply even spacing between the selected reference point on your objects. Figure 12-5 shows examples of choosing both Extent Of Selection and Extent Of Page options. In Figure 12-5, Extent Of Selection is used at left and Extent Of Page is used at right; the light gray objects show the original positions of the objects.

Part II:

With Web Intelligence, the hierarchical display corresponds to the prompts. With Desktop Intelligence, it does not. Instead, it corresponds to the result objects that are part of the list of values. In both the preceding screenshots in Web Intelligence, there were additional result

engineer produces the initial design model in Tekla, it will then be useful in all other phases of the planning and construction process. The level of detail in the model can be developed based on the stage of the project and the available information. On the other hand, if such a model were produced in Revit or Constructor, it would not be able to be used for either structural analysis or fabrication purposes; and should the fabricator wish to use a 3D model, she or he will have to produce one of her or his own. This also holds true for the mechanical models of HVAC or piping systems. The idea of producing models from already completed designs by the consultants only makes sense when the consultants are unable to deliver such models and there is still value in conducting systems coordination exercises. It makes no sense at all for an engineer to make a model of a system that cannot be developed into a production model; it is simply the wrong software tool for such an application. At this time it seems highly unlikely that a software tool that does not have the functionality to address both design and fabrication requirements should be recommended for use in a specialty field, particularly because there are very capable software tools on the market that do just that. It also does need to be noted that current standards of interoperability generally do not address the use of sophisticated production models for use in most other modeling software tools. The ability to analyze a foreign model is an extremely rare option, and the best that can be hoped for is the use of such a model in NavisWorks for viewing and clash detection against other models. The utility of an abbreviated tool such as Constructor or Revit MEP or structural is mainly for persons outside the specialty field, e.g., the architect or general contractor modeling the structural or mechanical systems strictly for his or her own purposes. While this may be the best alternative in the interim and not everyone on a project team may have modeling capabilities, it is clearly an inefficient way to address the overall project. In general it will be in the project team s best interest to have the specialty consultants and subcontractors model their areas of responsibility in their particular design to production ready software tools. In the architectural area, it is the wide variety of materials, forms, objects, connections, and custom elements that makes modeling all this to a greater level of detail a large challenge. Curtain wall design appears to be the next area that may be evolving into a specialty area in relation to 3D modeling. However, a significant number of issues are part of the architecture of a project that are difficult to address in a model. This creates a different attitude toward the architectural model than toward the structural or mechanical models. In the mechanical and structural steel specialties there is a well-developed mechanism that takes a design into fabrication. There are almost no other areas in construction where this process has been developed to this extent due to the uniqueness of building projects and the variety in most other building parts. There is little opportunity to make an architectural model useful for fabrication purposes in general, and thus architectural models will generally show a much lower level of detail. There are some exceptions to this generalization; some general contractors are now trying to develop refinements for their self-performed work and analyze construction and assembly processes through the use of 3D models. This has parallels to the simulation of a manufacturing process to develop improved methods.

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In this brave new digital world, virtually anything that can be converted to a binary format can be put onto a disc and distributed to computer users worldwide. For organizations and corporations that routinely distribute information to support their operations, the practical applications of optical recording offer ways to reduce costs, increase ef ciency, and communicate with staff members and customers in new and creative ways. In the early enthusiastic days following the widespread acceptance of the CD-ROM, many development companies jumped onto the multimedia bandwagon and invested hundreds of thousands of dollars, and sometimes millions, into productions ranging from interactive games with digital video clips featuring actors and expensively commissioned musical scores to multimedia tours of the great museums of the world. Traditional book publishers irted with the medium, online database services experimented with releasing content on CD-ROM, and libraries of fonts, graphic images, music clips, and other rich media assets found their way to CD-ROM. A few companies ourished and titles such MYST and From Alice to Ocean demonstrated that multimedia CD-ROM titles could sell in the millions of copies. During this period, many companies also overinvested in title production, experienced poor sales, and disappeared from view in a year or two. Some areas of CD-ROM title development are still very healthy and more adventurous companies are beginning to experiment with the additional storage capabilities of DVD-ROM and DVD-Video. But, in some ways, the era of the blockbuster multimedia title seems to have been replaced with a more nely focused, more practical approach to the medium. There

// Some string operations. using System; using System.Globalization; class StrOps { static void Main() { string str1 = "When it comes to .NET programming, C# is #1."; string str2 = "When it comes to .NET programming, C# is #1."; string str3 = "C# strings are powerful."; string strUp, strLow; int result, idx; Console.WriteLine("str1: " + str1); Console.WriteLine("Length of str1: " + str1.Length); // Create upper- and lowercase versions of str1. strLow = str1.ToLower(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture); strUp = str1.ToUpper(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture); Console.WriteLine("Lowercase version of str1:\n " + strLow); Console.WriteLine("Uppercase version of str1:\n " + strUp); Console.WriteLine(); // Display str1, one char at a time. Console.WriteLine("Display str1, one char at a time."); for(int i=0; i < str1.Length; i++) Console.Write(str1[i]); Console.WriteLine("\n");