Robotics Weekly #8

Robotics Weekly

Issue #8

29.01.2016

Featured article:

• Throwing and catching an inverted pendulum - What can come from juggling skills combined with inverted pendulum balancing skills? It is not as surprise that it will be throwing and catching inverted pendulum ;). But surprising is that it is done by two autonomous flying drones. What else can be achieved with such precision and agility?

Articles and videos:

• Military robots and the future of war - I am pacifist so I'm trying to rather avoid topics related to using robots as a weapon. But I think that everyone should watch this TED video. Although it is quite old, P.W. Singer did complete summary of current state of robotics in war zones and possible future implications of using them.
• Ehang 184 - Forget about autonomous cars. The future is in hands of human transporting autonomous flying metropolitan quadrotors. Well, at least on visualizations from Ehang company. I wonder if they already sold at least one of those quadrotors on free market.
• Is the Future of Drones Dastardly or Daring? - Since we are at flying stuff topic, check this video. David Roberts, chairman of global drone services company, HaloDrop tries to answer few questions asked by Singularity University fans on Twitter. This short Q&A session just scratch the surface of whole topic, but it might give you few hints about current state of drones industry and about direction it might go in next couple of years.
• Modular Snake Robots - Another example of neat robot and his movement inspired directly by nature. What is most interesting here, is that this robot actually uses few independent type of movements, which you can check on trailer. At first view it may not look impressive, but if you compare type of terrains and objects on which it can move it seems that this may be good way of designing future robots.
• How robots can learn from babies - If you have a child or you had experience with toddlers, you probably had this moment (at least I had) when you observed toddler doing something that no one taught him/her. At some point you found that your approach to teach everything works on some level, but also that toddler learns other things by mimics your moves and tries to use things you are using, without any encourage, training and explanation of how to use it. In other words, it seems that robots can be taught to do something without explicit programming, if they are programmed to behave like toddler which explores word by himself. Are we at the edge of need of creating education materials for robots?
• EZWheel Omniwheel - It seems that typical rolling movement also could be easily upgraded to be more precise and agile. On this (sorry for age of this link) video you can see that this seemingly clumsy platform can be easily converted to agile platform, just by changing its wheels. I'm not sure if anyone used it in bigger projects, so if you find something related to it, please give me a ping ;).
• Want to buy a giant, rideable robot? Amazon Japan will sell you one - In previous issue of RW I linked to article about Amazon using 30K of robots as a backbone of some magazines. Amazon also sells many items from robotics assortment. But probably no one expected that they will offer Kuratas. OK, I'm not familiar with Japanese language, so this might be a fake, but if you check actual link to that offer it looks pretty valid. I promise to check it when I will have 1M USD spare money.
• DASH: A Dynamic 16g Hexapedal Robot - Another idea copied from nature. This time impressing factor is based on its resiliency and simplicity. Well, that impression might be hard to occur based on scientific publication, so here is video about it. Will we see paparazzi using such simple constructs as mounts for spy cameras?

Crowdfunding:

• CHiP: The World's First Lovable Robot Dog - If you watched Blade Runner, you can probably recall fact, that in world presented in that movie, the easy and cheap way to get a pet was to buy a robot which was carefully manufactured to look and behave as a real animal. Fortunately, there is still various animal life around us, and we have to pay extra to have robot which is designed to behave like a pet. And one of most promising approach to this concept is CHiP. It still needs some tuning, but its hard to find something comparable to it at this moment.

Book of the week:

• Robot Building for Beginners, 2nd Edition (Technology in Action) - If you are thinking about building a robot, and you believe that you are above level of Lego robots, but still below 3D seeing, gigabytes of data processing and multi degrees of freedom moving parts, this book might be perfect for you. You will be taught how to complete your tool set and components and then how to use them to build robot you designed. This book looks like serious enough to actually support you in constructing robots but is also explanatory enough so you will not have to climb you learning cliff alone.    

Courses:

• Introduction to Robotics - Another introductory course about robotics. This time it is designed and presented by Professor Oussama Khatib from Stanford University. Topics include spatial descriptions, forward kinematics, inverse kinematics, jacobians, dynamics, motion planning and trajectory generation, position and force control, and manipulator design.

Jobs:

• Senior Robotics Scientist @ iRobot Corporation - Everyone of us probably heard of iRobot company mainly because of their flag product Roomba. They are hiring to design and improve vision algorithms for their robots. Again, job offer related to cleaning industry. Maybe this is our future? Location: Bedford, USA. Tags: mathematics, slam, c, c++.

Humor:

• Almost - In past issue of Robotics Weekly I mentioned finalist of DRC 2015. You should also check of other robot which "almost" made it.

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 sponsor this magazine also through Patreon.

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License: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Robotics Weekly #7

Robotics Weekly

Issue #7

22.01.2016

Featured article:

• Amazon’s Robot Hordes Have Doubled This Year - Every time I'm telling someone that Amazon started to use robots in their warehouses I'm not sure about actual numbers. Usually, even without numbers, my interlocutors often have this "skeptic" face and even if they are accepting general idea, they are not believe that those are big numbers. But lets face the facts: 30,000 robots taking care of 426 items per second on peak hours - those are not small numbers and definitely too big to be skeptic here.

Articles and videos:

• Star Wars BB-8 V2 - [spoiler free] If you watched Star Wars Episode VII you probably wondered how much of BB-8 was done by CGI and how much by robotics/animatronics. To be honest I don't know that. But If you check this Youtube playlist you will find that it is possible to entirely build such droid from scratch. I'm very impressed by it final look and movement of it and patience and skill of its constructor.
• LittleDog Robot - As usually, I couldn't skip constructions from Boston Dynamics. Although LittleDog is pretty old in robotics standards, I believe it is worth to recall it after presentation of its bigger brothers in previous issues of Robotics Weekly.
• A-Pod - One of most often used inspiration in robot design is nature. Of course, most universal and on the same time hardest to build is human alike structure. But other structures can be also useful and interesting. Here is example of ant like robot.
• Real Transformer - OK, this is pretty old video, sorry for that. But that was first video I can recall, which shows rolling "car" which can transform into walking humanoid. Please take in account that this is video from 2006 - so basically an eternity in modern robotics time.
• Perpetual Walking Robot - If you know physics on elementary level you probably dreamed about constructing perpetum mobile, at least once. If you know physics little more, you know that this is impossible. But, you also should know that there is something called potential energy, and in some cases it is easy to convert it into kinetic energy, which more or less means that something can be moved "for free". The trick is usually to find application for that "free movement". What applications can we find for such perpetual walking robot?
• OpenROV - Xprize foundation recently announced competition about mapping oceans. To win main prize, you should design and build autonomous device which will map targeted area of ocean. When I found OpenROV I immediately though about its team as potential team starting in this competition. They have experience with underwater unmanned vehicles which are cheap. In addition, software and hardware they designed is open source. Of course, if you just want send robot into underwater, you can buy it from them and freely experiment with it.
• Mondo Spider 2 - I believe that everyone would be impressed by this heavy metal human transporting spider. It is slightly to slow to be an actual transportation vehicle, but it seems durable and easy to steer. I'm curious if such spider could be registered as legal vehicle that could move on average roads.
• Sarcoman Robot Playing Air Hockey - Always wanted to have sparing partner for air hockey games? Fear no more. Of course, he is not as verbose and interactive as real opponent, but his gaming skills should be enough at least for entry level games.

Crowdfunding:

• ONAGOfly - I'm person who has no experience in piloting any flying vehicle and I'm almost certain that I would crash any UAV I would try to pilot. So I'm rather avoiding such devices. But after looking on ONAGOfly specification I believe that this could be the first UAV designed specially for me. Very autonomous, crash proof and able to take photos automatically. And the price seems to be very reasonable for its features.

Book of the week:

• Arduino Robotics (Technology in Action) - Ever wondered if Arduino is mature enough for robotics? Wonder no more - in this book, apart of several robot blueprints, you can find informations about Arduino and electronics in general. It is nice mix between "boring" physics and cool robotics.

Courses:

• Cognitive Neuroscience Robotics Part A - This course is combination of cognitive science, neuroscience and robotics, and it is designed to present synthetic (engineering) and analytic (psychological) approach to creating social robots that interact with society. At least that is what I understood from course description ;).

Jobs:

• Robotics/Software Engineer @ Aurora - Did you ever dreamed about flying. You can stop dreaming and start flying... almost. You can actually design and work on software and algorithms used in autonomous flight vehicles. Although it is not flying in person, I bet it still could be exciting. Location: Cambridge, USA. Tags: ros, python, linux, opengl, c++.

Humor:

• Robot Soccer Goes Big Time - Definitely more exciting than "real" soccer!

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 sponsor this magazine also through Patreon.

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License: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Robotics Weekly #6

Robotics Weekly

Issue #6

15.01.2016

Featured article:

• How a Robot in the Garden Might Save a Trip to Whole Foods - I am type of person who would like to eat well. But I'm also to lazy (well... lets say I don't have much time) to take care of garden in which I could plant healthy fruits and vegetables. So when I heard about FarmBot I just asked myself, when could I buy that? And the best part of it is that this is open source software and hardware project based on Arduino and Raspberry Pi. It seems that even even I can be a farmer ;).

Articles and videos:

• A Robot That Balances on a Ball - Researchers from Tohoku Gakuin University presented some time ago their approach to mobility of robots. It looks like very stable, and agile way of moving, but on the other hand it looks like too much complicated to build out of the scratch. Maybe this is the reason that this type of "wheels" is not used too often?
• Winners of MAKE Robot Contest - If you are fan of MAKE magazine you are probably already familiar with this contest from few years ago. Robots presented there aren't revolutionary or highly technologically advanced. Instead they are ... colorful and noisy. I believe that its worthy to check them.
• Motobot - There is very much happening right now in land of autonomous cars. Academic researchers and mainstream motor companies are interested in developing their own solutions for that idea. But what about autonomous motorcycles? Or even autonomous motorcycle drivers? Somehow I cannot find real big pros for that idea, but I must say that this Motobot from Yamaha looks really sleek.
• Plen - Plen is plain simple humanoid robot which fits average desktop. It moves nicely and is very adorable. It is also compatible with ROS which makes it very serious toy after all. If only price were slightly lower.
• The Making of Drone 100 - What is current world record for simultaneously flying UAVs? Since few days it is round 100. It was done by Intel and it was done with style. The idea was to use this swarm of drones as "space pixels" and present images on sky with them in accompany of live orchestra. You should definitely check this video.
• DARPA 2015 winner - If you looking for autonomous humanoid robotics rescue machines saving people in urban areas, you should watch this finalist of DARPA robotics challenge ... and wait for some more years. I'm not saying that there was nothing special in finalist performance. I would even say that it was amazing, but there are still many things to improve in terms of speed of its task solving abilities.
• Google's Human-Shaped Robot Takes First Walk Outside - Another link regarding our regular guest - Boston Dynamics. This time I would like to present you ATLAS - humanoid robot which is almost ready to run freely in parks. This robot is designed to perform typical human manual tasks in typical human environments. So it was crucial part of design that this robot would travel from point to point also like a human. I'm very impressed by the test results even if it still has external power source.
• FIRST Stronghold Game Reveal - If you are bored with line follower, sumo or even Dekinnoka wrestling competitions you may direct your attention toward FIRST Stronghold competition. In this game, two teams of robots are trying to capture opponents fortress. They are competing in viciously designed foregrounds to achieve winning conditions before opponents. This might be 2016 hit in terms of robotics competitions. I'm looking forward to see first transmissions.

Crowdfunding:

• iCamPRO Deluxe - If you ever have been thinking about home automation, you probably spent some time on security topic. I think that this Kickstarter project would fit into that system despite it is not a robot. I just hope that there will be open source software implementation of its firmware, or at least nice API which enable its integration in such home automation system.

Book of the week:

• Robotics: DISCOVER THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF THE FUTURE with 20 PROJECTS (Build It Yourself) - Do you want to interest your kids with robotics? If yes, you might be interested in this book written by Kathy Ceceri. It is simple introduction to robotics which start with history of robots and then leads to more advanced topics. Book is illustrated by Sam Carbaugh which composes great and creates nice overall impression.

Courses:

• Begin Robotics - University of Reading just brought brand new course. They are aiming for non experienced learners to be able in the end to program their robots recreated in virtual simulations. Program in a way that it would move "consciously" and do something "useful".

Jobs:

• Software Engineer - ROS @ Avidbots - Okay, maybe cleaning industry doesn't seems like super hero dream job, but after all, if you are designing robots capable of doing human only chores you are a little hero. Location: Waterloo, Canada. Tags: ros, python, linux, arm, continuous integration.

Humor:

• Robot hand-holders - Who knows, maybe this is next billion dollar industry?

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 sponsor this magazine also through Patreon.

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License: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Robotics Weekly #5

Robotics Weekly

Issue #5

08.01.2016

Featured article:

• Watch This Swarm of Simple Robots Do Surprisingly Complex Things - Usually when we think about robot, we think about mechanical being sized more or less from chihuahua to two times the average human size. And we think about individual robot. But in the nature, apart from individual entities, there are also swarms like bees and ants. Why couldn't we build robot designed to behave just like one simple member of bigger group of the same robots?

Articles and videos:

• Quadrocopter Ball Juggling - Another cool video from ETH Zurich. This time engineers from there mounted tennis rocket like nets on drones and made them juggle balls. They are quick, adaptive and very agile while handling the ball. It seems to me that they will outperform human juggling masters soon.
• Demonstration of humanoid robots for disaster rescue missions - One of the biggest problem of developed areas like cities are disasters. When one big event like tsunami, earthquake or explosions occurs usually there are not enough rescue workers helping the victims of such situations. Even if there were enough rescuers, some places are so damaged, flooded or filled with chemicals that they are unavailable for them. In my opinion this looks like good place for robotic rescue workers. Ideally such robot rescuers would be autonomous, but even if not, they can provide large amount of information for rescue teams which can help with making decisions. Not mention that such robot could also clean the way for trapped persons. I'm very happy that there are people which are constructing such robots already, even if those robots behave a little clumsy.
• This Lego robot is controlled entirely by a worm’s brain - How about combining Lego Mindstorm set with Open Worm artificial intelligence? Well, as we can expect, we will receive artificial worm brain in Lego body. Not spectacular combination, but if you think about it, we just created simple artificial life... almost.
• YASKAWA BUSHIDO PROJECT - Can industrial robots be so agile that they could perform in sword art according to Iaijutsu technique? It looks like yes. I'm afraid that in real combat (lets forget about immobility of such robot for a second) it would kill even Iaijutsu master.
• Uncanny valley - If you just started interesting with robotics, you may hear about "uncanny valley" and maybe no one explained well what this term mean. Basically it means that if you add more and more details to animate an inanimate object towards human look and movement, there is a moment when your model generates less positive feelings that you could expect. You see that something is almost human, but this "almost effect" tels you to back off from that object. So sometimes, it is better to design robot who looks like raw robot than human with few flaws.
• Kid's Walker - another invention from Japan. This time, someone built small "mecha" for kids. I'm not sure what was it purpose, but it looks pretty impressive since it actually moves.
• Soft autonomous robot inches along like an earthworm - Researchers from MIT presented simple worm like robot which moves by squeezing its mesh like "body" structure caused by change of shape of shape memory alloy. In my humble opinion it looks quite like normal bug, which is great result.
• Sand Flea Jumping Robot - We already had a chance to watch some walking robots from Boston Dynamics. But what would happen if someone wouldn't bother with walking, and just roll on easy terrain and skip high obstacle by jumping on it? Results may be very interesting. I just wonder how many "jumps" such robot can survive without need of repairing.

Crowdfunding:

• Seems like there are no cool and fresh projects in crowdfunding stage this time ;(.

Book of the week:

• The Art of Tinkering - Colorful book about starting tinkering from members of San Fransisco Exploratorium.

Courses:

• Robotics: Estimation and Learning - Nothing is perfect, and robots you will build also will not be perfect. In this course you will learn how to deal with noise from sensors and how to estimate current status and location of robot.

Jobs:

• Robotics Software Engineer @ TORC Robotics - TORC Robotics has interesting offer for person who is looking to work on perception in robotics systems. Key requirements are knowledge of object oriented programming, mathematical background and experience with robotics navigation.

Humor:

• Asshole Robot Co-worker - lets hope that future collaboration of humans and robot will not look like that ;).

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 sponsor this magazine also through Patreon.

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License: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Robotics Weekly #4

Robotics Weekly

Issue #4

01.01.2016

Featured article:

• Rumored Google-Ford Deal, Low-End Robocars, and Tesla’s Backslide - Those are seemingly uninteresting news related to autonomous cars right now. But they might be peeks of how autonomous car market will be shaped in future. Will Google "marry" Ford in mass manufacturing of autonomous cars? Will Tesla enthusiasts sue Tesla Motors company for "downgrading" their cars? Are there many other small companies which will offer their versions of autonomous cars like mushrooms after rain?

Articles and videos:

• VertiGo - What will happen when we use typical rotor drone engines and propellers and mount on lightweight chassis with wheels. Well, I will not spoil the surprise. Check videos on that site and find out by yourself ;)
• Titan the Robot - At first impression I though that this is 100% robot. But on the other hand I couldn't connect it with anything I know about current robotics development. So that made me a little suspicious. And I was right. Nevertheless I'm still pretty impressed by this combination of actor play and mechanical elements.
• Mycroft.ai - Do you dream of having robotic assistant capable of helping you in your day to day chores? Who doesn't? But currently, there are no sensible solutions for such assistant to be humanoid. But what if we could get just its artificial intelligence for starter? Mycroft team tries to bring virtual artificial assistant with brain of Raspberry Pi and body of "alarm clock" into average households. Powered by open source software and hardware Mycroft will listen for commands and will try to give you all needed information or interact with various home devices. Existing as community powered product, Mycroft looks like promising approach to personal home assistant idea.
• Comparison of domestic robots - I know that gifts season just ended but I believe such comparison might still be useful. To be honest, I wasn't even aware that there are so many models in the market now.
• PR2 - did you checked Mycroft from above link? Well, actually there is possibility to put such artificial assistant into robotics body. PR2 might be perfect physical companion for it. But there is one practical problem with PR2 - its price. But if you have spare 280K USD fell free to order one and play with it. In worst case it can serve as self-propelled server :D.
• ASC Drone - There are many rural and unaccessible territories which can be used as a base for farming. Sometimes sophisticated or typical farming equipment cannot be used there. Why couldn't we use autonomous drones for planting and cultivation of the crops?
• Inverted Pendulum Wheel Robot - One of biggest problem in motion of robots and also handicapped people are stairs. It is problematic to construct cheap, easy to manufacture and reliable solution which will enable stairs climbing. But maybe idea demonstrated in this inverted pendulum wheel robot will be the key for further developments in this area?
• Geminoids - How would you feel when could you talk to robot that look and behave just like you? Check this video in which there are three persons and their robotics twins. At first look it might be tough to distinguish human from his geminoid. But if you look a few seconds more, you will find that it is extremely hard for human to completely stop all motion (especially this king of noise unnecessary motion) and such stop happens very often in geminoids. If we were in war with them we could find spies among us ;).

Crowdfunding:

• Baby BiBli - Bibli is simple social robot designed to interact especially with kids who has autism. It has wireless communication interface, 2 inch LCD display, camera, microphone and stereo speakers. It uses wheels to move and it has easy to learn programming interface.

Book of the week:

• Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom - book form Sylvia Libow Martinez and Gary S. Stager. This book is dedicated to wonderful journey of bringing best practices and ideas from makers environment into classrooms.

Courses:

• Robotics: Perception - How robots see 3D world? In this course students will learn how to recalculate 2D data gathered from cameras into 3D meaningful data. This data will enable sophisticated navigation in complex environment.

Jobs:

• Embedded C/Vision experts @ Bizzy Robotics - Do you want to design vision system of personal home robot? Do you want to participate in shaping home robotics systems? If yes, you will be probably interested in this job offer, especially because you can work remotely.

Humor:

• When Robot Programmers get bored - small heart attack for safety inspectors.

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!
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