“Your robo-vacuum may be bumping into your feet in a malevolent attempt to kill you — or just trying to snuggle.”
So I just picked up the book by Daniel Wilson called “How to Survive a Robot Uprising”. Ya, I know, I’m several years late. Now I had an assumption going into this that the book was meant to be funny. Of course it was satisfying in that regard, but on the other hand I also learned about some of the latest advancements in robot technology. Most people only know about robots from what they see in movies. The reality is that robots operate within certain physical limitations based on, for example, what sensors they have or what information they have about their environment. This book helps educate the masses on the true capabilities of robots. I recommend this book if you like robots or just want to have a laugh about the topic. I also recommend this book for young kids. It sneaks in a lot of science while being a very easy read. Of course this book is littered with numerous life saving tips.
I’ve embedded a video of a talk Daniel gave to Google on the book. The video is a long 44mins. but gets pretty funny when the audience starts asking questions. Especially when Daniel talks about the glowing red light of the robots in the the movie I-Robot.
This video highlights the new Compact RIO hardware that will be used as the controller for the 2009 FIRST robotics competition in the FRC category.
National Instruments had a booth close to the pits at the 2008 FRC final championship in Atlanta. They built several robots demonstrating the capabilities of the new controller. One of the robots is shown here and the various components of the control hardware are explained.
Out of the many submissions to the NIWeek 2008 demo contest, this year we have yet another console game meets LabVIEW. Texas A&M students: Dave Buckner, Mitchell Jefferis, Vinny LaPenna, and Michael Voth are working on Slashbot.
From their blog:
To put it simply, we are designing a robot that is capable of autonomously playing a video game, the wildly popular Guitar Hero series. In the game a player attempts to simulate playing songs as color-coded buttons corresponding to notes scroll on the screen. A sensing and computation system will analyze the NTSC video signal as it is output from a PlayStation2 gaming system. The buttons a player is asked to press will be detected and an appropriate control signal will be sent to the robot. The robot will consist of six solenoid actuators, one for each colored button and one for the “strum” bar.
Anybots just released a new video of the next version of Dexter. Dexter is a biped teleoperated robot created by the Mountain View, CA based company.
Dexter’s walking is performed autonomously and is a demonstration of the type of hybrid robot that Anybots is working on. It will mainly be teleoperated but certain tasks will be automated such as walking.
Here’s a VI Shots video of the Anybots team during last years Robodevelopment conference:
NXT-G Online is software that allows you to program a virtual Lego Mindstorms NXT. Are you a school that doesn’t have enough cash for an NXT hardware set. No fear, this virtual software actually lets you program in NXT-G and download to a virtual NXT brain. Then you can execute the code and see it in virtual action.
To help better understand what is going on in the video, here is the sequence of chronologically events:
A challenge was selected - a video that came up introduced the challenge.
The simulated NXT-G programming environment was opened
Wrote some code (4 motor blocks were dragged onto the palette, and each was set at a different power level).
Downloaded the NXT-G program to the virtual NXT robot, which automatically opened the virtual environment.
The robot was moved to where we wanted it to start.
The virtual NXT brick was opened and we ran the program that was just created. The robot moved accordingly.
Note that the release version of NXT-G Online also has the ability select different sensors and motors for the virtual robot after which you can go back and change your code to make use of your modifications.
In this video from RoboDevelopment 2007, we see the CoroBot in action.
CoroBot was created to minimize the complexity of robot development. By combining a powerful PC-class platform with a robust, object-oriented software development system, the CoroBot empowers you to rapidly deploy and develop robotics solutions. The CoroBot also assists the hardware developer with additional physical mounting space, ports, sensors and communication devices.
Keenan Wyrobek from Stanford University is working closely with Willow Garage to continue the development work he and Eric Berger started while in their graduate studies at Stanford University. He shows off PR1 and explains the goals of the Personal Robotics Program and the next generation, PR2. Via Stanford University Website:
Kenneth Salisbury, a professor of Computer Science and of Surgery leads the Personal Robotics Program at Stanford with CS Assistant Professor Andrew Ng in coordination with the department’s STAIR project. After about 18 months of work, they have developed a first prototype. It is remotely controlled now (eventually it will become more autonomous) but it is an early milestone on the way to releasing a practical, affordable and complete robotics platform.
Steve Hassenplug was there from the beginning when Lego decided to revamp the old RCX platform. He was part of the Mindstorms User Panel (MUP) which was extensively covered in a Feb 2006 Wired magazine article. He was later invited to participate in the Mindstorm Developer Program (MDP) where he built a holonomic drive robot called Omni. This latest version which he shows off in the video uses a compass sensor to keep on track to it’s destination.
Early focus-group testing among Chris Harding’s retarded friends has revealed a bit of confusion about the simple, three-word title: “WE THE ROBOTS.”
To clarify…
CORRECT: “We The Robots“
INCORRECT: “We Are The Robots” or “We Are Robots”
The comic is not named after the lyric by Kraftwerk. (though we are huge fans)
An easy way to remember it:
“WE THE ROBOTS,” as in “WE THE PEOPLE…” from the preamble to the United States Constitution. Why? Because this comic strip is about a nation of robots… and the URL was available.
(note: Despite this reference, We The Robots is NOT to be taken as social or political commentary. It is purely fictional. It is about robots– not people. Please do not write us angry letters disagreeing with the point of view of these make-believe characters… who do not even exist!)
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