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Robots: Robot Soccer
The latest episode of Robots, the podcast for news and views on robotics, takes a look behind the scenes of Robot Soccer. Manuela Veloso, professor at Carnegie Mellon University and President-Elect of the International RoboCup Federation, discusses the state of the art and the future of artificial dribblers. She also shares her thoughts on the daring RoboCup prediction that by the year 2050, "a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots ... can win against the human world soccer champion team". Will it really happen? Listen to the podcast and vote on the forum! |
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Giant Styrofoam Robots
Some of you may remember those photos I posted recently of a big robot built from styrofoam packing material that turned up at a local art gallery in Dallas. Well, the folks at DVICE have spotted an artist who makes even bigger foam robots. How big? Try 22 feet tall. The artist is Michael Salter of the University of Oregon and he hasn't built just one but quite a few giant robots. For more see the photo gallery of his robots at Comptemorary Art 06 or his exhibit at the Lump Gallery in 2005. He also did an exhibit at the University of Texas at Arlington in which he built a giant robot out of cardboard boxes. So why does he do it? His bio says "he is currently interested in cognitive behavior and its relationship to particular visual stimuli, and the continued construction of styrofoam robots." If your interest in Styrofoam robots follows a more diminutive bent, don't forget RobotGrrl and her Styrobots. |
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Machines That Think Like People - Bad Idea?
The Guardian published a piece by Charles Arthur titled, "Artificial intelligence: God help us if machines ever think like people", in which he questions the idea that Humans are a good model on which to base machine consciousness. Why? "We don't build skyscrapers based on the same principles as the human spine; if we did, then they'd be constantly falling down or showing signs of significant weakness. We don't build transport systems that work like the human body, using muscle-like elastic bands snapping back and forth to power them." He notes that even the Human body is a mess because "evolution is a terrible designer". His premise is based on a recent book by Gary Marcus, Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind which investigates the conflicts between the millions of years old features of the brain that are now conflicting with the relatively recently acquired features based on language. In the end he suggests that giving a machine a mind as badly designed as ours would be an act of cruelty. |
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K Core Processors
Intel is hinting at the possibility of a future with processors containing hundreds or even thousands of cores. While graphics applications seem to be driving much of this trend, I see the possibilities for robotics as truly monumental. Software development for real-time response and control of actuators and sensors has always been a bit awkward with asynchronous interrupts bumping into each-other and cumbersome state machine loops. A possible solution to this mess, and to a much-needed advancement in robot performance are multiple processor systems with additional processors providing centralized supervisory control. When that trend takes hold, a programmer will be able to instruct a mobility routine to approach the refrigerator using a group of processors dedicated to that task, and not risk crashing the battery monitoring routines in the process. It seems to me that the trend is more towards a massively parallel array of much simpler processors - something between neural networks of biological systems and the overburdened, highly complex, single-processor systems of today. Processors of the giant array can be simpler, slower and die without bringing down the whole system. The result will be a faster and more fault-tolerant system that is easier to program, and even cheaper to produce. |
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Instructables.com Robot Contest
Randy of Instructables.com writes, I want you to know about the Instructables and RoboGames Robot Contest. We are looking for instructions on how to make, build or design all things robot-related. Maybe you built the ultimate manipulator arm, designed a killer sensor array, reused some great trash, or just made a gorgeous housing - pick something you're proud of, and share how you made it. The grand prize is a trip to San Francisco for the 2009 robogames. Other prizes include a RoboPhilo Walking Android kit, and instructables Robot gear. Entry deadline is July 13. They've already got some interesting entries like DIY air muscles and the Elvinator (a cross between the terminator and a WowWee Elvis robot). |
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Time Magazine Picks Cutest Robots
Michelle writes, "Time.com has just put up a photo gallery of some of the world’s most awesome (and cutest, natch) robots". Many of the robots will be familiar including the Sommelier Robot, the Fujitsu HOAP-3, the Shadow robot hand (who knew a hand by itself could be cute?!), Toyota's musical instrument playing robots, and Wall-e. It's always interesting to see what mainstream media thinks about robots. In this case they make no distinction between real robots, fictional robots; between research projects and commercial gadgets. What's your pick for cutest robot ever? |
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Stanley Headed for New Display at Smithsonian
Stanley, winner of DARPA's 2005 grand challenge, is on his way to be part of an exhibit at Smithsonian's National Museum. But first, Stanley is being displayed at San Jose's Tech Museum until July 17. Venture capital firm Mohr Davidow along with members of the Stanford team gathered for a reception to talk about the amazing Volkswagen Touareg and the technology that guided it through 132 miles of the Mojave desert autonomously. |
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CMU and GM Team Up on Driverless Vehicle Lab
CMU issued a press release on a collaboration between the school and General Motors Research & Development Lab. Together they will establish a new Autonomous Driving Collaborative Research Lab (CRL). A previous CRL was set up with help from GM in 2000 and renewed in 2003. According to Larry Burns of GM, "technologies ranging from electronics, controls and software to wireless capabilities and digital mapping could ultimately change how people drive and use their vehicles. Imagine being virtually chauffeured safely in your car while doing your e-mail, eating breakfast and watching the news. The work we're doing with Carnegie Mellon is a big stepping stone toward making this a reality." See also the GM version of the press release |
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Mental Maps and Honeybee Odometery
Keeping and consulting internal maps is a frequent method employed by robot builders to navigate complex environments. A Nature article describes the debate over whether Honeybees, which are much smarter than robots, keep internal maps. When a honeybee finds food, it communicates the distance and direction to the hive through a complex dance. 20 years ago, Fred Dyer and James Gould placed food in a very unlikely place (the middle of a lake on a boat) to see what would happen. A specially trained bee that knew the location of the food tried to tell the hive but the other bees didn't seem to believe it. The conclusion was that bees knew it was unlikely food could be found over water, suggesting they were evaluating the location's plausibility based on their own cognitive map of the area. A more recent attempt by Margaret Wray to duplicate the experiment has failed to get the same results but may have been flawed. Another researcher, Juergen Tautz, suggests there may be a simpler explanation for the bees refusal to fly over water, so the jury is still out. The Tautz paper is interesting in itself: Honeybee Odometry: Performance in varying Natural Terrain (PDF format). |
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If I Only Had Brain
A NetworkWorld article looks at artificial intelligence (AI) and ponders what happened to it. In 1965 Herber Simon said AI was 20 years away. In 1967 Marvin Minsky said it was one generation away. So where it is? Self aware, learning, thinking, feeling machines have turned out to be a lot harder to build than anyone thought (in part because understanding natural intelligence has taken a lot longer than anyone thought). Instead AI has become a marketing term used to describe random product features. Does your phone support voice recognition? Let's call that AI! Does your web site say "if you like this movie, you'll probably like these too"? Let's call that AI! The article notes that even the Marriott hotel's kitchen scheduling software claims to be "AI". So, next time your little robot bumps into a wall, don't feel bad. It's probably closer to the true meaning of artificial intelligence than anything else going by that label! |
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Random Robot Roundup
Scott Broock writes, "This is a fun video about Robot Village in NY that you guys might be interested in". Sebastian Tyl is the first to report the little robot tribute included in the new Mozilla Firefox v3 browser. If you have it, type "about:robots" in the address bar and see what you get. If you haven't upgraded yet, take a look at the screen grab. Meanwhile, The Swirling Brain has swirled out a whole lot of robot links: a Science Daily story on Tartalo the robot, a PC Mag story and an AF press release on AMP, a two wheeled balancing robot that will follow you around playing music. An Electronic house article on the SEGA EMA aka the Electronic Girlfriend. It's not as kinky as it sounds - it's sort of a robot barbie doll. He also noted a PC World story on RepRap, the 3D printer that can replicate itself (well, it can't really but it's a start). There's also a Personal Tech story on Japan's growing concern that Korea is getting ahead of them in the race to commercialize robots. Roland Piquepaille sent us links to his latest blog posts on the Kiel-6000 ROV and the V-Star UAV. Know any other robot news, gossip, or amazing facts we should report? Send 'em our way please. |
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Robots: A Robot Fly at Harvard and at the MoMA
In the second episode of Robots, the podcast for news and views on robotics, we interview Rob Wood, founder and director of the Harvard Microrobotics Lab. He gives us an insight into work on his robotic fly, which has been buzzing around the web for the past year. Outside the web Wood's fly has touched down in the MoMA as part of an exhibition on Design and the Elastic Mind. In the second part of this episode Paola Antonelli, the curator of the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, explains the robot's relevance in art and design. Tune in! |
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A Turing Test for Consciousness
"Consciousness is part of the natural world. It depends, we believe, only on mathematics and logic and on the imperfectly known laws of physics, chemistry, and biology; it does not arise from some magical or otherworldly quality. That's good news, because it means there's no reason why consciousness can't be reproduced in a machine - in theory, anyway." Christof Koch and Giulio Tononi go on to say, in the IEEE Spectrum article Can Machines Be Conscious?, that consciousness may not require many things frequently associated with being human such as emotions, long-term memory, self-reflection, language, or even external sensory input. After describing what isn't part of consciousness, they attempt to define it in terms of the amount of integrated information an entity can generate. This leads them to propose various tests to determine if a machine is conscious. |
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Animatronics Technology of 1933
"Back in MY day...." (creeky voice) we built robots with plywood and steam engines. Back then, a PIC was used to break ice, and an oscillator was someone without direction. This look back at an old Popular Science magazine article by the Modern Mechanix blog shows the innards of a giant sloth created for the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. He moves his head, breathes and roars using a prehistoric array of bellcranks, bellows, and even a state-of-the art electric motor controlled by a remote operator. |
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iRobot Wins RFP to Create Liquid Shape-Shifting Robot
iRobot announced that it has won DARPA's RFP for a shape-shifting chemical robot. Nicknamed ChemBot, the robot should be "soft, flexible, mobile objects that can identify and maneuver through openings smaller than their static structural dimensions; reconstitute size, shape, and functionality after traversal; carry meaningful payloads; and perform tasks." The iRobot team will include experts from Harvard and MIT, specializing in "chemistry, materials science, actuator technologies, electronics, sensors and fabrication techniques." Imagine: T-1000 from Terminator 2, come to life. |
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