Boeing Awards Grant to San Antonio FIRST Robotics Team

This article came across my news feed for robotics, and since it is about a local San Antonio, Texas school and a rookie FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics team, I thought I would post it here. Boeing has become a major supporter of FIRST robotics teams here in San Antonio.  In fact, they are supporting three FIRST robotics programs in the city this year.  The other Boeing teams are at John Jay High School and Edison High School. 

The local FIRST Robotics kickoff occurred here this past Saturday, January 9, 2010, at Memorial High School in San Antonio.  St. Anthony was one of 22 teams at the event and is a part of a growing contingent of teams in San Antonio.  With the addition of St. Anthony, there are now eight active FRC teams in the city.  Other SA teams not already mentioned are located in the Edgewood School District, and also at the STEM Academy at Robert E. Lee HS, Brackenridge HS, Sam Houston High School, and Milton B. Lee High School.

Around the world, there are 58 local kickoff events held. The San Antonio event is just one of those that mark the official start of the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) for about 1800 teams worldwide.  For more information on teams and the kickoff, see the information on kickoff events.

"St. Anthony Catholic High School has announced that its Technology, Robotics and Engineering Sciences Club (TRES Club) was recently awarded a $6,500 Founder's Grant from the Boeing Co. to participate in a regional robotics competition to be held April 1-3 in Houston."  For more information click on the link below.

via www.mysanantonio.com

Tiny Swimming Robots Could Be Modeled After Spiral-shaped Bacteria

Spiroplasma is a type of spiral-shaped bacteria that travels in a corkscrew type motion.  It accomplishes this motion by sending kinks down the spiral of its cell structure.  And, it turns out this method of propulsion is very efficient.  Essentially, it is using its entire body as a propulsion unit.  This may prove to be a great method for nano-sized robots to get around in a fluid. 

Applications for this tiny machine come mainly in the field of medicine.  Small robots could deliver medicine directly to a targeted cell or perform very precise surgeries.  Some micro-robots have already been developed for this purpose, but these little bots could be much smaller.  Read more about this possible development in the article below.  Also, check out the full-sized animation on the site by clicking on the thumbnail below.

        Spiroplasma_Swimming 

        Credit:  University of Connecticut

… design. The kinky motion of a primitive spiral-shaped bacterium in fluid could help design efficient swimming micro-robots of the future, according to a study by a team of UConn researchers. Professors Greg Huber and Charles Wolgemuth of the Richard …

Swimming Bacteria Could Become Model for Micromachines
(author unknown)
Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:48:52 GMT

Robotic Bees Could Save Crops

In September, I posted a Weekly Newswrap with a story about robo-bees.  Now comes this story about robot bees that could help save agriculture from the coming disaster caused by the mysterious bee plague.  This is the disease that has wiped out over one-third of the bee population in the United States.  Some estimates of bee deaths are much higher.  If a cure cannot be found for this Colony Collapse Disorder, perhaps these mechanical bees can help save crops that require pollination.  These robotic bees would be developed from a robotic fly developed by Rob Wood at Harvard University.  Read more about these “beebots” in this article by Corey Binns from the Popular Science website.

RoboBees_HR 

Illustration Credit:  Graham Murdoch

That strategy led Gu-Yeon Wei to suggest that Rob Wood morph an almond-size robotic fly he had developed into a fleet of autonomous bees, each capable of carrying out specialized tasks. Perhaps, they speculated, the “RoboBees” could supplement the pollinating duties of bees stricken by a mysterious affliction that’s killed 36 percent of America’s 2.4 million hives. If you build the bee body, Wei told Wood, I can make the brain.

In the future, an autonomous robot could haul the hive from field to field. STEP 2: Survey the Landscape Scout RoboBees leave the hive first and use their ultraviolet sensors to locate the same UV patterns on flower petals that real bees look for.

Robotic Insects Could Pollinate Flowers and Find Disaster Victims – Popular Science
(author unknown)
Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:09:00 GMT

Delhi Police Consider Armed Robot for Anti-Terror Role

Military units have used armed robots for many years in their operations, but now a civilian police force in Delhi, India is considering the purchase of one or more of these bots.  No final decisions have been made on this, but the ramifications of this could radically alter future police anti-terror tactics.  This could also change how police forces handle any special tactical situation.  An armed subject with a hostage might find that he or she is face to face with a heavily armed “robocop” and not a negotiator.  What, if any, ethical considerations must be made when civilian police have these weaponized robots at their disposal?  Already, robots are used in bomb disposal situations.  Some robots are used to scout hostage situations. Others provide a negotiations platform in some cases.  It is not a stretch to see these armed robots as a part of Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) units.  In fact, if you look at the Foster-Miller website, as I did in researching this post, you can see that there is already a SWAT model for sale to police departments.  Wired.com published an article on this topic earlier this year about armed robots being marketed to police forces.  And there are stories about TASER-armed robots being developed for law enforcement officers.

I am not necessarily against this idea.  These robots have the potential of saving police officers’ lives by keeping them out of dangerous situations.  I think the larger question is how much autonomy will the robots have in these situations?  Right now these robots are teleoperated and have limited autonomous abilities.  But, if robots go into buildings and have to depend on radio links for control, there will be places where the machines will not have a communications link.  In those times the robots will have to be able to work on their own.  How do you make sure the robots know what to do when that happens? 

Read the article at the link below and decide what you think about this.

robocop2 (1) 

Credit:  Pics/MiD DAY

The robot carries a machine gun, a camera and a bomb-diffusing chemical; demo held for Delhi cops This may change the face of counter-insurgency operations in urban landscape, forever.

Delhi police may get sci-fi anti-terror tool
(author unknown)
Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:33:55 GMT

Festo Shows RoboKites

This post came across my robotics feed today from Adam Flaherty at MAKE Magazine and I thought it was worth a look.  In the video on BotJunkie, you can see the Festo kite in action.  And yes, the applications of this might not seem obvious at first, but the concept could be used for wind power production.  As the cable moves back and forth, it would make the generation of electricity possible.  Also, the process could be used for a high tech sail to pull ships across the ocean as shown in this link from BotJunkie.  (Although, in this link, I do not believe this is a Festo kite.)

Festo has produced many elegant robotic applications over the years and this is just more of those elegant projects with futuristic applications that could work now.  Check out the links below for more on this story. 

Via BotJunkie

Windmill of the future? The latest advancement in kite fighting? Kitesurfing robots? The Festo CyberKite deftly controls the graceful movements of a rather large kite with relative ease. [via BotJunkie]

Read more 

Festo CyberKite
Adam Flaherty
Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:00:00 GMT

Sky_liner_10382c_3_500px

Photo Credit:  Festo

Why? Because robot penguin, that’s why!

But seriously, I have no idea, besides that it’s an interesting project to tackle… Although come to think of it, I suppose it could have some commercial applications, too.

Festo CyberKite

http://www.botjunkie.com/2009/12/07/festo-cyberkite/

Laser-Guided Robots Milk Cows

The Carman Valley Leader has this story on robots that are helping to run a high-tech dairy farm.  In the photo below a robot assists the cattle by pushing the feed towards them.  Other robots actually milk the cows.  They target in on the cow’s udders using laser guidance.  And they are persistent, they never give up in their quest to get the milk!  This does not look like my uncle’s dairy farm for sure.  Take a look at the story be following the link below.

Photo by Glen Hallick

Robots are replacing milking machines at Halarda Farms owned by the Borst family.

The large dairy operation northwest of Elm Creek hosted a Nov. 20 open house. Guests were given tours of the dairy, including the barns with robot milkers.

Halarda has eight of these stationary machines each guided by three lasers on to the cows' udders.

Laser guided robots milk cows
(author unknown)
Fri, 04 Dec 2009 07:24:14 GMT

Optical Sensors Give Robots’ Artificial Skin with Smooth Touch

An article posted at thaindian.com details the research of Belgium researchers who have developed a new type of artificial skin for robots.  This skin will be able to provide robots with a delicate touch more like a human’s.  The primary applications for this development will be in the area of surgical robots.  Future medical robots will be able to perform more delicate and extensive surgeries than current models.  What makes this skin possible is the use of optical sensors rather than the electomechanical type used now.  Besides the article linked to above, Popular Science has the story.  Check out the links below.


Popular Science

Optical Sensors in Robots' Skin Give Them A Softer Touch
Popular Science
Thankfully, researchers at the University of Ghent, Belgium, have solved the problem of delicate robot touch. Unlike the mechanical sensors currently used
and more »

Optical Sensors in Robots' Skin Give Them A Softer Touch – Popular Science
(author unknown)
Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:58:26 GMT

Robot Swarms Could Track Oil Spills in the Oceans

From Tech Fragments comes this story about autonomous underwater explorers (AUEs). These robots will be developed to deploy as a swarm and would be coordinated so they can follow the flow of the ocean currents.  Scientists hope to use the ball-shaped robots to measure ocean currents and from these measurements track such things as pollution from an oil spill.  "The information that each robot in the underwater flock has is pretty limited…and this information is very local. From this, we want to induce some sort of global behavior so the whole group moves in one direction—to follows the spill, for example. This is part of the algorithm design. Out of very local information, we need to induce global behavior of the flock of underwater robots," said professor Jorge Cortes, of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.

Follow the links below to see the several of the posts and stories on these little bots.

Credit: Tech Fragments and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego

Tiny Robot Swarms Will Study Tiniest Sea Life
FOXNews
Giant robots are best suited for Terminator-scale tasks. To measure the sea's tiniest inhabitants, oceanographers will need to build a new type of robot.
Swarm of Autonomous Robots to Patrol Oceans U.S. News & World Report
Scientists to release swarms of robots into the oceans Examiner.com
Sea Faring Robots to Monitor Oil Spills Tech Fragments
KPBSGenetic Engineering News (press release)PhysOrg.com
all 13 news articles »

Tiny Robot Swarms Will Study Tiniest Sea Life – FOXNews
(author unknown)
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:50:45 GMT

iRobot Opens Healthcare Division

Here are two stories about iRobot’s latest entry in the robotics field.  iRobot has decided to create a robot to assist elderly patients in there homes.  The question is will this robot also vacuum the floors?  iRobot calls this area of robotics assistive technology and it’s purpose is to promote wellness and quality of life for seniors.  I don’t see why this would be limited to older folks, it would seem that anyone in need of assistance in their home could benefit from these machines.  Read the articles below for more on these homecare bots.

press release:

BEDFORD, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–iRobot Corp. (Nasdaq: IRBT – News) today announced that Colin Angle, iRobot’s chairman and chief executive officer, will discuss the role of robots in the future of healthcare during a presentation at the TEDMED conference in San Diego, Calif.
At the event, Angle will also introduce Tod Loofbourrow, president of iRobot’s newly-created healthcare business unit. The new business unit is committed to exploring the potential of robotics as an assistive technology to promote wellness and enhance quality of life for seniors. In this role, Loofbourrow will be responsible for all aspects of the group’s strategy, research and operations. He will report directly to Angle.

iRobot Creates Health Care Business Unit, Names New President
thorn_stevens
Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:20:00 GMT

Boston Globe

In 1978, at age 16, Tod Loufbourrow published a book called "How to build a computer-controlled robot." A few years later, he went off to Harvard,
See all stories on this topic

Bots for Seniors: iRobot Creates New Division to Serve Eldercare Market
Boston Globe
Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:18:33 GMT

Robot Battalions Will Explore the Solar System

Up to this point in space exploration, robots have been solitary explorers commanded ultimately from Earth.  Sure, they may have used other spacecraft for communication relays as some Mars landers have done, but they have not been controlled by other machines.  Now, that may be changing.  As this story from the Telegraph states, “Robotic airships and satellites will fly above the surface of the distant world, commanding squadrons of wheeled rovers and floating robot boats, according to Wolfgang Fink of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).”  Robots will use networks to control other robots.  This will allow redundancy in the operations.  Cheap rovers and flyers can be deployed to explore the surface, while an orbiting spacecraft oversees the operations.  In order for this to work, the controlling robots must have the ability to make intelligent choices of where to send its minions or when to shut down a malfunctioning bot.  Prof Fink, director of Caltech's Visual and Autonomous Exploration Systems Research Laboratory, is leading his team in “developing software that would let a robotic explorer act independently and as part of a network. They would select priorities for exploration and anticipate and handle problems on their own.” 

Papers describing this new exploration are published in the journal Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine and in the Proceedings of the SPIE.  For more information on this work, visit http://autonomy.caltech.edu .  You can find information on JPL missions is at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ .

Story is adapted from materials at Telegraph.co.uk, Science Daily and NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Telegraph.co.uk

Alien worlds may be explored by armies of flying, driving and sailing robots, say scientists.

By Tom Chivers

Robotic airships and satellites will fly above
See all stories on this topic

Robot armies 'will explore alien worlds'
Telegraph.co.uk
Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:19:37 GMT

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