The WatCleaner is a newly designed robot that proposes helping us to clean up the marine ecosystem by intelligently and autonomously removing pollutants such as floating garbage and oil slick.

Now, I really cannot say enough about the brilliance of this idea or the necessity of its assistance in our efforts to reduce the damage done to the greater aquatic landscape, but this descriptive summary from the Japan Design Foundation International Design Competition listing kind of slays me. I’m pretty darn sure this has been translated, though from Japanese or Chinese (given that the submitting country is listed as China) I am not certain. No matter, they certainly get the idea across!

“‘WatCleaner’ is designed to ease water pollution. ‘WatCleaner’ can detect the situation of water and do some cleaning automatically to make the water better. The detectors on the bottom of the WatCleaner can detector the things in water and the floating things(including oil) and then solve the problem by its intellective system. There are many oil absorbent socks stored at the top part of the Watcleaner which can quickly absorb oil in water and do some reclaimtion. The strobe can open after detecting garbage and then absorb garbage with water. After garbage sink down and be forced going into the disintegrator,the water will be sprayed out from the top. Open the cover then the bin and oil-bags can be replaced for use in the future.” source

Great work! I hope that this idea is thoroughly tested and implemented internationally soon!

Last week, from June 29th to July 5th, Robocup 2009 was held in Graz, Australia. The Robocup project brings together robotics, AI and programming enthusiasts from all over the world and pits them against each other on the same playing field… literally! Above, we see the winners of the middle size league, Universität Stuttgart (Germany). In the finals, they took on Tech United from Eindhoven (The Netherlands) for the win with a dominating score of 4:1 (in Germany’s favor). The ultimate goal of the Robocup is to, “by the year 2050, develop a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can play and win against the human world champion soccer team.” source

By having the autonomous robot teams compete in standardized soccer games, every type of technology available can display its range within the same sets of limitations! These restraints are supposed to encourage the participants to think differently, and attempt new applications for the most recent advancements in the robotic sciences. These breakthroughs allow the competing teams to not only win the Robocup and achieve worldwide recognition for their efforts, they ultimately lead to social and industrial application.

“Preconditions for the successful participation at these competitions are extensive efforts in current research topics of computer science such as real-time image processing and architectures, cooperative robotics and distributed planning. Possible application scenarios of these research activities reach from autonomous vehicles, cooperative manufacturing robotics, service robotics to the point of planetary or deep-sea exploration by autonomous robotic systems. In this context autonomous means that no or only a limited human intervention is necessary.” source

Apparently, this year’s Robocup was one of the most interesting ever. Stuttgart’s team of cooperative soccer-playing robots advanced steadily through the competition, a total of thirteen teams representing eight different countries. They stripped the title from last year’s winners, Portugal, and blazed through their worthy foes (neighboring Austria and Italy, as well as teams from Iran, China, and, of course, Japan) before meeting The Netherlands on the field. The final test for the winning team was to play against the human officials of the Robocup Federation, against whom our valiant Stuttgart robots were as of yet no match.  However, considering the advancements that have been made in the Robocup and in the field of robotics itself in the last few years, it would not surprise me in the least if the goal of the Robocup is met well before their 2050 deadline!

RoboGames invites the best minds from around the world to compete in over 70 different events. Combat robots, walking humanoids, soccer bots, sumo bots, and even androids that do kung-fu. Some robots are autonomous, some are remote controlled – but they’re all cool! As an open event, anyone can compete – this means you.

This year the event is in San Francisco, June 12-14.

Alexis is actually from San Francisco – which proves a long running theory I have that she may actually be a robot. Which is cool. Like, seriously cool.

Go check it out!

We won’t deny it; Don and I love us some Lego, but when we found out about the FIRST Lego League, we fell in love with Lego all over again! FIRST holds a number of competitions, with leagues forming for kids as young as six, and they are heavily focused on bringing robotics and electronics to children. We applaud their monumental efforts in bringing together kids from all over the world under their common interest in robotics!

Founder Dean Kamen:  ”Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.” 

Well said!

Click here to learn more about the FIRST Lego League, for kids ages 9-14, or here to join/start a team for the 2009 event! If your child has particiapted in a Bots 4 Tots workshop and is interested in exploring robotics further, please consider recommending joining a local team to continue his or her adventure in learning! 

Still disappointed in not having found a thriving robot race living on the moon upon our arrival, mankind now seeks to seed one. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Ansari X Prize (to build a privately funded craft that reaches a sub-orbit of 100 km twice in two weeks) that was won in 2004?  It seems that the newest iteration, the Google Lunar X Prize, has the goal of putting robots on the moon!

“The Google Lunar X PRIZE is a $30 million competition for the first privately funded team to send a robot to the moon, travel 500 meters and transmit video, images and data back to the Earth.” (source) Why is this so awesome? Beyond the fact that it has to do with robots on the moon, this is a call to action to non-government entities, essentially people like you and me, to explore robotics. We at B4T think of the X Prize as a trend toward the future of Do-It-Yourselfery wherein the people of Earth, not just vast government agencies or faceless super-scientists, are asked to take part in furthering the human race. Such a program as the Google Lunar X Prize encourages everyone to recognize that he or she is capable of considering the great possibilities of robotics and space travel, and plants in him or her a knowledge that he or she may have that special spark of inspiration that cannot come from anyone else.

We will announce this competition to the kids taking part in our workshops, to show them that the cutting edge of robotics is attainable and open to everyone. Maybe they will be the submitters to the Martian X Prize, or the ones that put the finishing touches on artificial intelligence. With the proper beginning, and the drive to keep at it, these kids can do anything with robotics that they want to. More than ever before, robotic engineering opportunities are open to all!