Virtual Robotics Program - FREE!

I can think of no other body of practice/ approach to teaching and learning that is more perfect for today's students than Robotics. The only drawback I can think of is the expense of purchasing robotics kits, something that can put this highly accessible approach beyond the grasp of so many schools. Fortunately, there are virtual robotics programs which allow for much of the concepts and content to be learned without actually building robots in the real world.

Here's an item this morning's surfing turned up. Looks like a gem waiting to be discovered by the world of Education.

From ROBOMIND.net
Introduction
ROBO is a new and very simple educational programming language that will familiarize you with the basics of computer science. You will also be introduced into popular programming techniques, and you will gain an insight into areas such as robotics and artificial intelligence. These skills will be gained by creating programs for a robot.

The robot
The robot is capable of performing several actions. It can drive, look around, move items and paint. This can all be done in different environments that are made up of blocks.


The ROBO programming language
ROBO is designed in such a way that you can start exploring and programming right away. A special language has been written that consists of a concise set of rules and is aimed at programming a robot. As a result there are a lot of opportunities to create your own programs and experience the principles that lay at the heart of most other programming languages..."

Get the whole 9 and free download @:
http://www.robomind.net/en/introduction.htm +

http://www.robomind.net/en/download.html

Mark

Yikes! Elvis IS Alive and Doing His Act @ the Mall!

After leaving the Apple Store at the mall the other day (I bought an iPod for my wife’s birthday), I stopped in to browse at one of my favorite stores – The Shaper Image.
Cool stuff as always, but I nearly did a double take on my way out as no fewer than 6 life size robot busts of The King himself stared me down from their shelf.

WowWee’s Alive Elvis robot sells for $199. He is wearing a faux black leather jacket and has a thick head of cheesy ‘doll’s hair’ that can rival The Donald’s comb over mop. Elvis can be switched on to sing for you from his well known repertoire or you can toggle to karaoke mode to do a duet with him. Either way he is OUTRAGEOUS!

What’s so cool about this is that it was just a couple of years ago that only a very, very few – people like the operators of Disney World – could eve hope to get their hands on this level of entertainment robotics. Now, post Xmas mall browsers can bring it home without putting too much of a dent in their plastic.

I pumped the guy at the store for the public’s reaction when Elvis was set out for holiday shopping. He shared with me that he got everything from “Oy!” to “Wrap him up. I gotta have it!” Hey, if your lonesome tonight, this may be the way to go…

Be Smart - Stay on This Killing Machine's Friends List!

From Fortune Magazine:
"Killer robots could replace soldiers: Robotex, a Silicon Valley start-up, combines engineering skill and groundbreaking weaponry to create a new generation of soldiers."
"NEW YORK (Fortune Magazine) -- It's 1900 hours on Veterans Day in Fayetteville, N.C., a pistol shot from the Fort Bragg military base. Ten minutes ago a 25-year-old self-taught engineer named Adam Gettings pulled into the Waffle House parking lot, lifted the hatch of his black SUV, and unveiled what could very well be the future of urban warfare: a toy-like but gun-wielding robot designed to replace human soldiers on the battlefield.

It's two feet tall, travels ten miles an hour, and spins on a dime. Remote-controlled over an encrypted frequency that jams nearby radios and cellphones, it'll blow a ten-inch hole through a steel door with deadly accuracy from 400 meters.

Now Gettings is sitting calmly on the other side of a plate of fried eggs and sliced tomatoes, talking about how his company, Robotex, has teamed up with a wild-eyed Tennessee shotgun designer to rethink the development strategy for military technology. "

The idea that you can use investor money rather than [government] research money - that's a new thing," says Gettings, who's in town for SpecOps, a war-fighter technology conference.

Military contractors typically get the funding to build, test, and sell new weapons systems from federal agencies. It can take forever.

Robotex, based in Palo Alto, is financed by angel investors and went from idea to product in six months. "This is the new defense, Silicon Valley-style," says Gettings. "You build only what's necessary, iterate quickly, and keep the price low."

How low? Try $30,000 to $50,000. A similar bot, the Talon, which was developed by defense contractor Foster-Miller and is being tested in Iraq, costs six times that amount. "Our system does all the same things as the Talon, weighs half as much, and costs a fraction," says Gettings.

An endorsement from Blackwater
Robotex is the brainchild of Terry Izumi, a reclusive filmmaker who comes from a long line of samurai warriors, has trained Secret Service agents, and worked both at DreamWorks (Charts) and in Disney's (Charts, Fortune 500) Imagineering division.

When Izumi decided to build a better war robot in 2005, he recruited Nathan Gettings, a former PayPal software engineer and founder of Palantir Technologies, who brought in his brother Adam as well as a fourth (silent) partner who hails from both PayPal and YouTube. They had a prototype in no time. But they needed a weapon, and that's how Jerry Baber, his revolutionary shotgun, and a pilotless mini-helicopter come into the picture..."
Read the full article @ its source:
http://money.cnn.com/2007/12/03/technology/robotex.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2007120412

Great Dreams Come in 2s

From: Quad City Times
"Buddy system: Honda networks robots to work in pairs"
"TOKYO (AP) — As if the idea of having one robot to serve you wasn’t unusual enough, Honda says its humanoids are now ready to work in pairs — and they can even serve drinks.At a demonstration Tuesday at its Tokyo headquarters, automaker Honda Motor Co. showed off two of the child-sized Asimo robots serving tea and performing other tasks in coordination with one another.The bubble-headed robots seemed to pick their steps carefully as they made their way around the room, picking up and putting down drink trays and pushing around a refreshments cart.Honda said it has developed a system to link its robots together so they can share information about where each one is and what each is doing.The 51-inch tall Asimo is “smarter” now, thanks to upgrades that allow it to do more tasks without human help, the company said. The robot can, for example, recognize drink choices and carrya tray with the requested drink to the person who placed the order.The Asimo, which looks like a child in a white spacesuit, also does a better job of moving around people because of technology that allows it to better predict people’s movements so it doesn’t get in the way.The robot can even automatically head off to the nearest charging station when its batteries fall below a certain level.Honda has been working on robots since 1986. Rival Toyota Motor Corp. has been aggressively beefing up its own robotics team, showing off last week a robot that could play the violin.The Japanese government has been pushing companies and researchers to make robotics a pillar of this nation’s business. Other companies, including Hitachi Ltd., Fujitsu Ltd. and NEC Corp., are also developing robots.Asimo — which stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility and is play on the Japanese word for “legs” — first became available for rental in 2000. It’s considered one of the world’s most advanced humanoids. It can walk, even jog, wave, avoid obstacles and carry on simple conversations.“By the end of 2010s, we’d like to see these robots working at every street corner of the city,” said Tomohiko Kawanabe of Honda’s Fundamental Technology Research Center."
Read this article @ its point of origin: http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2007/12/16/news/business/doc475f6d8ecaa95335761782.txt

Robotics Resources for Students & Teachers

I am going to use this post as the start of a listing of Online Robotics Resources of Particular Value, Interest, and Potential.

At some point down the road I'll move the list over to a formal web page that I'll link to from this blog.

• Robot Portal http://robotportal.net/community/enter.do
  This one (free registration required) offers: Forums, Albums (photos & media), Articles,
  (links to) Websites, and info on Vendors. All it needs is more participation from people like you:)
• Norms Robotics http://www.normsrobotics.blogspot.com/
  THE online space for information concerning student robotics activities (particularly, but not necessarily limited to, FIRST LEGO League) in the New York City area

Mark

Thumb Wrestle, Anyone?

(from Wired 'UMan uses trial and error to figure out how to manipulate items it has never seen before. Photo: Glenn Matsumura)
From: WIRED MAGAZINE: ISSUE 15.12
"Getting a Grip: Building the Ultimate Robotic Hand"
"A 6-foot-tall, one-armed robot named Stair 1.0 balances on a modified Segway platform in the doorway of a Stanford University conference room. It has an arm, cameras and laser scanners for eyes, and a tangle of electrical intestines stuffed into its base. It's not pretty, but that's not the point. From his seat at a polished table, roboticist Morgan Quigley sends the bot on a mission. "Stair, please fetch the stapler from the lab."

Nothing happens. Quigley asks again. Nothing. After the third attempt, Stair responds in an inflectionless voice: "I will go fetch the stapler for you."

Using its laser scanners to identify potential obstacles, Stair 1.0 rolls out of the room and into the lab's central workspace, a rectangular area bordered by desks. On one side is a kind of robotic graveyard, a jumble of decades-old industrial arms. A poster of the NS-5 humanoid from the movie I, Robot seems to taunt the researchers from its spot on the wall: Try building me, punks. Quigley and computer scientist Andrew Ng, who directs the Stanford AI Robot (Stair) project, walk behind their robot, watching.

Stair 1.0 searches the rows of workstations, then locates the stapler. The robot moves forward and stops. If it had lungs, it might take a deep breath, because this is the hard part...."
Read the full article @ its source: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/15-12/mf_robothand