NASA Needs Your Help with LCROSS Impact

Posted 6 Oct 2009 at 19:45 UTC by steve

On Friday, October 9 at 4:30am (11:30 UTC), NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) impactor will hit the Moon, followed four minutes later by the impact of the LCROSS robotic mothership, which will fly through the 10km high debris plume collecting data about the presence of water, minerals, and organic molecules. NASA will have the Hubble, the LRO, and hundreds of big Earth-based telescopes pointed at the event. But the plume should be big enough to be seen and recorded by amateur telescopes 10 inches or larger. NASA is asking everyone who is willing to participate by observing and photographing the event. Visit the LCROSS Citizen Science website to get involved. To find an LCROSS public viewing event (or let others know about one you're hosting), visit the LCROSS public events page. (sadly, there are none in range of Dallas, TX yet). There's also an LCROSS Observation Google Group where you can find out more about how to see the event. If all else, fails, you can watch the impact live on NASA TV.

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CMU Machine Learning Lab G-20 Protest

Posted 5 Oct 2009 at 17:54 UTC by steve

The G-20 protests have generated a lot of geeky news. In additional to the usual tear gas grenades and stun grenades, this year's G-20 protest marked the first public use by the government of a 150 DB sound cannon against civilian protesters. The result was a call for a DIY HERF gun that protesters could use to disable the sound cannons. Next, the FBI arrested Elliot Madison for using twitter to describe police movements during the protests. (the EFF has just obtained the legal documents for the Madison case) Now, we've heard that the CMU Machine Learning Lab has put on their own G-20 protest, demanding attention be given to important AI and robotics issues with such punchy slogans as "free variables", "support vector machines", "repeal power laws", "Baysians against discrimination", "end duality gap", "ban genetic algorithms", and of course, "Map reduce, map reuse, map recycle". Arthur Gretton shot some nice photos of the protest, one of which is included above.

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Random Robot Roundup

Posted 2 Oct 2009 at 15:54 UTC by steve

Camp Peavy writes, "a friend recently sent this Studio 360 audio slideshow of Sparky visiting the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and his DYI telepresence site". Later we got an email from Marque Cornblatt who notes, "SparkyJr.com hosts free software, instructions and printable templates, plus step-by-step videos, members pages, and links to hardware suppliers and other resources.". Rog-a-matic sent a link to an inter-office memo from a new employee at Cyberdyne System. Noriko Kageki of the GetRobo blog has some details on France's new humanoid robot program, called Project Romeo. Martin Haegele writes, "Today, the IFR Statistical Department presents the latest issue of the international robotics statistics and forecasts." While you have to order the full report, you can view the summary (PDF format) as well as the press release. Martin also notes, "robots.net is (very positively) refered to in the yearbook!" While economic problems have slowed the progress of robots in some categories, they still predict big increases in household robots and entertainment/leisure robots for the 2009 to 2012 period. Know any other robot news, gossip, or amazing facts we should report? Send 'em our way please. And don't forget to follow us on twitter.

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Phidgets GNU/Linux ARM Robot Controller

Posted 1 Oct 2009 at 20:29 UTC by steve

The LinuxDevices blog reported yesterday on a new ARM controller from Phidgets that runs GNU/Linux and is designed with robot applications in mind. Called Phidget SBC, the board is based on the Samsung S3C2410 ARM processor, which uses the ARM 920T core running at 266MHz. You get 64MB of RAM and 64MB of flash, a 10/100 Ethernet port, and (of course, since this if from Phidgets) 4 full-speed USB ports that can be used to connect to the full range of Phidgets. You'll also find 8 digital inputs, 8 digital outputs, 8 analog inputs, a JTAG port, reset button, and some LED on the board. They're taking pre-orders now and expect to start shipping this month. Cost is $265 direct from Phidgets or $244 at Trossen Robotics.

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Robots: Emerging Communication

Posted 25 Sep 2009 at 08:15 UTC (updated 25 Sep 2009 at 11:04 UTC) by mwaibel

The latest episode of the Robots podcast takes a closer look at the emergence of communication - and how it can be studied using robots. The first part features an interview with Sara Mitri, an interdisciplinary researcher at Switzerland's EPFL and the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Mitri and colleagues have taken an unusual approach to the problem: Using the ground-based S-Bot robots (pictured above) as a model for biological organisms, they used artificial evolution to study complex behaviors like communication. And as the broad media coverage of her recent publications in Current Biology and PNAS show, the advantages of this approach have not gone unnoticed: While retaining many of the real-world complexities present in biological systems, the robotic models allow complete access to all model parameters. And there is another key advantage: Today very little is known about the evolution of phenomena like communication, because they leave no trace in the fossil record. By conducting artificial evolution, this work allowed to reconstruct part of that missing evolutionary history and shed light on the origins of communication in all animals, from simple cells to us humans. In the second part of the podcast, Jürgen Jost, director of the "Complex Structures in Biology and Cognition" group at Leipzig's Max Planck Institute discusses the question of intentionality of robot communication. Tune in!

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US Navy's Bio-inspired Underwater Grooming Robot

Posted 23 Sep 2009 at 16:42 UTC by steve

The US Navy is trying to save some money by making their ships more fuel efficient. Keeping a ship's hull free of barnacles, oysters, algae, and other marine life can decrease fuel consumption by up to 40 percent and increase speed by 10 percent. To do the job of cleaning, or "grooming", a vessel's hull, the Office of Naval Research has developed the Bio-inspired Underwater Grooming (BUG) robot (PDF format). The BUG is an autonomous robot that uses negative pressure vortex regenerative fluid movement (which civilians refer to as "suction") to stick to the hull of a ship. Four wheels drive it forward while sensors including biofilm detectors and flourometers allow it to avoid obstacles and plan paths that will take it toward fouled surfaces. The Navy hopes BUGs will be online by 2015, saving up $500 million in maintenance costs per ship while reducing the Navy's carbon footprint. The robot could also be used on non-military ships and yachts. For more info, see the ONR news release.

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Alien Globes of Doom Invade Detroit MOCAD

Posted 22 Sep 2009 at 22:00 UTC by steve

This seems to be a week of robot art and music. Alien Globes of Doom, created by Detroit electro-mechanical art collective, Apetechnology, impressed visitors to Strange Beautiful Music III, the third annual New Music Detroit festival at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD). The glowing, buzzing globes of doom are robots that interact with the surrounding crowd, bumping into them and responding to touches or shoves to change their direction. See MOCAD's Facebook page for more photos.

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Joules the Bicycle Pedaling Art Robot

Posted 21 Sep 2009 at 19:39 UTC by steve

Rog-a-matic sent us a link to a Daily Mail article on a "robot" named Joules that rides a bicycle. Joules is actually a humanoid-robot-shaped bicycle motor that can be mounted on the rear seat of a tandem two-seat bicycle, allowing the human occupant on the front seat to get away with just steering. Obviously you could just get a powered bicycle but this is intended more as a robot art project than a practical device. And, as you can see in the above video, it does look pretty cool. Anyone who has built robots can appreciate the work that went into this. Carl, the builder, was challenged by his son, a former pro bicycle racer, to build an electric tandem powered by actually pumping the pedals rather than a direct electric drive. If you're interested in the technical details, check out the builder's original post on the Endless-Sphere Electric Vehicle Technology Forum.

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Robots.Video: Tiny Vampire Robot

Posted 17 Sep 2009 at 18:51 UTC by steve

Everyone likes to hear an occasionally song about small blood sucking robots, right? Here's Margot & the Nuclear So and So's with a live performance of Tiny Vampire Robot from their recent show in Bloomington, Indiana. Margot & the Nuclear So and So's is a sort of folk indie band (or "chamber pop" if you go for that sort of thing) from Indianapolis, Indiana. Their name was partially inspired by G.W. Bush's inability to pronounce the word "nuclear" but we don't know who inspired the misplaced apostrophe in their name. If you like it, check out the band's website. You can buy a CD or MP3s of their other albums but this song is destined for a future album, so enjoy the YouTube video or catch them live if your city is on their current tour.

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Random Robot Roundup

Posted 16 Sep 2009 at 21:50 UTC (updated 17 Sep 2009 at 02:43 UTC) by steve

The inbox is still overflowing with robots news, so here's another random news dump, this time entirely from the backlog of the Swirling Brain. We've got a Science Daily story on the possibility of replicating the human brain in some form of machine within 10 years; an engadget story on plasmodium based veggie bots; a Killeen Daily Herald article on the recent Army Robotics Rodeo tests at Fort Hood in Texas; an AirForceTimes story on tube-launched UAVs; a TECH Universe article on parasitic energy stealing robots; an io9 blog on the impact of robots on our economic future; and an IEEE Spectrum article on segmented self-steering airships; a TMCnet.com article on the rise of robotics gaming; a PCWorld story about a LEGO robot that solves Sudoku puzzles; and finally, a truly strange and interesting story about Rohan Jhunjhunwala, who is building robots for elephants at the Oregon Zoo including an apple launching robot to feed them and an elephant piano for the animals to play. Know any other robot news, gossip, or amazing facts we should report? Send 'em our way please. And don't forget to follow us on twitter.

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British Goverment Passes the Turing Test?

Posted 15 Sep 2009 at 22:10 UTC by steve

Anyone with even a passing interesting in AI or robotics knows who Alan Turing is. Sometimes referred to as the "father of AI, Turing was interested in the question of "intelligent machinery" as early 1941. he helped secure an allied victory in World War II with his cryptanalysis of the German Enigma. But among roboticists, he's known for his work on the halting problem, the Turing machine, the Church-Turing thesis, the Turing Test, the Automatic Computing Engine, not to mention the Turing Award, which is named in his honor. Equally well known, are is his persecution, legal prosecution, and forced chemical castration by the British government, whose treatment of him is believed to have lead directly to his suicide in 1954. While too late to help Turing, there is good news from the UK, where British prime minister Gordon Brown has officially apologized:

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.

The apology was the result of a petition with over 30,000 signers started by British free software programmer John Graham-Cumming. If you'd like to help preserve Turing's memory, how about a contribution to Bletchley Park Trust? CC-licensed Photo of slate Alan Turing sculpture at Bletchley Park by flickr user blinkenlichts

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Hold Me In Your Automatic Arms

Posted 14 Sep 2009 at 18:41 UTC by steve

RIKEN issued a press release about their joint research project with Tokai Rubber Industries to create a care giving robot. The 180kg robot, called RIBA (Robot for Interactive Body Assistance) is the first that can safely lift a human weighing up to 61 kg from a bed into a wheel chair, or from a wheel chair into a bed. To make sure the human is comfortable, the robot is encased in soft urethane foam. The arms are also covered in 86 tactile sensors to give the robot information on the position of the human body. Doctors and nurses can guide the robot by touching the tactile sensors. In addition to the arm tactile sensors, the creepily cute robot has four more tactile sensors on the hands, 2 microphones, and 2 vision sensors. Each arm has 7 degrees of freedom. The head has 3 DoF and the waist 2 DoF. For more information, see the RIKEN-TRI Collaboration Center for Human-Interactive Robot Research. Video after the break, or you can see several more videos of RIBAs movements on the RIBA Operation - motions webpage. Ok, and I can't look at that photo without hearing Laurie Anderson's "O Superman" in my head; "So hold me, Mom, in your long arms, in your automatic arms, your electronic arms."

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Robots: Celebrating Invention

Posted 11 Sep 2009 at 08:29 UTC (updated 11 Sep 2009 at 08:30 UTC) by mwaibel

For many engineers Dean Kamen embodies invention at its best: Inventor of the prosthetic "Luke" arm, the IBOT, the portable insulin pump and the Segway, he has filed more than 400 patents and founded his own company dedicated to innovation. But while Kamen may be the greatest inventor alive, his greatest passion is an initiative to encourage children to get engaged in engineering and science. And it works: Last year 17'594 teams like the one shown above participated in Kamen's FIRST robotics initiative. In the latest episode of the Robots podcast Dean Kamen speaks about the spirit of invention that drives him to create products that improve lives, shares details on the Luke arm, and describes the FIRST initiative. To learn more about Kamen's inventions and to listen to the interview head on over to the Robots website.

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Garment-Folding Robot with Graphical Instruction

Posted 10 Sep 2009 at 22:52 UTC by steve

It's common to assume that the ideal way of communication with robots will be verbally but this isn't always the case. Sometimes it's easier to teach by showing examples. A group of Tokyo researchers from the JST ERATO User Interface for Design Project demonstrated this technique at Siggraph 2009. The YouTube video above captures the final results, showing the robot successfully folding a garment. A few more details of the graphical training process can be found in the one page poster for their exhibit (PDF format).

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The Mind Body Problem: Dualism Reloaded

Posted 10 Sep 2009 at 19:11 UTC by steve

As we've seen over the last year, there has been a resurgence in advocacy of dualism as a "solution" to the mind body problem. In some cases, these arguments are motivated by religious conservatives who see the alternatives as a threat (e.g. physicalism, functionalism, teleofunctionalism, etc). Now we have a new paper from a scientist, Dr. Avshalom C. Elitzur of the department of Chemical Physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, titled, "Consiousness makes a difference: A reluctant dualist's confession" (PDF format). In the paper Elitzur claims:

I believe I have a scientific argument (Elitzur, 1989, 1996) in favor of one of the rival parties. Unfortunately, this party is interactionist dualism, which I dislike most. Indeed my argument comes with the expected penalty on this option, namely, entailing violation of a very basic physical principle. Being a physicist, this violation upsets me most.

My (possibly confused) understanding of it basically boils down to: if dualists are wrong and non-dualists can't explain why dualists are wrong, then non-dualistic logic must be incomplete, so (somehow) dualists were right all along. His argument largely hinges on the presupposition that qualia exist, a topic as controversial and hard to pin down as consciousness. He further proposes that consciousness is "the totality of our qualia" (!) which, if true, probably means we should forget about conscious robots. As expected, Elitzur's dualism wreaks havoc with the laws of physics, starting with basic laws like conservation of energy and momentum. The paper is destined to become a book chapter and provides some interesting reading (look for the Zombie bafflement Turing Test). I expect it will also stir up renewed interest in the idea of dualism.

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Will Your Next Robot be a Bobcat Loader?

Posted 9 Sep 2009 at 22:05 UTC by steve

Engineering TV has posted some interesting video of a new kit developed by QinetiQ, the company that makes the Talon robots. It's called the ROCK Kit and includes everything you need to turn a Bobcat skid-steer loader into a teleoperated robot. The target customer is the military, who could save a lot of money by getting cheap, mass produced Bobcats and turning them into IED robots. According to Dr. William Ribich:

Other companies have roboticized individual pieces of earth-moving equipment, but until now, no one has created a universal kit that can quickly remotely control any Bobcat SJC-equipped loader used in the rough manner the military requires

Sure, it's great for creating instant, low-cost telerobotics for handling oversized IEDs but we can think of all sorts of cool uses for a full sized robot like this. We're guessing they aren't planning to send us a review unit any time soon though. For more details on the QinetiQ press release.

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Random Robot Roundup

Posted 9 Sep 2009 at 18:26 UTC by steve

Ok, let's see if we can get the robot news rolling again. A dump of the editor's inbox seems like a good place to start, so here we go. Ed Okerson wrote to tell us about swarms of solar microbots. Travis Deyle let us know that these are the same robots we reported on back in 2005 and pointed out a Hizook.com article with the latest news about them. Norri Kageki posted an interesting interview with former Ugobe CTO John Sosoka, who talks about his new companies Vita Robotica and Pulse Robotics. Another robots.net reader, Doug Emes, let us know about a new robotics website called theRoboticsCodeDepot.com that will be of interest to R2 replica builders. Rog-a-matic says you should check out a Popular Mechanics article on farm robots, the Motoman SDA10 assembly robot video over at SingularityHub.com, and an art exhibit at the Conduit Gallery in Dallas, TX that, while not robot related, is definitely geek-worthy: Dan McPharlin's miniature analog synthesizers. Know any other robot news, gossip, or amazing facts we should report? Send 'em our way please. And don't forget to follow us on twitter.

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VEX Protobot Unboxing

Posted 2 Sep 2009 at 16:05 UTC by steve

Sorry about being MIA most of the last week! Glad to see the other robots.net editors have been keeping the news flowing. Just to show I'm still alive, here's a quick post foreshadowing a future review. The UPS guy delivered a big red box yesterday containing the new VEX Protobot Robot Kit Dual Control Starter Bundle. I was on my way out to a meeting of the Dallas Personal Robotics Group at the time, so I took the box with me and got Glenn Pipe of the DPRG to shoot a quick VEX Protobot Unboxing video. Enjoy.

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Alpha Version of the Pleo Programmer Developer Kit

Posted 1 Sep 2009 at 03:15 UTC by roschler

This September the Alpha version of the Pleo Developer Kit (PDK) will be made available to certain people on the PleoWorld mailing list. The PDK gives a developer the ability to customize Pleo's behaviors in a deeper manner than ordinary scripting. Apparently one member of the Bob The Pleo forum has already received it. Engadget posted about the PDK showing a video that has Pleo doing some brand new dance steps courtesy of some early PDK programming and BotJunkie has a piece that gives some opinions on what the PDK should be able to do. This is reassuring news to Pleo owners worldwide that Jetta, the company that acquired the rights to Pleo from Ugobe during the bankruptcy sale, is serious about continuing the Pleo line.

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Upcoming Robot Movie List

Posted 30 Aug 2009 at 02:44 UTC (updated 30 Aug 2009 at 02:48 UTC) by The Swirling Brain

The Swirling Brain's Robot & Sci-Fi Upcoming Movie List!

Well, it's time again for The Swirling Brain's upcoming Robot (& Sci-Fi) robot movie news! This year there seems to be more robot movies than ever. Here it is late summer and still it seems there are bunches of sci-fi and robotic sci-fi movies still yet to be seen! Let's see what's left for this year's robot movies!

Videos and swirling comments after the jump...

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