Automaton

Just in case you'd ever lain awake at night wondering to yourself how you might build a robotic hand you could eat... well, wonder no more.

More information can be found at the MAYA Make group's website. Happy fooding.

Brown professor Odest Chadwicke Jenkins and his students have invented a new game: RoombaTag. Here's a first-hand account:

We have currently implemented a robot game server and clients for playing the example game of "RoombaTag." RoombaTag follows the basic format of most first-person tag games, where each player's objective is to "tag'' other robots more than they get tagged. Each player controls a single robot given a video feed from their robot's perspective. A successful tag results in scoring a point for the tagger and a momentary freezing of the controls of the tagged robot.

RoombaTag uses our robotic platform, named "SmURV'' (Small Universal Robot Vehicle) in an iRobot Create with a Mini-ITX form factor computer. The Smurv also has a Unibrain Fire-I camera as a visual sensor and an IR emitter attached to the Create functioning as an "IR cannon.'' The ITX machine runs Linux (SLAS distribution) and Player/Stage robot server from a flash memory card, allowing both control of the robot hardware via TCP/IP over wireless and execution of onboard robot controllers.

Game state shared between multiple Smurvs are implemented in a game server. The game server that acts as a mediator, a referee and a switchboard between the set of physical robots and the users controlling the robots through the internet. Users control a robot through a client-side Java application that communicates with the game server.

The Smurv bots are currently controlled using keyboards, but the Brown group plans to replace them with Wii-mote controllers.

To learn more, check out their Robot Learning through Embodied Gaming page.

On July 26th, the MIT Museum here in Cambridge, Mass was full of some of the best and brightest roboticists in the area. The Boston chapter of TiE partnered with Robotics Trends to bring together experts to talk about the robotics industry and where it was headed.

Neena Buck, an industry analyst at MIT, and Dan Kara, president of Robotics Trends, introduced the robotics industry to the audience of mostly software entrepreneurs. Helen Greiner, co-founder and chairman of iRobot, gave a keynote about her company and the lessons learned over the last fifteen years. Finally, a panel spent some time answering questions from moderator Dan Kara and the audience. The panel was comprised of a Media Lab PhD candidate named Cory Kidd, also the founder of company Intuitive Automata; Joe Jones, CTO and Co-Founder of Q Robotics and also one of the inventors of the Roomba; Rory MacKean, R&D Manager at Mobile Robots (formerly ActivMedia); and Chris Wallsmith, CKO at Bluefin Robotics (he also has the dubious honor of being my boss).

The panel was fascinating, not just in terms of the answers they gave to the questions, but also to see what sorts of questions were asked by the not-necessarily-roboticist audience. A few interesting points and observations:

• Asia vs the US: there's a well known split in the attitudes toward robots in the US versus in Japan and South Korea. In Asia, it goes, robots are often humanoid (or canine-oid, in the case of Aibo), are meant to interact directly with people, and are thought of --and designed to be -- as pets or companions. In the US, robots are for "dull/dirty/dangerous" tasks like manufacturing or defense and are generally thought of as tools. This may be changing in the US, though. Helen Greiner had stories of Roomba customers asking for *their* Roomba to be repaired, not a replacement unit. Military PackBot operators give awards to the robots as though they are part of the human team and, like the Roomba owners, want their own robot repaired, not to have a new one sent to them. It will be interesting to see how these attitudes drive designs of the next generation of US robots, and whether the US and Asia begin to converge on their designs.
• The "killer app": there were many questions from the audience about what the panelists thought the "killer app" was for the robotics industry -- not a surprising question from those who work in software. What was surprising was the panel's almost unanimous response: there is none, because robots will literally be everywhere. Chris Wallsmith pointed out that robots are much like computers; that is, computers are everywhere -- your laptop, your cell phone, your car, your calculator -- but people don't call them computers. Similarly, he said, your car will be robotic, your kitchen will be robotic, your personal fitness trainer will be robotic... but they'll be called cars, kitchens, and trainers. Not robots.
• Training for robotics: a hypothetical investor in the audience asked what one should look for in evaluating the experience of people proposing a new robotic technology to VCs. The panelists all had different answers -- a background in psychology may help with the design of interfaces and interactions; a broad engineering base is needed to build up the electrical, mechanical, and software systems of a robot; membership in the target customer base lends credibility to the design. The only agreement seemed to be that a broadly experienced group is necessary for success.

So where is the industry headed? Everywhere, it seems. The good news is that not a single person in the room seemed at all pessimistic about the robotics industry; there's funding for startups, a healthy US defense research funding source, rapid growth of new technologies and new ways for people to interact with machines, and growing acceptance of robots working for and with humans. It's an exciting time.

Not Leonardo the artist. No, not the ninja turtle, either. Leonardo is a gremlin-like robot at the MIT Media Lab who was the main attraction in a series of user studies a couple of weeks ago, one of which I got to participate in.

Leonardo was built for the Personal Robots group (I seem to recall them being called "Robotic Life" at one point), headed by Dr. Cynthia Breazeal, to study social interaction with robots. Leonardo can't walk or talk, but he can make a few facial expressions and manipulate a few objects with his eerily lifelike (though not very dextrous) little hands.

The study I was participating in was part of post-doc Andrea Thomaz's research into how humans understand the learning process and how machines can learn from them. She asked me to see if I could teach Leonardo (and if I recognized when I had taught him) to perform a few tasks on a toy box in front of him: pushing a button to change light colors, flipping two switches, and trying to learn the right combinations to open and close the box. Working with Leonardo was a little strange. I'd seen pictures before, but was surprised to find him almost three feet tall (well taller than me when he was standing on a desk). Interacting with him at first felt awkward, but soon I was learning forward on the desk gently urging him to learn what he needed to learn, much in the same way as I might teach a toddler to tie his shoes. He could only respond to a limited set of commands like "Try to flip the switch right, Leo" and to feedback like "Not quite!" or "Good job, Leo!". In the end, I sent him into an infinite loop of switch-flipping (ah, bugs), so my robot-teaching prowess remains unknown. But it was my first time personally interacting with a "humanoid" robot.

And I just noticed now I've been calling him "he" throughout this whole entry. They must have done a good job anthropomorphizing him for me...

At any rate, the study was less about robots than it was about cognition and learning, but I was thrilled to have the chance to check Leonardo out. His command set is limited to whichever program a Lab researcher happens to have loaded on him for the day, so we won't be seeing Leos in our homes pushing buttons and flipping switches for us any time soon. But it was a fascinating glimpse into how I might some day interact with a robot in my house. Hopefully the infinite loops will have been fixed by then.

Hexapod robots have long fascinated roboticists, and now you can find the six-legged creatures swimming in the Caribbean or harvesting timber in Finland. There's also a legion of do-it-yourselfers creating their own hexapods just because it's fun.

One of them is J. de Vries, a 42-year-old webdesigner from Neustrelitz, Germany. When he's not taking care of his daughters (15-month twins), de Vries works on Marvin, the hexapod in the image below.

Marvin uses nine Atmel microcontrollers (ATmega16, 32, and 64) and 20 servomotors. It's only 30 to 40 percent finished, de Vries says, adding that he plans to include some onboard sensors after perfecting Marvin's locomotion.

"I don't have any degree in engineering and I never saw an university from inside," de Vries says. "But since I was 12 years old, my dream was to build a robot. ... Last year I learned a lot about microcontrollers, servomotors and the required electronics while building a quadcopter with brushless motors. And that was the beginning of realizing my old robot dream."

De Vries has a web page with videos, images, and technical details on Marvin (in German).

I thought this was pretty hilarious -- and devoted readers may recognize Leonardo from an earlier post!

Click To Play

I finally had time to read Robin Marantz Henig's 8000-word piece on sociable robots in the New York Times Magazine. In the article, Henig, a contributing writer for the magazine, describes what scientists mean when they talk about "sociable robots," how such robots were designed to learn by interacting with their environments, and what are the issues involving robot learning, robot emotion, and robot boyfriends.

Henig does a great job explaining how the robots work, sometimes by "peeking behind the curtain" -- the robots are mostly MIT robots, old and new, including the metal torso Cog, the bushy-eyebrowed Kismet, the talkative head Mertz, the mop-topped Autom, the Gremlinlike Leonardo, the skyscraperish Domo, and the rubbery bulgy-eyed Rodney (OK, joking about this last one).

More interesting, perhaps, Henig describes instances in which the robots misbehave, or work in a somewhat disappointing way, and hey, that's how engineering happens in the real world, so it was neat to see that in the article as well (by the way, I loved the cover headline, which to me captures the essence of this emerging field: "It Understands (Sort Of)." An excerpt:

Today’s humanoids are not the sophisticated machines we might have expected by now, which just shows how complicated a task it was that scientists embarked on 15 years ago when they began working on a robot that could think. . . . They are, instead, hunks of metal tethered to computers, which need their human designers to get them going and to smooth the hiccups along the way.

But these early incarnations of sociable robots are also much more than meets the eye. Bill Gates has said that personal robotics today is at the stage that personal computers were in the mid-1970s. . . . In much the same way, the robots being built today, still unwieldy and temperamental even in the most capable hands, probably offer only hints of the way we might be using robots in another 30 years.

After reading the article, I wanted to see some of those machines in action, and it's just great you can find so many videos of them (the Times posted a bunch on the article's web page). But as a writer myself I also wanted to know more about Henig's experience writing the article. Having just returned from vacation, she was kind enough to promptly answer my questions -- thanks, Robin! (Follow the link below to read the Q&A.)

The National Underwater Robotics Challenge [warning: frames, marquees, and other non-standard HTML abound], sponsored by Honeywell Hometown Solutions, is held yearly at Chandler High School in Arizona. Teams of students of almost any age can work together to build a remotely operated vehicle capable of performing some sort of underwater mission -- the 2008 competition (to be held next June) requires the ROVs to work around a crashed plane carrying vials of an important medicine and perform a number of tasks.

In addition to a neat "how-to" page full of cheap ways to design and build subsystems for the ROVs, the organization now sells a complete ROV kit of parts, complete with instruction manual, for $250. Even if you're not part of the competition, this would be a neat thing to explore a backyard swimming pool or lake!

Check out some of the videos of the missions to see what the students have done.

Each year I get a handful of family members and acquaintances asking if I know about any robot kits their kids or grandkids might like for [insert winter holiday of choice here]. Since I know the question is coming from one of my uncles this year (howdy, Uncle Jim!), I figured I'd head it off at the pass and write it all down now for anyone else who's asking the same question.

So after the jump, ladies and gents -- the Automaton Guide to Robot Kits, Version 1.0!

iRobot wasn't the only company to introduce new products at Digital Life yesterday in New York City. Spykee, designed by a French company and marketed in the US by Erector (of Erector set fame) may compete with the iRobot ConnectR as an Internet-controlled telepresence robot. Spykee, which will cost $299 when it's released in November, is available in one of three configurations -- which you build yourself. Once built, Spykee can be used as a digital music player, VOIP phone (over Skype), do audio and video, and be controlled remotely as "video surveillance". It also appears to auto-dock for recharging whenever it needs to.

Though this only really appeals to budding mechanical engineers, Spykee might appeal to the young'uns as a robot kit as well as a toy.

What conferences can professional roboticists attend? How can a high school student in Des Moines get involved with a robotics team? What engineering camps can a middle schooler attend? The just-launched RobotEvents.com has put together calendars and directories of all the events your inner robot geek could possibly want to see. Alternatively, those seeking to promote their robotics-related organizations, competitions, and off-season events can advertise them (for a fee) on the site. This is a really nice way to bring all the cool stuff together in one place -- and check out the neat fundraising plan they recommend to teams trying to raise money!

For anyone in the Boston, Mass area, you might be interested in this event at MIT tomorrow (Wednesday) night, a session called "Robots: The Next Wave of the Robot Revolution" that will "explore the advancing robot invasion across all of those sectors." There's a panel of speakers from a few robotics companies, networking receptions, and recruiting (I'll be there representing Bluefin). There's a small registration fee, though it's free for students.

The Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts is the first and currently only college or university in the nation to offer an undergraduate robotics engineering degree. The school is kicking off the program tomorrow with a Symposium event called "Engineering the Revolution", where attendees will hear from industry superstars about the role roboticists will play in the near future. Registration is still open.

Even if you can't make it to the event, definitely check out the major itself. This is a really great new program built not only on what broad theoretical background roboticists will need to really make a difference, but on the practical, hands-on experience for students to prepare themselves for the workforce. (And both Erico and I are big fans of that!)

The previous DARPA Grand Challenge competition -- a trip through the Nevada desert taken by autonomous vehicles-- took two tries to get right; the first year, not a single vehicle made it across the finish line. The second year was a much better showing -- four vehicles finished -- and winner Stanford University took away the $2 million prize.

This year's DARPA Urban Challenge took the robots out of the desert and into a (simulated) city. Teams had to build vehicles capable of "executing simulated military supply missions while merging into moving traffic, navigating traffic circles, negotiating busy intersections, and avoiding obstacles." Since this was the first year of this style of competition, many people wondered if it would have the same problems as the first year in the desert -- lots of failures and no one completing the course.

We needn't have worried. Of the 11 vehicles that were allowed to enter the final round of the competition, six finished the course -- though only three teams, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, and Virginia Tech, finished under the 6 hour time limit.

The MIT vehicle waits at an intersection as a (human-driven) car makes a turn.
Photo Credit: JOHN VOELCKER

So what drives these vehicles (since it's not humans)? The short answer: lots of sensors and lots of computing power. Nearly all the vehicles had some sort of array of laser range scanners arranged on the front -- though while MIT used more than 10, the UPenn entry got away with just 2. A key player in that technology was Velodyne, developers of a high-def LIDAR unit based on their work in the first two DARPA Challenges -- they stayed out of this year's event in order to continue developing their LIDAR technology. Additionally, LIDAR units designed by IBEO and SICK (an old favorite of DARPA teams) were other popular additions to the sensor suite. Stereo vision complimented the laser sensors, and of course, differential GPS receivers and inertial measurement units (IMUs) were must-haves.

While hardware integration is no easy task, software was just as daunting. A layer of hardware interface ("What does the LIDAR say?") under a layer of navigation and control ("Where am I, where do I have to go, how far do I turn the steering wheel, and how fast do I have to go?) under a layer of behavior ("Hm, a stopped car. Wait behind it, or drive around it?") makes for some intense coding. Take the Carnegie Mellon vehicle, which required over 300,000 lines of code to run the 2007 vehicle. Some COTS tools made this easier for teams such as Virginia Tech, who used LabView to "provide the major functions of the vehicle including image acquisition and processing, systems communication, vehicle health monitoring, and vehicle control. A NI Compact RIO system [provided] steering, throttle, and braking control, as well as reading CAN-bus sensors," said NI representative Trisha McDonell.

With the impressive success of the vehicles on Saturday, is my human-driven car suddenly old fashioned? Not so, say the experts. Forbes had a nice article on the competition, and specifically quoted Stanford team leader Sebastian Thrun:

In the eyes of Stanford's team leader, Sebastian Thrun ... the world is still years away from driverless autos. "I'm positively enthused that this race has a winner," he said. "But we’re witnessing the painful birth of a new technology, and this is the first of many hours of labor."

Fair enough, Dr. Thrun. I'll settle for a car that can park itself for the time being.

Special thanks to John Voelcker for insight and photos from the field