A pardon we beg from all of our bot-tastic readers and Twitter-followers for such a prolonged absence! Our two week adventure turned into four times that, packed full of traveling, family and investigations into prospective opportunities for future Bots 4 Tots development. To be certain, though, our minds were never far from the world of robotics!

One of our adventures took Don and I to Science World at TELUS World of Science in Vancouver, British Columbia. There, we were delighted by the robotic band in the Our World exhibit; we brought it to life for our enjoyment purely by alternate energy sources FTW! Also, we visited Science World’s Omnimax Theatre where we viewed the very well-executed and touching film, Roving Mars. Robots in space get me every time.

But wait, there’s more! Our good friends at Luscious Layers, who have kindly provided cupcakes for our participating Bots 4 Tots youngsters in the past, have asked for our help in roboticizing (I just made that word up. Take that Merriam-Webster.) cakes. Yes, you read correctly. Robot cakes. Boosh. We started where most burgeoning hobby electronics projects start: we lit an LED. In our first cooperative project, we effected a very impressive cake that included lit LEDs as part of the sky-motif decoration. It is a rather extraordinary design because all you need to do is insert the LEDs into the cake and they will light up, and furthermore you can cut a slice including an LED out of it and the slice will come out cleanly and the LED will turn off as the slice separates from the rest of the cake. Can you guess how we did it? Hint: we did not electrify the cake.

And then there was Halloween, quite possibly our favorite day of the year. It turns out that this is also true for our friends at Luscious Layers; they decided that this “All Hallows Even” was the perfect opportunity to take our epicurean madness to the next level. Behold: the Arduino-animated, palatable-yet-programmable, raucously-raspberry-filled-red-velvet Zombie Cake from Beyond the Grrrraaavvve! Where will we go from here? Only time will tell.

Last but not least, we have also been spending a good deal of these past two months discussing the future of Bots 4 Tots. Don and I have decided to make some exciting site and program changes, which I will post more on in the very near future! We are also in the midst of planning our upcoming Winter 2009 auction (featuring the always awesome Bunk Bots), the specifics of our planned Winter 2009/2010 workshop sessions, and lots of other good stuff to ensure that kids will be building robots well into the new year. Thanks to all of you who have helped and are helping to make Bots 4 Tots a successful program!

Asimo’s at it again! This wily robot is on the cutting edge of B.M.I., short for Brain Machine Interface., and can be seen above doing a jolly little jig after the successful interfpretation of a man’s thoughts into action. Yes, that’s right, folks! Great strides have been taken in the interdisciplinary study of human thought and robotic commands, because this year the Honda Research Institute, in coordination with Advanced Telecommunications Research (ATR) and Shimadzu Corporation, have announced an overwhelming 90% accuracy rate in their application of Brain Machine Interface, the most successful in all the world and quite impressive by itself. But get this: the accuracy rate stated above has been acheived using subjects who have not undergone special training! Wowee!

“Honda Research Institute Japan Co., Ltd. (HRI-JP), a subsidiary of Honda R&D Co., Ltd., Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR) and Shimadzu Corporation have collaboratively developed the world’s first*1 Brain Machine Interface (BMI) technology that uses electroencephalography (EEG) and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) along with newly developed information extraction technology to enable control of a robot by human thought alone. It does not require any physical movement such as pressing buttons. This technology will be further developed for the application to human-friendly products in the future by integrating it with intelligent technologies and/or robotic technologies.

During the human thought process, slight electrical current and blood flow change occur in the brain. The most important factor in the development of the BMI technology is the accuracy of measuring and analyzing these changes. The newly developed BMI technology uses EEG, which measures changes in electrical potential on the scalp, and NIRS, which measures changes in cerebral blood flow, with a newly developed information extraction technology which enables statistical processing of the complex information from these two types of sensors. As a result, it became possible to distinguish brain activities with high precision without any physical motion, but just human thought alone.

The BMI technology announced by HRI-JP and ATR in 2006 used a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner to measure brain activities. The large size and powerful magnetic field generated by the fMRI scanner limited the locations and conditions where it can be used. As the newly developed measuring device uses EEG and NIRS sensors, it can be transported to and used in various locations.” source

The original MRI scanner project can be seen in the video above, and is explained in greater detail here.

It may only be in the Honda labs at this time, but the idea that future robots will be in our homes, reading our minds and doing our mental bidding… well, let me just say that I cannot imagine this will result only in a gaggle of Asimos dusting the mantle and watering the plants. Rather, I see a craving for brownies suddenly being met by the sound of a blender, and a casual hatred of the music one’s neighbor is playing loudly turning into an awkward situation wherein one suddenly needs to restrain a robot helper from knocking down said neighbor’s door. Or, not. Better start curbing those brownie cravings now… my neighbor, however, can deal.

“Death and the Powers” is the first Robotic Opera ever produced, and is currently in development as a collaborative project by the MIT Media Lab and the American Repertory Theater. It is scheduled to open Fall of next year (2010), premiering internationally at locations including the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) in Massachusetts as well as the Chicago Opera Theater. Read on! You really want to hear the rest of this, it’s good!

What do Yo-Yo Ma, Prince and Guitar Hero have in common? Tod Machover, that’s what!

Composed by Tod Machover of MIT’s Media Lab, this opera will prove to be one of the freshest additions not only to the world of opera, but to the music world itself! See the video below to get the whole scoop directly from Mr. Machover himself. He speaks of the opera from minute 7:33 to 10:15, but I highly suggest watching the whole thing to get a better understanding of what this man does, and how he may have already changed the way humans understand and interact with music!

If you don’t have the 20 minutes it takes to watch the above video, or even the three minutes it takes to watch the segment I referred to, read this:

“It is a one-act, full evening work that tells the story of Simon Powers, a successful and powerful businessman and inventor, who wants to go beyond the bounds of humanity. Reaching the end of his life, Powers faces the question of his legacy: ‘When I die, what remains? What will I leave behind? What can I control? What can I perpetuate?’ He is now conducting the last experiment of his life, passing from one form of existence to another in an effort to project himself into the future. Whether or not he is actually alive is a question. Simon Powers is himself now a System. His family, friends and associates must decide what this means, how it affects them, and whether to follow.

New performance technologies for Death and the Powers are being developed at the MIT Media Lab, including a new technique of Disembodied Performance to translate Simon’s offstage performance into an expressively animated stage. Other novel ‘instruments’ include a Musical Chandelier and a chorus of robots.” source

Oh, and that little snippet didn’t mention the fact that the chandelier gobbles up the main character, the chorus of robots will interact, dance and perform autonomously, and that there are also living bookcases devoted to expressing the attitude of the disembodied librettist.

I have a feeling you’ve just found the time to go back and watch that clip.

]]> http://www.bots4tots.org/2009/08/24/robots-to-star-in-opera/feed/ 0 http://www.bots4tots.org/2009/08/05/bots-gov/ http://www.bots4tots.org/2009/08/05/bots-gov/#comments Wed, 05 Aug 2009 22:31:39 +0000 Alexis http://www.bots4tots.org/?p=795

Last month, the National Science Foundation hosted a luncheon at the Hart Senate Office building in Washington, D.C., in order to familiarize U.S. Senate members with the most recent advances being made in the field of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS, for short). This meeting stressed the importance of the research being done, and illustrated the importance of CPS in such varied applications as surgery, clinical trials, and traffic control as well as many other such useful or life-saving scenarios.

“The event brought together more than 50 researchers and students who are conducting CPS research across the country, giving them the opportunity to inform policymakers on Capitol Hill about how that research may impact many of the challenges the federal government is grappling with, including making health care more efficient and effective, revitalizing the auto industry and revamping the U.S. economy.

… Experts believe that CPS technologies will increasingly affect our wellbeing, security, and competitiveness, in a variety of areas including aerospace, automobiles, civil infrastructure, energy, finance, healthcare and manufacturing.” source

The National Science Foundation, an independent federal agency created in 1950, provides about twenty percent of all federally funded basic research conducted by colleges and universities in America. In other words, they are the best people there are to tell our government’s representatives: “Hey, robots are way cool!”.

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!

Imagine you are walking downtown in the middle of rush-hour. You make your way down the crowded sidewalk, easily moving side to side to avoid a collision with another person or object. It comes naturally to us, this ease of motion, and even as toddlers we can do it. It may shock you, then, to discover that the achievement of such autonomous, intelligent motion in robots has been one of the most challenging problems in the history of robotics. But that nut may have just been cracked!

Researchers at the European-funded research consortium Decisions in Motion decided to approach this problem three years ago, and as of this year they are now announcing stunning breakthroughs. The success of their team is a cooperative effort of both neuro- and cognitive scientists who study biological visual systems in humans and high-order mammals such as primates, as well as computer scientists and roboticists.

This rare amalgamation of many disciplines has proved very fruitful to the consortium. The biological researchers are engaged in a dialog with the roboticists and programmers, who then incorporate their findings into neural networks and mobile robots.

“The approach paid off. Decisions in Motion has already built and demonstrated a robot that can zip across a crowded room guided only by what it ’sees’ through its twin video cameras… The computerised brain controls the behaviour of a wheeled robotic platform supporting a movable head and eyes, in real time. It directs the head and eyes where to look, tracks its own movement, identifies objects, determines if they are moving independently, and directs the platform to speed up, slow down and turn left or right.” source

The structure of the robotic “brain” that is being developed by Decisions in Motion is very much inspired by the architecture of a high-order mammal’s biological brain, the flow of information following similar pathways through three layers, or subsystems, that then control the behavior of the robot. The secret of the solution lies in the discovery of anticipatory feedback as observed in organisms such as ourselves. When you make your way through that busy street, you are not plotting the present course so much as you are predicting the next dozen steps. I think that anyone who has misstepped can completely relate; when a person who is walking stumbles, one is already mentally taking those next few steps and it almost comes as a surprise that one is suddenly not along the plotted course anymore and is, instead, on one’s way towards the ground.

The work done by Decisions in Motion will not only benefit movementally challenged bots, but will also dictate further development in the field of electronic mobility assistance for the visually or cognitively impaired. Keep up the good work, guys!

Thought the iRobot Roombas were only good for collecting dust bunnies? Think again! At MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intellgence Laboratory (CSAIL for short), Roombas have been reimagined so that they now can collect fruit! These are no ordinary Roombas, though. As you can see above, they have been severely tinkered with to produce the above gardening robot.  At this amazing garden, a protype for a larger and more comprehensively autonomous greenhouse, the robots can water and polinate plants, locate and gather the fruit, and most amazing of all, respond to requests from the plants. Yes, I didn’t mistype: the plants can actually communicate to the robots!

“Networked sensors help the plants ‘request’ water or nutrients from their robotic gardeners… giving each plant the ability to monitor and broadcast its own physical state allows the robots to distribute resources and care on demand.” source

We may be looking at the garden of the future! But we’d better not tell any of this to Meticulor. He might get jealous.

As we mentioned earlier this year, Bunk Bots has kindly offered to donate a hefty shipment of its snuggle-tastic robots for our 2009 Winter Holiday Auction. We just received the box-o-bots, and to put it incredibly lightly, we are psyched! Click the picture above to check out all the awesome automated personalities Bunk Bots has plush-itized! Thank you for your contribution, Bunk Bots! On a side note, Don and I entered the contest we mentioned in the comment section of this post, and Don won the Spok Bunk Bot!!! Read on to see his entry and the prize!

We were so surprised to find that Don’s Spok Bunk Bot was sent along with a friend, a Night Vision Pinch! Click above to see the specs for Night Vision Pinch… he likes the ladies!

About the contest, the toy site www.plasticandplush.com asked the following question on April 06, 2009:

“Star Trek or Star Wars? And why?”

Here’s Don’s entry, a winner if I ever read one (by the way, he didn’t just come up with this on the fly, folks… this is his concrete belief):

“This is actually very simple. Though I realize fans of both have solid platforms for debate – Star Trek fans extolling the virtues of 24th century technology and Star Wars fans touting the universal influence of the force, for instance – there is one element that sets one apart from the other on a scale of merit.

And her name is Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway.

Not satisfied to enter into drawn our Star Trek moral debate or over-blasted Star Wars capital ship combat, Kathryn Janeway has a simple solution to any problem, no matter the complexity:

Point the ship at it and go. If possible, set the auto-destruct while doing so – if not, no biggie.

She is the wild card. She will see your Aluminum Falcon and raise you 700,000 metric tons black coffee fueled death wish.

You have a star destroyer? No issue, she has 2 tricobalt devices and she can deploy them while the ship is 4/5 of the way into your command console.

It’s pretty hard to use the force inside of a warp field breach – and that breach is only a command code away.

Oh, and she has removed the need for a first officer to back her decision. She tore that part out of the ship.

Remove Janeway and I think you have a 50/50 shot in any SW -VS- ST:WTF match.

Fact: She has not been removed, and will not be removed until she blows up her ship and your emperor with it.

Bonus: She once spent an episode arguing with HERSELF as to which one of her got to blow up her ship.

Double bonus: She lied and blew her own ship up before she got a chance to.”

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! 

This past Monday, President Obama spoke at the National Academy of Sciences’s annual meeting. One of his major speaking points was the importance of initiating young people into the scientific fields, and he mentions the importance of robotics no less! Check out this excerpt:

“You know, the average age in NASA’s mission control during the Apollo 17 mission was just 26. I know that young people today are just as ready to tackle the grand challenges of this century.

So I want to persuade you to spend time in the classroom, talking and showing young people what it is that your work can mean, and what it means to you.  I want to encourage you to participate in programs to allow students to get a degree in science fields and a teaching certificate at the same time.  I want us all to think about new and creative ways to engage young people in science and engineering, whether it’s science festivals, robotics competitions, fairs that encourage young people to create and build and invent — to be makers of things, not just consumers of things.”

Don and I are so happy to hear this, and we really think that President Obama would approve of the idea of Bots 4 Tots. He also remarked on this occasion: “I want to challenge you to use your love and knowledge of science to spark the same sense of wonder and excitement in a new generation,” and this is exactly what we are attempting. It’s great to see this kind of call to action, and we believe that it is an imperative message not just for Americans, but for all nations!