HACK ATTACK

“You never mount the motherboard vertically. You can’t get at the edge connectors.”

Scenes from “Dune II”? No, just some basic tech-talk bandied about by the Anaheim-based Robotics Society of Southern California. That’s right, Will Robinson, robots. Every month, about 60 computer scientists, engineers, technicians--”gearheads,” they call themselves--get together to design robots.

“What we’re building are actually intelligent machines that can interface with the environment,” says society president Jerry Burton, who stresses that real robots must be computer-controlled. “The ultimate objective being the capability that if I said, ‘Get me a beer,’ the machine could do it,” Burton says.

Although that couch potato’s dream has yet to be accomplished, the 2 1/2-year-old group has already designed and built its own rudimentary PC-controlled personal robot, christened RSSCy I (pronounced risky ) . They’re now working on the RSSCy II, which, says Burton, “anyone should be able to build for less than $1,000.” Burton himself has taken on the task of creating the navigational software that would allow the robot to move through an obstructed environment--essential if an automaton is to find its way to the fridge.