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!

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 San Jacinto College of Pasadena, TX, in conjunction with the National Science Foundation, is hosting a series of week-long summer camps called Robot Extravaganza. In these camps, eight and ninth graders are participating in problem solving, field trips and projects that focus on the fascinating world of robotics! This is Robot Extravagnaza’s second year, and this year they are offering three levels of difficulty in their courses. We applaud the teachers, students and parents involved in the planning and participation of this camp! The Bots4Tots teams sends a resounding “holla at ‘cha”! 

The Robot Extravaganza planners and partners, such as the N.S.F., want not only to introduce today’s young American student to the fascinating world of technology, but moreover to engage and educate him/her in that world. The goal is to prepare the coming generation of professional minds in such a way that, as their hobbies perhaps evolve into careers, they can make an impact on and improve the technology of our world.

“This program is interested in addressing such questions as:  What does it take to effectively interest and prepare students to participate in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce of the future?  What are the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that students need in order to participate productively in the changing STEM workforce and be innovators, particularly in STEM-related networked computing and information and communication technology (ICT) areas?” source

The students are using the Lego System Mindstorm’s NXT kits; they are making robotic arms, anthropomorphic robots, canimorphic robots (that’s “robot doggies” in layman’s), and they are even designing and creating their own robots as well!

“And, it can even get a little competitive: after building their own robots, campers are told to build a difficult maze. ‘The first task is can they themselves go through their own maze, and the second is can they go through their opponents’ maze,’ [camp director Johnny] Moya said.” source

See for yourself:

Also, a local news channel in Texas featured this unique camp this week. You can see a video clip from that feature here!

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!

The robot named Madeline is pictured above. She is one of the robots currently being studied at Vassar College’s labs to further students’ understanding of the kind of evolution that took place over 500 million years ago. By mimicking subtle changes in the animal’s skeletal structure or appendages, the students are observing which changes are working better in a simulated predator/prey environment, and thus modeling the process of natural selection.

Take a moment to consider how fascinating this use of robotics is. There has hitherto been no way to study these long extinct creatures accurately with respect to physical changes. Computer simulation programs are fallible, and do not afford the researcher the chance to observe the results. Robotics changes all of that! The popularity of this method of biological simulation in the study of evolution is becoming widespread as the science of robotics progresses because the movement of robots is becoming increasingly organic and fine-tunable.

“At Harvard University, George Lauder, professor of organismic and evolutionary biology, studies fish locomotion with the aid of robotic fins. He says scientists are not trying to build spitting images of animals, but rather to mimic certain characteristics – a fin or a spinal column – to study how they work. Scientists then alter that characteristic to see how it affects performance…’The thing about robots is, robots can’t violate the laws of physics,’ he said. ‘A computer program can.’ Lauder said there’s no substitute for building a device that can replicate the minutely complex features of an animal. He expects the rise of robots in biological research to accelerate as more advances are made.” source

Check out this video to see the Vassar College students at work! 

Read this, and think about the mechanics of what you are doing the next time you take on a flight of staris. I know I will!

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!

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!