mip's scan

Review of Rovio

I love robotics.  I also love telepresence (the ability to be someplace via webcam and/or shared web space).  That is why I was immediately interested in the Rovio when it came out.  I've had it for a few months and wanted to share my thoughts on it.

Firstly, what in the world is a Rovio?  Well, the straight definition from WooWee, the company that makes Rovio, is:

...a WiFi enabled mobile webcam that lets you see, speak and hear from anywhere in the world...as if you were right there in the room...

I would agree with that, but I like my daughter's description that the Rovio reminded her of the "robot sent to explore Mars".  In truth, that is what Rovio reminds me of too! The picture to the left is a side shot of Rovio.  You can get a video demo of the Rovio in action by clicking on this link.

Aibo Put Down

Man this is sad news for me, as I'm sure it is for anybody who has enjoyed countless hours of playing with Sony's robotic dog Aibo.  We've had our Aibo for about 4 or 5 years and my children love it. OK, ok...I'm a big kid...so do I.  I've always found Sony's Aibo to be a wonderfully engineered robot.  So it's sad to see that they've decided to kill of their robotics line.

We feared it would come to this — Sony Japan has just used its quarterly earnings report to slip out the news that it is ceasing production of everyone's favorite robot dog, Aibo.

Qrio and the super-expensive Qualia line are for the chop too.

That's a pic of my Aibo - I'll be sure to keep the news of this away from him.
To read all the details, just click here.

Is that One Suger or Two?

I love robotics - that no secret to anyone who knows me.
But this post is for my wife who so often was caught short staffed when she was operating her little cafe.  Seems that Honda's Asimo can now serve coffee!  The new Asimo has been given more joints and increased flexibility.  They've also added advanced sensor, image and voice recognition technology to this model.  Bet this little guy could have served up a storm on a July long weekend!

All kidding aside, this robotic development from Honda has always fascinated me.  Of course I want one - but guess I'll have to be content with my Aibo from Sony for now.

For some great video on Asimo just click here and select the video of your choice.

Say Hello To Scooba

Well we've all by now heard of the Roomba, that cute little robot vaccum that has whirled its way into many people's hearts.  iRobot has now announced and given a sneak peak at their next robot intended to help out around the home.  Say hello to Scooba! So what is this latest robot helper?  It's a robotic floor washer and its features are:

• Scooba vacuums, washes and dries in a single pass
• It uses a specially formulated Clorox® cleaning solution
• Scooba uses fresh, clean, solution…mops just spread the dirt around
• Scooba picks up the dirty solution, leaving your floors clean and dry
• Great for all floor surfaces – wood, tile and linoleum

I've been a fan of the Roomba - using it often on my own household floors and allowing it to scurry underneath beds and dressers to get at hard to reach places.  I'm sure that Scooba will make its way to a floor near me - just in time for holiday entertaining.

RobotProg

Hi.
No this isn't mip.  I am his daughter. I'm seven and my dad said I could write something here. He's been away at a clients and so he's been busy catching up on his reading.

I wanted to tell you about a cool program I've been using called RobotProg.  It is a way to program an robot using just a flow chart.  You just drag the commands onto the screen. It is a little like the programming I did in my dad's camp with the Lego robots.  This one only works on screen though.  There are different levels and things you need to try and solve. If you want to try it you can get it at http://www.physicsbox.com/indexrobotprogen.html

$6 Million Dollar Man, Here We Come?

When I was a kid, I loved watching the Six Million Dollar Man.  I always wondered how I could get a good bionic arm like Steve Austin.  It's that childhood interest and my exploration in robotics that made this article an interesting read for me.

Scientists at Pittsburgh University have create a robotic arm that can be controlled via thought. 

...monkeys had tiny probes inserted into their brains and had their limbs restrained - but were then able to manipulate the robotic arm...

Quite amazing that the monkeys were able to control the arm to do things like feed themselves.  Imagine how amazing this would be for people who have lost a limb or the use of their limbs?  To read the complete article, click here.

Linux & Robotics

Thanks to Dave (aka Bub) for this interesting piece on robotics and linux. I'd written before about how over the coming years we will see robots within the home and industry continue to increase. I hadn't considered a possible trend that could occur along with this rise in robotics.

Linux is poised to play a central role in an emerging industry that many expect to overtake the PC industry in size: robotics.

This makes sense since robotics work is very much in its infancy and requires tools that are flexible, don't lock you into proprietary systems and can be changed at the source level. So it would seem natural that open source, and specifically, Linux will play a key role in this.

To read the entire article click here.

Thanks Dave for the great tip!

Robots on the Rise

No I'm talking about some scenario where we see the "rise of the machines" the likes of The Terminator. Rather I'm talking about the useful application of robots in our society. I've reviewed robots here in the past like the
Roomba (my much loved robot that cleans my lab) and have often wondered, "how many of these are out there?" I've always felt that over the next 5-8 years, robots in the household will become as widespread as PC's are today. That's why this article from Wired struck my interest. It's got some great stats.

Robot Skin

In our Youth Technology Program for kids our robotics stream has them building & programming robots. We spend a lot of time exploring the whole area of sensors. I use the 5-senses to lead these discusions. On of the senses is touch, and for these projects there are touch sensors that the kids can integrate into their robots and program to react to the environment around them. One of the challenges is that the touch sensor is often only good for a localized area on the robot. There are innovative ways that the kids increase this touch area, through the use of bumpers or cat-like whiskers that when bumped depress a touch sensor and send feed back to the robot. This works but again, the amount of area covered is always limited by the number of touch sensors you can put onto the robot.

That's why this development I just read about was particularily interesting. It builds on our own sense of touch vis-a-vis our skin. I haven't seen any robots that have sensitive skin ,but that all seems to be about to change. Through the use of organic, or plastic, field-effect transistors as pressure sensors deposited on a flexible material, researchers at the University of Tokyo have created exactly that - a robotics skin.

The researchers' prototype is an eight-centimeter-square sheet containing a 32-by-32 array of organic sensors -- a density of 16 sensors per square centimeter. In contrast, humans have 1,500 pressure sensors per square centimeter in the fingertips, though far fewer in most other places.

Obviously this isn't as sensitive as human skin, but it clearly is an amazing breakthrough. The applications for this type of skin would be limitless and would greatly improve industrial and domestic robotics ability to sense their environment for such things that require sensitivity (ie. picking a person up....you wouldn't want a robot to apply the full pressure of its mechanisms and risk bruising a home care patient for instance). Reseachers estimate that the electronic skin could be ready for practical use in four to five years. To read the entire article pertaining to this you can click here.

Bird of Prey

When I visited Venice some years back and was having lunch in St. Mark's Square, I got a nasty surprise from one of the many pigeons that was fluttering in the square. For those of you you who have never seen a picture from this particular square, there are hundreds of pigeons there. Of course we've seen this problem in many other places as well. For my wife's coffee shop here in Sauble Beach it is seagulls that are a real nusance, swooping down on people enjoying their food out on our deck.

Well nusance birds be warned - the robot bird of prey has arrived!

Named Robop this is a robot version of a falcon.

Robop has been designed from the outset to look, move and sound like a real peregrine falcon.

The wings flap, the head moves from side to side and the whole body is designed to rock gently on its feet. Robop is aerodynamic. When mounted on the standard base it is capable of turning through 360 degrees, allowing the bird to head into the wind, again exactly like a real falcon would do.

How excellent is that! It sounds like a great idea and though the $3000 price tag may be a bit high for a small business, it might not be so bad for large areas that would otherwise have to string up unsightly lengths of barbed wire to rid themselves of these pests. It doesn't fly but its realistic movements and digitized sounds (bird calls) apparently are convincing enough to scare other birds away.

You can get all the info on this robot at their website.