Chapter 399: Computers Promote the Development of Science and Technology
After Weier and Purficott worked together to create the computer, many things became simpler.
Although this rather primitive computer can only perform numerical operations, its operation speed is already amazing for this era, and it can complete in a very short time what would normally take several months to complete. Calculation work, this saves a lot of time.
For example, Purficott used this golem computer to complete some data calculations on fantasy materials she had, successfully solved the problem that had previously stuck her, and completed the new materials before winter. Development also opened the fifth page of the Jade Record.
The ability on the fifth page is decomposition, a new ability that in Purficott's opinion is somewhat inferior to the previous four abilities.
Cuiyulu has unlocked a total of five abilities so far, namely identification, analysis, optimization and deduction, as well as the newly unlocked decomposition.
Compared with the previous four abilities, the ability to decompose is very ordinary at first glance, that is, to separate two substances that are mixed together.
It sounds useful, but it doesn’t feel that useful.
After all, for an alchemist, decomposing a mixture into different substances can only be regarded as a basic skill.
So Purficott did not delve into this ability, and she did not even pay too much attention to the new technology of Jade Record.
At the moment, compared to these, the various problems faced by the Northern Territory deserve more attention from Perfectcott.
Although Purficott was already dealing with various problems exposed in the north during the first snowfall of the year, the interval between the second snowfall and the first snowfall was not It's very long, which means that even though Purficott has started to solve the problem, he still hasn't achieved much results.
In fact, as the temperature drops after the snowfall and winter gradually comes, Purficott is no longer able to do many things even if he wanted to.
After all, the temperature in the north in winter can turn water into ice. Even if it is not that cold yet, it is impossible to complete some construction projects before the weather turns completely cold.
So so far, among the problems exposed by the last snowfall, Purficott has mainly solved the traffic problem, as well as the black market and smuggling problems that have been investigated once before.
The black market and smuggling were basically no longer a problem after she ordered them to be cleared once.
Those forces that were mainly involved in smuggling have basically become honest after being liquidated. Although there is still smuggling in big cities like Chernoborg, there are also small traders wandering around in various settlements. , but this is basically under the control of Purficott and the northern government, and does not pose a threat or problem.
Compared with this, it was the traffic problem that was exposed last time that made Purficott waste a lot of effort.
First of all, she and Weier agreed to compete in developing large-scale autonomous robots and crawler vehicles respectively. This matter was delayed because the two turned to work on computers.
But the problem is not big. After all, with the advent of computers, the progress of the design work has been greatly accelerated. Purficott predicts that it will only take her about a week to come up with a complete design plan for the crawler vehicle and put it into use. Production.
As for how the production capacity will be after production starts, that is another matter.
But this is not a problem for Purficott. Designing an automated production line is not a big problem for her and Weier.
Especially now that there are still computers, even very primitive models, whose computing power is not strong, but there is still no problem in using them to program automated production lines.
The design is really about to be finalized. If you want to mass-produce it, it can be done this winter.
The only issue that may need to be taken into consideration is the difficulty of construction in winter.
This is also the main headache that Perficott is currently having, because the premature arrival of snow has seriously affected the progress of various construction projects in the north.
After all, this is still equivalent to the steam age in the early 19th century in the original world. The civil engineering technology in this period is still at a very primitive stage and cannot be compared with the construction level in the original world.
It was impossible to carry out construction in winter in the original world, let alone in this world.
So even though Purficott has planned railways and related construction for those settlements where transportation was interrupted due to snow during the last snowfall, construction of these projects is basically impossible to start in winter, and may even require Put it off until next spring, after the thaw.
This is obviously unacceptable to Purficott, and the reason is very simple. There is only one year left before the end of the cold winter, and the temperature will only get lower and lower in the future.
If the construction problems in cold weather cannot be solved, what will have to be faced will be more severe situations and construction conditions.
However, this problem is not to say that it is completely unsolvable. Whether it is the crawler vehicle designed by Purficott or the large robot that Weier is preparing to develop, they can actually cope with the needs of work in severe weather.
After all, no matter how bad the weather is, there is always a solution. Purficott still remembers that she developed a thawing potion in order to rescue a ship frozen in the ice. It was originally prepared to deal with extremely bad weather.
It was just that the resources available to Purficott at that time were too few, so she thought of developing this kind of thawing agent to deal with bad weather.
If it were now, Purficott might be thinking of more violent ways to solve the problem, such as engineering steam armor and large construction machinery.
After all, if the cost of using potions is too high, the thawing potion is indeed very useful. After that, Perficott also tried to reduce the cost and mass-produce it, but it has to be said that even if she reduced the cost of this thing to A fairly acceptable level can only meet the needs of small-scale use and temporary emergencies.
If you want to mass-produce it and use it in engineering construction and other things, the cost of this thing is still an unacceptable number.
Under such circumstances, using steam armor and large-scale construction machinery to solve construction problems by flying bricks seems to be the right path.
At least that’s what Purficott thought when she saw Weier testing the large robot she designed.
“Are you going to let a big guy act as the locomotive and then connect the carriages at the back?” Looking at what Weier took out, Purficott looked a little weird.
It's not because the things Weier came up with were too weird. On the contrary, the things she designed have a delicate beauty, and both the appearance design and structural design are very reasonable, showing the skills of a legendary alchemist. and accumulation.
It’s just the shape of this big robot that really makes Purficott a little overwhelmed, because it looks too much like a centipede’s head.
Perfect’s oblate body can be understood to be designed to better carry cargo, and the four long legs are nothing to say. The engineering robot she designed only looks like The legs are longer and more numerous. After all, long legs are a necessary design for walking in the snow, and the multi-legged structure can also make it more stable and effectively improve its ability to pass rough terrain.
But when several of these oblate robots are connected together, it looks weird no matter how you look at it.
"What do you think? Do you have any suggestions for improvement?" Weier didn't seem to think this thing was ugly. Instead, she waited expectantly for Perfectcott's evaluation.
Perfect suppressed his desire to complain, suppressed his aesthetic prejudice against this thing, and instead used his omniscient eye to evaluate it.
"Large-scale multifunctional autonomous robot"
"Materials: excellent"
"Manufacturing technology: outstanding"
"Effectiveness: It has an output power of 600 horsepower. Multiple units can be connected to form an efficient transportation platform, and it has multiple uses such as road cleaning, construction, and material transportation."
"Evaluation: A very excellent design , but due to the designer's lack of engineering attainments, although it is well designed, its structure is redundant and its payload is wasted. It is recommended to optimize and transform it. "
See. The Omniscient Eye commented like this, and Purficott immediately understood. Apparently the Omniscient Eye had similar opinions to his own, and both felt that there were areas in Weier's design that really needed improvement.
The first thing is undoubtedly this shape. The oblate design can indeed improve the carrying capacity, but in fact the design does not need to be so extreme.
The circular shape is indeed a design that can expand the cargo area to the maximum under the same conditions, but the problem is that in actual use, such an extreme design is not needed. It is actually also possible to directly use a rectangular cargo warehouse. It doesn't matter.
The connection of multiple circular platforms is a very good idea. As long as the connection interface can be designed to be movable, the flexibility of this combined structure will be excellent.
However, Weier did not adopt a movable interface design, so this apparently eye-catching structure seemed very dull. It looked like it was just a few robots connected together. without considering more practical applications.
Of course, with Weier's technology, even if there are no movable interfaces, after these robots are connected together, they are not directly locked into a straight line, but there is still a certain range of joint movement space. Can perform bending or twisting movements.
But for Purficott, this design was too bad.
So after asking Weier for the design drawing, she directly made changes on it.
First of all, the main structure has been transformed into multiple rectangular cargo boxes, which can be adapted to the chassis of the crawler vehicle, and are also convenient for stacking on large robots. It is also easier to transport bulk cargo and protect important items.
Of course, this design is not original to Purficott, but a design called a freight container in the original world.
A large robot can stack four rectangular cargo boxes on its body. It is driven by the steam core in the head. The four walking legs were increased to six by Purficott, but the length was shortened, making it It is more stable and has enhanced traffic capacity.
As for the link joints, Purficott turned them into movable links between the two hemispheres, which can provide sufficient space for movement between the two robots, greatly improving their flexibility.
But after Purficott made such a change, the originally oblate robot designed by Weier was turned into a cylinder with two hemispherical heads. When connected together, it looks more like It's a long-legged sausage.
"This design..." Wei'er obviously didn't think the design of Purficott looked good. She thought about it seriously and said, "The ball joint link is actually not necessary. The train link hook is also good. These large robots You don’t need to deal with particularly rugged terrain, right?”
“Then delete the spherical connection?” Perficott didn’t care much about this. He just changed the connection method and added another one. Something about changing the appearance.
Weier calculated it carefully, and finally nodded and said: "Delete it, it has little practical significance. Although the two robots are connected together, when passing on the road, their minimum turning angle is The angle will not be less than 120 degrees. There is really no need for a spherical connection. "
"Okay, let's change this." Purficott nodded and immediately activated his omniscient eye. Optimization capabilities optimize this design drawing to a state where it can be directly used for production.
After optimization, the appearance of this large multi-functional robot has six long legs and a long body closer to the shape of a grasshopper.
However, this large robot does not need to jump, and it does not have such well-developed hind limbs, but is only supported by six walking legs of the same length.
When multiple robots are connected together, they are more like long-legged trains than anything else.
"Is this your ability? It seems to be very useful." Weier noticed Perficott's ability to use optimization, but she mistook it for what Perficott had mastered. A secret method of alchemy that just adjusts the drawings and the contents on the drawings.
Yes, Weier thought that the design modifications on the drawings were completed by Purficott himself, which caused a minor misunderstanding.
However, Purficott did not explain. She just checked the completed design drawings with the crawler vehicle she designed, then adjusted some parameter design, and then used the optimization ability again to convert this The drawings have also been optimized.
Although the optimized tracked steam vehicle is still powered by steam and needs to burn coal to drive the boiler, in terms of appearance, even if you get it in the original world, people will exclaim that it looks like science fiction.
But these are all important. What really matters is the traffic capacity of the crawler vehicle and its carrying capacity.
Especially after Purficott made the modifications, whether the tracked vehicle can withstand a fully loaded freight container is placed on the vehicle, and how the tracked vehicle performs after being fully loaded.
For Purficott and Weier, in the past they could only build a prototype car and test it to see if the prototype car worked normally under extreme working conditions.
But now that they have computers, they can collect various data and then use computers to calculate various parameters. This is much less troublesome than directly building a prototype.
Although the prototype still needs to be built, the meaning is completely different. One is trial and error, while the other is to check whether the design is qualified and test the extreme working conditions.
(End of this chapter)