Dexter walks dynamically. Paul Graham explains why that’s more impressive than Asimo. Or you can just watch:
Dexter comes from anybots.com and is our Cool Robot of the Week.
tip o’ the hubcap to Jeremy Zawodny.
Old timers might remember that le Rotour Supérieure’s first non-trivial post was about modular robots. Here’s some more crunchy self-configuring goodness. The idea is simple: make robots out of small identical parts that can attach to each other. Then everything else is just software.
First, the folks at Cornell have this cool self-assembling bot:
(Here’s the Cornell site with more info).
As usual, the Japanese have some world-class contributions too. Check out the amazing work at AIST, where they have modular bots that work as walkers, crawlers, and (almost!) rollers. Wow.
The videos are especially worth watching. This is the real thing, folks!
I had the incredible honor last week of hosting an all day symposium on robotics for the American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science (AAAS – the mother org of Science Magazine.)
The speakers at the seminar were pretty much the dream team of US roboticists. I was incredibly lucky that all my first choice speakers agreed to come: Three speakers are in the Guinness Book, two have robots in the Smithsonian, one was the DARPA Grand Challenge winner, and between them enough patents to choke an attorney.
The best thing about the sessions, is that they are all incredibly gifted speakers as well as roboticists. The speeches weren’t the boring ones with lots of equations and graphs – but riveting videos of autonomous cars driving through traffic, animatronic bots that can learn and have abstract thinking, and demos of robots that will change the world.
One of the highlights of the event was Bob Full of Berkeley and Sangbae Kim of Stanford demonstrated their gecko-bot, which can climb up windows, walls, and almost anything else (I’m a sucker for live demos). The thing is, it’s not using suction cups, hooks, or tape. It mimics real geckos (who aren’t slimy) who have microscopic hairs that rely on the Van der Waals force for Directional adhesion. Basically this means that the days of masking tape, glue, and staples are over. This stuff can support hundreds of times it’s own weight, is infinitely re-usable, and can come off easily so long as you pull it the right way. Really short version – the robot climbed up the window, no problem-o. Some videos here.
Cynthia Breazeal (Kismet, Leonardo) gave a great talk on social robots. It seems that she’s taught Leonardo to do what I can’t get my freshman to do – understand other people’s points of view. Further, they’re teaching Leo to learn by example. This is the first real step by anyone to getting robots to learn by themselves, so the programmer doesn’t have to include every little variable in the db.
Sebastian Thrun (Grand Challenge winner) gave an awesome overview on their new robot, Junior. Not happy with getting a robot to drive through desert wasteland, Sebastian’s team is getting the robots ready for city streets. For those who can only see military applications, think about this: 40,000 people die each year in traffic accidents. Mostly, because of human error. Imagine a robot-car being able to brake instantly when the car ahead stops short, or better still, change lanes without worries of hitting someone else. A robot-car which will never hit a pedestrian because you were busy changing radio stations. A car that can let you sleep an extra hour while it commutes to work for you. This future is much closer than you think.
Robots aren’t just for helping people. Ken Goldberg of Berkeley talked about a robotic platform they’ve installed to look for the presumed-extinct ivory billed woodpecker. The survival of every species is keyed to our own survival, and Ken is showing how bots can be used to help man-animal interaction. His project has proven itself already, with hundreds of photos of actual birds. The system isn’t just a camera shooting video – it doesn’t need someone to go over every frame. The robots do it. The system figures out when a bird has gone by, and captures it. It’s even caught a helicopter. The woodpecker – if alive – is next.
I talked about domestic robots. Not as slaves, but companions. Robots who will help nurse the elderly, and allow doctors to check in on people at home – the return of the housecall! But it’s not just that simple. Bots can track blood pressure on a daily basis, dispense medicine at the right times (never miss your meds, never take too many), and even call for help when grandma falls and can’t get to the phone. As we talked about here, they’re not just helpers – they can become friends and playmates. My grandma is still crazy for the re-programmed Aibo I gave her (it talks to her, and performs on command.) No need for computer literacy, the robot does the tough stuff – people just interact.
Ah, the Pleo – everyone’s favorite tease-bot. John Sosoka of Ugobe brought two, and We played with it! It’s not ready for release yet, but the darn thing sure is cute. Pleo will really live up to it’s expectations – it’s got an incredible array of sensors and abilities, and moves in random, unexpected ways – which gets into your subconscience that it’s a real living thing, not just another collection of plastic and copper.
My colleague at SFSU, Mike Holden, gave a great talk on robot aircraft. Again, most people view them in a strictly military capacity. But Mike’s been developing them for agricultural use. Too often farmers over-fertilize, which is bad for the soil and can be bad for ground-water. But Mike’s planes can shoot complete maps of a crop in near-infrared, and show which plants need fertilizer, and which don’t. Which are dying, and which are thriving. Crop production can go up, while man-hours, waste and fertilization can go down. All using a 3×3 plane that can take off and land by itself, while producing better maps than any satellite ever could.
Last up was Khalid Al-Ali of CMU. Khalid doesn’t make robots so much as he gets kids interested in making robots. And they do. His course allow kids to do things that they can’t do elsewhere, and gain confidence they didn’t have. He told the story of a girl who built a GPS and camera guided R/C-sized truck. Her dad and brothers told her she couldn’t, cause she didn’t have a Y chromosome. She excelled, got excited about building bots, and is now on her way to becoming an engineer. I asked Cynthia and Missy SuicideBot if they still took that sexist crap. Noone would dare do it to Cyn (who’s one of my heroes, and possibly the smartest and most driven human being I’ve ever met.) As for Missy SuicideBot, she just kicked me in the groin. I took that as a ‘no.’
All of these people inspire me, and they are the ones on whom the future is being built. It was a great session, and I’m thrilled and honored that they all took part.
Some news links covering the various sessions:
Man’s best friend just might be a machine
Experts lay out scenarios for the next decade of robotic evolution
Robots join search for ivory-billed woodpecker
Make way for the robot with feelings
Making the right robot for the right job
Hello, I’m a Johnny cab, where to sir?
We’re going the way of the robot
Urban road race to test limits of robotic cars
Full abstracts below the link
(more…)
Last weekend your intrepid robotic reporter attended the AAAS Annual Conference. The American Association for The Advancement of Science is the World’s Largest General Scientific Society, focusing on all aspects of scientific research from global warming to linguistics. There was, excitingly enough, a Robotics Symposium, curated by Mr. Robotics, and featuring a wealth of incredibly bright people who do astonishing things with robots.
We’re late for Maker Faire Auditions, so this is going to be in parts. Bear with us!
Bob Full of the UC Berkeley Poly-PEDAL Lab spoke on, among other things, geckos sticking to walls, and demo’d Stickybot and Edubot. Stickybot has gecko toes that enable it to stick very nicely to a pane of glass using nothing but van der waals forces between the glass and the 300 micrometer thick fibrillar adhesive hairs on the bottom of its feet, like real geckos do. Geckos have toe pads with 200 nanometer fibers for sticking and unsticking. The pads on Stickybot are huge by comparison at 300 micrometers, but they still work. The upshot of this research is that we’ll someday have really excellent tape that sticks like a fiend in one direction, doesn’t leave any residue (no liquid adhesive!) and comes off with a touch in the other direction.
As Dr. Full puts it, this is why it’s important to fund curiosity-based research.
It’s also a good case for paying attention to the health of natural systems. We have got to preserve and explore nature’s designs or these secrets will be lost forever.
Our own Mr. Robotics hosted a seminar at the recent AAAS meeting in San Francisco. Mr. R, savvy in the ways of the MSM, offers this juicy tidbit among other good stuff:
Self-assembling batteries from those Genii at MIT:
Um. eek?
[Via The Raw Feed]
Not to fear boys and girls, AAAS posts forthcoming with attendant pictures and etc. etc. We’re just waiting for the drugs to kick in over here.
There was a bit of a kerfuffle over the stunt double used to portray a lonely robot suicide in a GM Commerical.
Well, the actroid playing the Lonely Robot has finally spoken out against meat puppets people taking themselves too seriously:
Hot Geek Babes.
Um, yes, but where are the ROBOTS?
In a perfect example of unconscious anthropocentrism, robots are critically underrepresented in this otherwise awesome photo contest of hot babe geeks. We call upon the entire Suicidebots community to help correct this glaring oversight by contributing your pictures of geek babes with robots.
C’mon, we know you are out there.
Oh, and you can send them to us first. We Thank You For Your Support.
Tip o’ the hubcap to shessuchageek
Holy flaming butane! How did we miss this one? Two of our favorite things together: a flamethrower-wielding Robosapien hack! But it gets better: follow the excellent instructions on how to build your own Flameosapien. Be careful where you point that thing, sonny!
No, it’s not a hamster, but it’s close. . .
Artistic Rendering of Future Yuki-Taro innovation
Those wacky kids down at the Niigata Industrial Creation Organization (NICO), Research and Development, Inc. (RDI), Niigata Institute of Technology, Yamagata University and the Industrial Research Institute of Niigata Prefecture (IRI) have created a nifty critter that addresses the problem of necessary heavy labor for the elderly.
Niigata gets a ton of snow during the winter, and we”ll bet that it’s not just the elderly that are getting a kick out of this thing.
It’s gone and won a spiffy design award, even!
The friendly-looking Yuki-taro measures 160 x 95 x 75 cm (63 x 37 x 30 in.) and weighs 400 kg (880 lbs). Armed with GPS and a pair of video cameras embedded in its eyes, the self-guided robot seeks out snow and gobbles it up into its large mouth.
Yuki-taro’s insides consist of a system that compresses the snow into hard blocks measuring 60 x 30 x 15 cm (24 x 12 x 6 in.), which Yuki-taro expels from its rear end.
The blocks can then be stacked and stored until summer, when they can be used as an alternative source of refrigeration or cooling.
So it’s not just a snow collector, it’s a fabulous way to make sure you can keep the sake cold during those blisteringly humid Japanese summers too!
GAWD that’s efficient.
Yuki-taro
in recognition of your unfailing dedication to human quality of life
(summer and winter)
Suicidebots declares you
COOL ROBOT OF THE WEEK
May rock salt never corrode your suspension.
[From Pink Tentacle. Thank you Alexander Rose and Amybean!]
Update 2/16/07! Naked fugitive robot pursuit LIVE AND IN COLOR!:
Say you’re a fugitive.
Say you are a naked fugitive in North Korea during winter.
Say you are a naked fugitive in North Korea during winter, and you decide it’s a good idea to nakedly fugit down a sewer pipe.
Well, this is how we deal with YOU, Lil’ Mister:
[Thanks Joanne!]
OK, I’m following Xeni’s example on BoingBoing when icky things get posted. Every time the rotor or missy posts YET ANOTHER HAMSTER missive, I will retort in kind.
With this.
As you all probably realize by now, our secret, burning desire is to become The Cute Overload(tm!) of robot websites.
Of course everything we do here is morally obligated to have some kind of mechanistic bent, and machines are very rarely cute (except for in Japan, but that is a whole ‘nother story). When the two come together effortlesslyish, it is pure unadulterated magic.
In this vein, we submit for your approval:
[Thankyewverrymuch Kristoph for gettingk thees from the snorglelicious JWZ, who een turn got eet from Thees Arteest, who is only a few syllables away from being Mr. Purry McPurrersons]
In the spirit of the old-skool favorite, The Really Big Button That Doesn’t Do Anything, and in an effort to start another argument about whether a script can be considered a robot or not, I give you:
What are you excited about?
From Botmatrix Member Meredith Finkelstein:
13bit is her production company. The female of the species likes to play with metal too. . .
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