Robotics Weekly #3

Robotics Weekly

Issue #3

25.12.2015

Featured article:

• 14 Robotics Breakthroughs From the Past Decade - End of year is nice time for summaries of past achievements. In this article (from 2013) we have nice summary of year after year robotics achievements.

Articles and videos:

• hitchBOT - There are more and more discussions about possible dangers and risks of creating advanced robots and artificial intelligence. But is anyone considering how we, humans will interact with robots? Will we help them with their problems or will we harm them and release our hate towards them? Actually some people are considering this situations. They build simple humanoid robot and sent him on hitch hiking trip. Surprisingly people were very helpful to hitchBOT except for pretty big incident in Philadelphia.
• Dobot - Ever wanted to have industry quality robotics arm on your desktop? Check out Dobot. It is Arduino compatible, easy to program and easy to use.
• Watch These Drones Build a Rope Bridge - When I was younger I loved to watch adventure movies like Indiana Jones. There were many scenes when some adventure hunters were crossing rope bridge. Usually at the end of scene such bridges were spectacularly destroyed and no one even though how hard will it be to rebuild it. That was one of most annoying thing in those movies for me. But finally ETH Zurich researchers come with brilliant solution: why can't we build rope bridge with help of autonomous drones? The results are astonishing.
• GlaDOS as 3d printed ceiling lamp - Do you remember Wheatley from last issue of Robotics Weekly? If you like it, you definitely should check another "character" form Portal 2. This time it is even practical, because this GlaDOS can perform also like ceiling lamp.
• Robot Pro-Wrestling Dekinnoka! - Welcome in strange land of Japanese entertainment. Forget about simple box shaped sumo robots which are pushing them selfs out of dohyō. Check those videos from Dekinnoka tournaments where humanoid remote controlled robots are fighting each other. To be honest, they are rather funny than amazing but still worth watching.
• Simple Bots - List of instructables projects of very very simple robots which can be build based on toothbrush or ruler.
• Drifting Robot Car - How can simple drifting remote controlled car be upgraded? Simple, make it autonomous drifting car. And this slow motion shot was very impressive.
• RiSE V2 and V3 - Do you remember tree climbing robot from previous issue of Robotics Weekly? Boston Dynamics also have their own approach to this problem. But their solution also works on walls, so it might be slightly better approach.

Crowdfunding:

• Thimble - When I was young kid, I loved to buy Dinosaurs magazine issued on 2 week base. Apart of magazine, there were simple plastic dinosaur bones and instruction how to connect them to make one big model. I loved anticipation for new issue and parts. Now, Thimble team tries to do something similar with simple robotics education kits. It seems that they already achieved their funding goal, but it still might be worth to check them out.

Book of the week:

• Tinkering: Kids Learn by Making Stuff - Looking for tinkering ideas and projects that might be done with larger groups of kids? You should check this book. Author proposes some tinkering activities with lot of explanation and references for further "research". And apart of that he tries to distill the hows and whys of tinkering kids and give tips and tricks based oh his own experiences.

Courses:

• Robotics: Mobility - OK, so you have idea of how your robot will look and what is his purpose, but you have no idea how to make him to move? In this Coursera MOOC you will learn how to think and design robots which will move in a way that you intent to. There will be also following topics discussed: mobility in animals and robots, kinematics and dynamics of legged machines, and design of dynamical behavior via energy landscapes.

Jobs:

• Equipment Engineer, Robotics @ Tesla Motors - If you are looking for job in industrial robotics, Tesla Motors might be good choice. You still have to had a loot of experience, but I bet that you can learn something new there.

Humor:

• Happy Holidays - Well, those reindeer might not be flying yet, but who knows who will deliver presents next Christmas :).

Kudos:

Michał Neonek, MrValgad, Tompul

Appendix:

Do you have link to cool news, article, tutorial or video and want to share with other robot fans? Send it to me and if meet quality standards I will include it in next issue of Robotics Weekly.

Don't forget to subscribe Robotics Weekly!
You can also sponsor this magazine.

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Robotics Weekly #2

Robotics Weekly

Issue #2

18.12.2015

Featured article:

• How to get started (and progress) in robotics - quick and simple guide about getting started in robotics world. It has hints and tips for kids, teenagers and adults and saves hardcore robotics engineering for the last step.

Articles and videos:

• HRP-4C - pretty cool Japanese  robot which was designed to look like average 30 years old Japanese woman. Most interesting in this robot is its ability to walk almost naturally.
• Bolt Stiller Show Reel Behind the Scenes (minimally NSFW) - do you know that high precision robot arms are used for high FPS cameras in some scenes? As you can see in above video, such robot enables precision movement and recording in time windows which is practically to small to any human camera operator. You totally need to watch final cut of this video (also slightly NSFW).
• How differential gear works? - Ever wandered how differential gear works? Check out this vintage video which explains in very simple way how such gear is built. Maybe you will use it in your next rover project?
• Portal 2 Wheatley - If you played Portal 2 game you probably can easily recognize "robot" Wheatley. He likes to talk and look around. Check out this excellent replica which mimics him just like he would be taken directly from game.
• Spot - yes, it is another four leg dog like robot from Boston Dynamics. It is smaller that other "big" robots from BD, but also it is pretty agile, quick and autonomous. I can watch movie with it over and over again.
• Treebot - Can new types of motion be invented and applied to robots? For example caterpillar type of movement? Looks like yes. In this quite old video you can observe simple robot that climbs different trees easily. It seems that checking nature for inspiration can give very good results.
• Giant Robot Duel Kickstarted - I'm totally excited with thoughts about possible future fight between two big combat robots. Will we see epic battle of robots from USA and Japan? Obviously Japan will invest in melee combat, will it be enough?
• GoPiGo - still missing gift for Christmas? Maybe you still can grab one of those small and simple Raspberry Pi based robots. GoPiGo seems to be nice as a starter pack leading to more sophisticated robot ideas.

Crowdfunding:

• HEW - simple 6 axis robot arm which is designed to stand on your desk and do stuff. It is controlled by PWM so it can be used with Arduino or Raspberry Pi and programmed with Python and Scratch among other programming languages.

Book of the week:

• Paper Inventions - Do you know that you can make pretty neat constructions and circuits based on paper? Yes, ordinary peace of paper! Enter the world of paper crafts with help of experienced writer Kathy Ceceri and never look the at paper in the same way again!

Courses:

• Computational Motion Planning - part 2 of Coursera robotics specialization. This course is dedicated to most common approaches to addressing motion planning problem including graph-based methods, potential fields, randomized planners and optimization-based methods.

Jobs:

• Researcher/Robotics Software Engineer (Self-Driving Car) @ Google[x] - are you interested in self driving cars? Do you know how to work with LIDAR and and can write safety-critical, efficient C++ code? Maybe this job is perfect for you.

Humor:

• The Breakfast Machine - future is now.

Kudos:

Michał Neonek, MrValgad, Tompul

Appendix:

Do you have link to cool news, article, tutorial or video and want to share with other robot fans? Send it to me and if meet quality standards I will include it in next issue of Robotics Weekly.

Don't forget to subscribe Robotics Weekly!
You can also sponsor this magazine.

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Robotics Weekly #1

Robotics Weekly

Issue #1

11.12.2015

Featured article:

• Can my robot recognize stuff? - Google has recently announced that they released Google Cloud Vision API. This means, that if your robot is connected to Internet and have video camera, you can use their API and try to recognize objects which your robot see. This could also work for detecting/guessing emotions of person.

Articles and videos:

• The odds of a machine doing your job - cool infographics about predictions of machines replacing humans on job markets. Not so surprising but still interesting.

• F3Expo - Masters of Freestyle Finals - Skitzo FPv - mad remote controlled quadcopter skills. I'm starting to feel nauseous just by watching it.
• Raspberry Pi robot as a gift - comparison of three Raspberry Pi robot kits for beginners. It might be great idea for Christmas gift.
• Coactive learning technique - are you afraid that someday a robot will  accidentally slice your guts? Maybe you should teach him that this is not desired process.
• How to build your first robot tutorial - Simple 14-part tutorial which shows how to build your first robot.
• Robots and ... fashion? - Robot without any functionality? Can this make any sense? It looks like yes, if you are fashion designer and plan to wear it.

Crowdfunding:

• Fleye - very interesting flying robot in form of basketball which is supposed to be taking cool images/videos autonomously. And since it has ball form it should be safer than traditional drone.

Book of the week:

• Make: Making Simple Robots - book about getting started with robots world. Parts of this book are dedicated to get you familiar with simple tinkering concepts, CAD software, and Arduino boards. You probably will bot build super humanoid robot after this book, but you will be able to check it this stuff is right for you. If you are quick (till 17th of December 2015), you can get this and other book on Humble Books Bundle.

Courses:

• Aerial Robotics - first of series of courses on Coursera related to robotics. This course is dedicated to moving in three dimensional cluttered environments.

Jobs:

• Software Engineer / Robotics Engineer @ Boston Dynamics - do you know C/C++ in real time applications? Do you love working with sensors, digital signal processing and putting data over networks? Go to their website and who knows, maybe you will be designing cool robots in no time ;)

Humor:

• XKCD - What can happen when you permute Asimov laws of robotics?  

Kudos:

Michał Neonek

Appendix:

Do you have link to cool news, article, tutorial or video and want to share with other robot fans? Send it to me and if meet quality standards I will include it in next issue of Robotics Weekly.

Don't forget to subscribe Robotics Weekly!

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Carbon Xprize

Psst!

I heard that you want to make difference in our world. That you want to do some hardcore and cool science for greater good. You are in good place buddy... good place. I want to give you quest, which once completed will change world to be a better place. Apart of that it will give you fame, and should give you some money. But this quest is very hard, and seems almost impossible to achieve. So it sounds like something worth trying, isn't it? Are you still with me? Good! I would like to tell you about carbon dioxide. You think this is boring? Wait till end of my story, and then please tell me what do you think ;).

What can we do from
carbon dioxide?

So, whats the deal with carbon dioxide? It's quite big I would say. Since humankind entered industrial age, we are producing and releasing it into atmosphere in huge amounts, practically without any control. And we know from series of repeated experiments, that releasing such amounts of CO_2 is changing our atmosphere and thus biosphere, in unwanted way. In short words, we are constantly polluting our living place which is our planet. And you know what is most funny? Carbon dioxide which is great factor of air pollution, is also resource. Yes, resource. It means that there are people which are making CO_2 and sell it to other people which are using it in their processes. I'm not expert in that, but you can easily check general applicability of CO_2 for example on Wikipedia.

So, if freely released into atmosphere in gigantic amount carbon dioxide hurts our biosphere, and there are some industries which consider carbon dioxide as an asset, why not connect this supply with demand, make some money and save the world? Exactly, why not?

And here comes big quest from me. Well, not from me to be honest, but from Xprize Foundation lead by Peter Diamandis. The deal is following: Build best solution to extract carbon dioxide form flue gas stream consistent with emissions from coal power generation or from natural gas power generation. Prove that your solution is the best and you will receive 7,5 M USD. But there are also some restrictions to add more excitement to competition. First restriction is related to efficiency of extraction of CO_2. To have chance of winning in this competition, proposed solution must extract at least 30% of available CO_2 in power plant fumes. Second restriction says that solution must use at most 4 cubic meters of water for each extracted ton of carbon dioxide. Last restriction defines dimension of proposed solution. It must fit in 2300 square meters.

Since we know now what is the quest, the last thing we need is to know how to enter competition. You need to go to Carbon Xprize website and register there. If you enter competition after march 2015 you will need to pay 8000 USD entry fee for desired competition track, and if you enter before march fee will be 5000 USD. You will probably need to organize general liability insurance, but this is matter which need to be consulted with professionals from insurance companies.

And this is more or less all. If you are interested in solving global carbon dioxide problem, there will be no better moment and motivation. Of course, this competition is extremely hard, partially because of rules, and partially by potential competition. But should we be scared of it? ;)