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Category Archives: Robotics

Afghanistan’s all-girl robotics team can’t get visas to come to the US – PRI

Posted: July 4, 2017 at 8:19 am

A group of teenage girls from Afghanistanwho had planned to cometo Washington, DC, for an international robotics competition won't be coming after all, after the US State Department denied their visas.

This opportunity would allow us to invent, design, and create things that could possibly allow our community, our lives, and us, the team memberswrote on their page ofthe FIRSTGlobal Challenge competitionwebsite. We want to make a difference and most breakthroughs in science, technology, and other industries normally start with the dream of a child to do something great. We want to be that child and pursue our dreams to make a difference in peoples lives."

The team of six had been working for months to build a robot that could complete a variety of engineering tasks, like providing access to clean drinking water.

Just getting this far had been a challenge. While other competitors received raw materials from the event organizer, the Afghan team had to improvise because the box sent from America had been held up for months amid concerns about terrorism, according to the Washington Post.

So being selected to come was a thrill. But it also meant enduring the US visa application process.

The girls had to make a 500-mile journey twice from their hometownof Herat, in western Afghanistan, to the USEmbassy in Kabul for an interview.

I can't tell you why exactly [their applications were denied], but I do know that a fair opportunity was given by the USState Department and embassy, said Joe Sestak, a former congressman and president of FIRST Global. We are saddened they won't be here.

The team was sponsored by Roya Mahboob, founder of Afghanistans Citadel software company, and the countrys first female tech CEO. Mahboob told Mashable the girls spent the day crying after finding out they wouldnt be able to travel.

"The first time [they were rejected] it was very difficult talking with the students," Mahboob said. "They're young and they were very upset.

Although the young women wont make it to the US, their robot is now on its way to participate in the competition. The team of six will tune in to the event via Skype, and a group of young Afghan-American women will represent them at the event.

The team from Afghanistan isn't alone in being rejected, according to Sestak. A team from Gambia was also denied entry, and will also participate via Skype.

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Volunteers inspire kids through free robotics program | Local … – Columbia Missourian

Posted: at 8:19 am

COLUMBIA Neatly organized boxes of tiny Lego parts were scattered across tables as students tried to assemble the tiny plastic parts into robots on a recent Sunday at the Family Impact Center.

The FIRST Lego League Illuminatix Training Camp is a free robotics program that teaches kids how to design, build and program robots to complete small tasks or missions. FIRST is an acronym for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.The students work in pairs to complete the challenges at their own pace. If they need assistance, high school students who are part of the Army Ants robotics team are there to help. The Army Ants team uses the camp to reach potential future members.

The camp aims to promote science, technology, engineering and math education through robotics in the central Columbia community, where many families are migrants or refugees from Africa. All the kids in the camp this summer were recruited from Grannys House, a local after-school program that is staffed by volunteers from Columbia churches and campus Christian groups. The publicity of the camp is meant to raise money to buy robotics kits so the kids can start their own official team.

"It's great for them to get first-hand experience with engineering, Chengli Wang, head coach for the robotics camp, said.

Aimable Nshimiyimana, 18, and his younger sister, Francoise Uwamahoro, 10, are attending the camp for their first time this summer and have been working on assembling their robot together, poring themselves over an instruction manual and comparing the pictures to their pile of plastic parts.

Nshimiyimana said he knew he wanted to join the camp right when he first learned about it.

"I love art," he said. "I do all kinds of art. I like constructing stuff with my hands."

The camp is in its second year and has 17 students all from Africa. Some have lived in Columbia for only three or four months, Wang said. All of the students can speak English but their parents cannot.

Ellis Ingram, a retired professor from the MU School of Medicine whose wife, Pam Ingram, founded Granny's House, helped with the camp by going door to door with a translator and passing out applications to parents in the Family Impact Center's neighborhood.

"He treats all of the kids like his own," Wang said. "They call him Poppie."

The facility has two large tables set up with themed obstacle courses for the robots to go through. Each table has 10 missions a robot can be programmed to complete. The more missions it can finish, the more points it will earn in a competition.

At the Animal Allies table, robots must be able to perform tasks like moving around a shark in a tank or pushing a crank around a cow farm to get little pieces of Lego milk to come out. But if the crank is pushed too far, Lego pieces of manure will fall out, and the robot will be deducted points for its mess.

Wang said the tables are a great way to get kids interested in robotics because they like the fun designs.

"That's a good start to get kids in the door," Wang said.

Camp mentors Alice Tang, Teresa Tang and Louise Schule who are former members of FIRST Lego League Illuminatix team 4358 volunteer to help the kids learn to program their robots. Teresa Tang and Schule are both part of the Army Ants team and build large, industrial size robots with steel or aluminum to perform complex tasks like picking up large gears, shooting balls or climbing ropes.

A couple of the other volunteers are students from MU and Moberly Area Community College.

Cecil Shy, who's pursuing a doctorate in engineering at MU, comes to help the students assemble their robots each week.

"I used to take stuff apart when I was younger," Shy said. "This kind of stuff wasn't out yet when I was a kid. And if it was, I didnt know about it."

Shy worked with Nshimiyimana and Francoise while they were building their robot, helping them decipher the pictures in the instruction manual while encouraging the students to put the machine together themselves.

"Im living through them," Shy said.

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Why did the Itasca County 4-H Robotics Team plant a pollinator garden at the library? – Herald Review

Posted: at 8:19 am

It all started with the Lego Robotics Competition which focused on using technology to assist nature. Itasca Countys 4-H Cobra Programming Robotics Team earned second place in their division at Regionals and took first place in robot design and programming. At Sectionals, the team took first place in the Head-to-Head and first place for innovative robot design.

For the project portion of the competition, the robotics team chose to help bees. Through their research, they discovered that native bees and other pollinators are at serious peril because of a lack of native plants to provide nutrition, habitat and pesticide-free places to rear their young. They learned from the University of Minnesota Bee Lab that habitat loss has had a devastating effect on native pollinators that rely on wild and semi-wild areas for forage. In Minnesotas increasingly altered landscape, we are seeing troubling declines in the diversity of both native flowering plants and our native pollinators. The Robotics team was surprised to learn that more than one-third of their food supply requires pollination and that the 400 species of Minnesota native bees as well as honey bees are vital to pollination of such crops as apple, cherry, blueberry, squash and many others.

One of the ways they chose to help the bees was by planting a native pollinator garden. Thanks to the support of the Grand Rapids Library and help from the Grand Rapids Public Works Department, the team was able to plant the garden on library grounds near the river walk. More than a dozen native, pesticide-free plants were donated from the pollinator gardens of Library Volunteer Coordinator, Bonnie Henriksen, and Itasca County Extension Master Gardeners Coby Bunna, Sue Roy and Bonny Siegford. Siegford created a garden plan and assisted the team with planting and mulching their flowering plants. The 4-Hers in the Itasca County Science and Robotics program will water, maintain, and care for the garden. The team members are looking forward to seeing their garden in bloom with a variety of pollinators harvesting nectar and pollen from native plants.

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Please ignore the robots – The Verge

Posted: at 8:19 am

Welcome to First Click, a daily essay written by The Verge staff in which we opine on lives lived in the near future.

Its just a ruin in a field now, but in 15th-century England, Boxley Abbey was a hotspot for the faithful. Pilgrims would travel from across the land to see a statue of Christ on the cross that was housed in the monastery and known as the Rood of Grace. On holy days, the Christ would come alive, with a contemporary account describing how the figure hypnotized crowds with its ability to:

shake and stirre the hands and feete, to nod the head, to rolle the eies, to wag the chaps, to bende the browes [] shewing a most milde, amiable, and smyling cheere and countenance. 1

During Henry VIIIs Dissolution of the Monasteries, when the riches of the Church were being confiscated in the name of religious conformity, the Rood was removed and its secrets laid bare. Inspectors discovered that protruding from Christs back was a mess of wire [and] old rotten sticks, which the monks had used to operate it from afar. The statue was taken to London and, during a sermon outside St Pauls Cathedral, broken into pieces by an angry crowd, to put an end its great idolatrie once and for all.

Stories like this are strange and familiar. They show that robots have been shocking society for far longer than we usually think. To us they seem a modern phenomenon, but for centuries, the rich and powerful have been building automata to amuse themselves and awe the masses. Sometimes, though, we forget about the strings that are being pulled.

Look at the news from last month that the police force of Dubai has hired its first robotic cop. The bot in question is about the size and shape of a human, but with wheels for legs, cameras for eyes, and a tablet embedded in the middle of its chest. During press events, the robot was pictured shaking hands and saluting dutifully. One officer commented: These kinds of robots can work 24/7. They won't ask you for leave, sick leave or maternity leave. It can work around the clock.

Its all rubbish of course. Dubais robot an off-the-shelf model built by Spains Pal Robotics wont be doing any real work. Its a tablet on wheels, designed to trundle around tourist centers and dole out directions. The same can be said of many other high-profile bots like Pepper, or various home hub robots. The work they do is usually just that of a mobile phone or a security camera. Occasionally, if theyre big enough, theyll knock over a child, just to break up the routine.

But as in 15th-century England, these particular robots are serving another, more important purpose. Historical accounts of the Rood of Grace are divided over whether or not pilgrims were actually fooled by the mechanical Christ. Did they believe they were witnessing a miracle, or were they just impressed by the technology and what it represented: the power and wealth of the Church.

the robots that will actually take our jobs are far less exciting

Similarly, although the practical uses of Dubais new robot are limited, as a symbol its potent. The government of the United Arab Emirates is currently pursuing its Vision 2021 strategy a plan to shift the countrys economy away from oil-dependence to a diverse mix of technologically advanced industries. Part of this involves embracing automation, from artificial intelligence to driverless cars and drones. And, yes, that will include robots working for the police, but they wont be humanoid because thats not practical. Theyll be like this CCTV-equipped self-driving car; one that Dubais police force is also testing just with less fanfare.

Many robots we see today are simply avatars of larger economic and technological forces. It is absolutely certain that in the years to come, the tools of automation (including the robots we dont see; hidden away in factories and warehouses) will destroy some jobs, create others, and dramatically reshape societies around the world. Whether or not governments can stop these changes harming workers is another question. Although lots of news coverage of robots and AI veers between wild apocalyptic predictions and a sort of bemused wonderment, we need to split the difference and consider the real, unexciting challenges ahead most of which will have political, not technological, solutions.

Just like the congregants in Boxley Abbey, the questions we should be asking when we see these marvels are: who is pulling the strings here, and what is it they want from us?

1The Restless Clock: A History of the Centuries-Long Argument Over What Makes Living Things Tick, Jessica Riskin

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Please ignore the robots - The Verge

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Robotics and the click-to-ship revolution – The Engineer

Posted: at 8:19 am

Viewpoint

Robots have always been considered as futuristic. The reality is, they are entering the here-and-now in a significant and transformative way and nowhere more so than in the modern warehouse, as Simon Cooper of Dematic explains

Across all walks of life, robots, in the form of autonomous cars, drones and voice-activated artificial intelligence, are gaining public attention. Trials of autonomous cars have taken place in several major cities already, including London, and drones have been famously used by Amazon to deliver online orders. But robots are set to have a far wider influence on industry, logistics and retail enterprises.

Of course, articulated robots have been a common sight in automotive assembly plants for years, and to some extent, they are often seen within warehouses assembling pallet loads. But, the use of robotics for ecommerce order fulfilment is something new and is fast becoming a major focus of attention for the large retailers.

Robotics will soon become the key differentiator for retail businesses competing on cost-to-serve and speed of delivery for online orders. Many retailers are aiming for 15 minutes from click to ship an ambitious target that can only be achieved through the use of robots. Major retailers across the globe are actively engaged in seeking solutions to these challenges.

The interest in robotics is strong. A recent report published by Research and Markets found that worldwide sales of warehousing and logistics robots hit $1.9 billion in 2016 and predicts that the market will reach $22.4 billion by the end of 2021. In a separate study by analysts Tractica, worldwide shipments made by warehousing and logistics robots are set to rise from 40,000 units in 2016 to 620,000 units annually by 2021.

This growing interest in warehouse robotics is being fuelled, in the main, by the consumers continued preference to shop online, with the rising expectation for next day delivery. According to figures released in March 2017 by the UKs Office for National Statistics (ONS), shoppers spent an estimated 1bn a week online with UK retailers during February, 20.7% up on the same month last year accounting for 15.3% of all retail spending.

But, how will omnichannel retailers cope with this significant and continuing shift to online sales? Where will the labour force come from to match the rising demand for single order picking? In large ecommerce fulfilment centres many hundreds of people are already employed as pickers and packers and, in key areas, finding staff is becoming increasingly difficult, but many more will be needed if the trend to online continues as predicted.

Perennial fears over the loss of some manual warehouse tasks to robots could possibly stand in the way of a sensible solution to the problems of scale of demand and cost. A draft report to the European parliament, prepared by MEP Mady Delvaux in 2016, even raised the idea of a tax on robots. However, robots can increase the productivity of the existing labour force and would be invaluable in the boost to activity leading up to Christmas, when finding extra staff can be difficult.

Importantly, robotics and automation radically improve productivity and through these gains, businesses grow and develop, requiring more people to maintain systems and run the newly developed channels of growth. Thus, the overall prospect for jobs remains positive going forward, although some roles may change.

In the UK, there are some that believe finding labour for picking processes may become more difficult following the decision to leave the EU, making investment in robotic picking an even more compelling option. It seems likely that many retailers will choose to amortise the cost of automation over a longer time period, and so ensure operational efficiency and customer service, rather than be exposed to the possibility of being dependent upon a dwindling pool of labour, with the linked prospect of rising labour costs.

There is already evidence of a growing number of retail businesses with large manual operations looking to the viability of automated DCs that incorporate robotic systems. Even organisations that presently use paper pick lists are exploring automation.

Mixed case palletising and roll-cage building is becoming increasingly important for retailers, particularly grocers, as they look to store friendly sequencing to achieve greater efficiency with shelf replenishment at their retail outlets. Dematic have developed shuttle-based systems to deliver full cases of product in sequence to specially created robot handlers and these dedicated machines pick-and-place product in mixed case fashion to a pallet or roll-cage. In this type of operation it is critical that the storage and retrieval system supplying the robot is fast enough to handle the cases and intelligent enough to deliver the cases in the exact sequence.

Similarly, many retailers are asking for retail totes to be built up on pallets or dollies automatically by robot in a store friendly sequence. This is relatively straight forward, removing manual labour and using intelligent software to sequence and build the load in accordance to the planned layout of the retail store building the load in reverse drop sequence. When the dolly is wheeled down the aisle in the store, items are available in order, ready to be placed on the shelves.

However, the Holy Grail in warehouse automation, and undoubtedly the most difficult challenge to date, is the use of robots for single item picking from a stock tote to an order tote. This is cutting edge technology and Dematic is actively engaged in developing robots for picking individual items, such as a bottle of shampoo or a tee shirt, from a stock tote and placing it to an order tote. Dematics RapidPick XT robotic picking system is leading this field and can consistently pick up to 1,200 items per hour with an uptime approaching 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The robot is fully articulated and equipped with a 2D/3D vision system.

It is the vision system and the gripper that are the two most highly complex aspects of this challenge. Dematic are trialing both gripper and vacuum technology to effect the pick and creating machines that are able to swap these hand pieces accordingly, depending on the characteristics of the items being picked.

Another robot that has just been developed by Dematics research unit in Grand Rapids is the Multishuttle ARM. This is a completely automated piece picking system that combines the Multishuttle donor tote buffer storage and conveyance system, a robotic arm, vision equipment, and warehouse control and order management systems to enable picking of individual items to batch or order totes. Multishuttle ARM replaces manual goods-to-person processes for order fulfilment operations.

There are many more exciting developments taking place regarding AGVs and robotics.

Robotic solutions have become viable only through recent advances in artificial intelligence. They are now far more cost-effective and are able to quickly identify, verify, pick-up and place single items at speed. These are complex problems that are being solved, here and now. Robots are no longer science fiction; they are fast becoming a very real part of the contemporary warehouse.

Simon Cooper is business solutions sales director for Dematic Northern Europe

About Dematic Dematic employs over 6,000 skilled logistics professionals to serve its customers globally, with engineering centers and manufacturing facilities located across the globe. Dematic has implemented more than 4,500 integrated systems for a customer base that includes small, medium and large companies doing business in a variety of market sectors. Headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Dematic is a member of KION Group, a global leader in industrial trucks, related services, and supply chain solutions.

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Summer of Coding and Robotics – GeekDad (blog)

Posted: at 8:19 am

Another summer, another round of summer camps. For the last three years, Ive been enjoying teaching a variety of tech camps here in Atlanta. My students are typically 2nd to 7th graders, and Ive enjoyed teaching week-long camps such as Build Your Own Robot, 3D Design and Printing, and the big favorite, Minecraft Engineering. Just behind the Minecraft camp, however, is the Beginning Game Programming Camp. Ive now taught it three summers in a row, and it remains popular. Kids love games, and kids like the idea of learning to create their own games. Theyve got to start somewhere, and Scratch programming has consistently proven to be a great tool for introducing programming concepts and thought patterns.

Ive written previously about the DK workbooks that I use (you can read more about those workbooks here and here and here), and I always make a bunch of other books available as resources. I let the kids take the workbooks home when the camp is finished so they can share it with their parents and siblings. Each summer, Ive tried to improve on the curriculum, and this past week I got to take some camp upgrades for a test spin.

Last summer was the first time I introduced gamification to the game programming class. Each camper was provided a badge and a small checklist. As they worked through two workbooks and completed games/projects, they would level up. These checklists were taped to the whiteboard and provided a bit of incentive and competition to the students as they worked hard to reach Level 10. The problem I encountered was that many students didnt like the competition part some older students just moved more quickly through the levels, and the younger students tended to feel a bit overwhelmed. This time around, I instead provided each student with a small booklet and badge and allowed them to move around the nine games/projects and do the ones that interested them instead of a set list of consecutive projects. We took frequent breaks and I introduced them to other subjects related to programming (more on that in a moment).

Below you can see some photos of the badges and booklets. The students enjoyed taking the booklets home and showing their parents the progress they were making. My initials and a big checkmark brought a lot of smiles and I could see the sense of accomplishment each student received as they leveled up. I also awarded up to eight Achievement stickers to students when I saw them doing something useful or impressive; these included TEACH badges for explaining a concept to another student, DEBUG for successfully finding a bug on their own, and, the favorite, TEAMWORK for working together to solve a problem or find a unique way to do something.

With five days to level up, there was no pressure and I allowed students to take their workbooks home to continue their progress. Level 10 could only be achieved by creating their own unique game, and all the students were successful in finishing a game by Friday. I awarded a lot of TEAMWORK and DEBUG achievements but also quite a few RESEARCH and UPGRADE badges.

I mentioned earlier that, during the Scratch Game Programming camp, I introduced the students to program-related topics. One of those topics was robot programming. Kids are fascinated by robots (adults, too), and its an easy thing to hand a student who might be hesitant to learn programming a small robot like the Edison and ask him to drag some blocks on the screen to program the little robot to drive a loop around his chair.

I was fortunate this week to have an Edison to show the kids. This little robot has studs on it so LEGO blocks can be attached, but I was much more impressed with the new tool thats being released shortly called EdBlocks. EdBlocks is a browser-based tool that lets the user drop pre-coded blocks on the screen and string them together to create more complex instruction sets. I was able to use EdBlocks to get a few of the younger campers a bit more confident with the drag-and-drop Scratch block programming. Whats interesting is that EdBlocks is based on the Scratch tool, and some of the blocks (especially the looping-style blocks) shared a color scheme with their Scratch counterparts. The visual similarities, in my opinion, made it much easier for my younger programmers to feel at home once they dove into Scratch.

The only problem I had was that they didnt want to leave the Edison and start learning Scratch. They had the robot doing zig-zag patterns out in the hallway and beeping away at obstructions. The kids were so engaged that Im seriously consider creating an entire camp that revolves around the inexpensive Edison robot. I was provided with eight sample lessons, but the final (and FREE) resource pack will include 23 lessons and a teacher compendium!

And speaking of new camps, my next camp (a new one titled More Game Programming) will be up and running in a few weeks, and Ive got another absolutely incredible resource from DK. Each camper will be given a copy (to take home when the camp is done) of the brand new Coding Projects in Python. Ive read through the book, done most of the projects, and Im blown away by what a great resource this is for a younger audience.

This is a much lengthier book, coming in at 224 pages. Just as with the workbooks, this book is filled with colorful graphics, useful sidebars, Expert Tips, and much more. The book offers up over 15 different games and projects to code in Python, and its the layout of this book and the unique way it teaches the reader to code with Python that convinced me to offer the camp. With well-defined step numbers, the layout makes it easy for students to not accidentally jump ahead and skip over something important. This is a big dealmany coding books are just paragraph after paragraph after paragraph with code snippets tossed in, and Ive found that kids can often get lost easily in the maze. These projects are spread out and not rushedstudents have plenty of graphics to explore that explain key concepts and the sidebars are engaging. My oldest son has enjoyed the book (going into 5th grader) and I have no doubt the 3rd to 5th graders who will be taking the camp will find the projects fun. Even better, however, is the fact that they will get some solid experience with coding using a text-based language instead of a visual tool like Scratch.

Coding Projects in Python just came out, so I am fortunate to be able to have copies for each student. If youve got a student at home during the summer who is bored or needing a challenge, this is the book for him or her. And because Python is free to download and install, theres nothing else to buy. (It will run on both Mac and PC.)

All in all, Im keeping some kids busy this summer with lots of fun and interesting tools. From the Edison robot to Scratch programming to coding in Python, Im enjoy seeing the look of satisfaction on these kids faces as they learn new skills and have many Ah-hah! moments. Whether youre teaching your own camps or just have a kid or two at home during the summer and are looking for some ideas, these books and programming tools and robots are a sure-fire way to keep reading skills and brains sharp.

Note: Id like to thank DK and Team Edison/Microbric for providing review copies of the Python book and the Edison robot and EdBlocks tutorials.

James Floyd Kelly is a full-time writer. His latest three books are Digital Engineering with Minecraft, Tinkercad for Beginners and The Ultimate iPad. Learn more by visiting his website http://jamesfloydkelly.com

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The rise of the BritBot UK Robotics Week highlights AI progress – Diginomica

Posted: July 3, 2017 at 8:17 am

Robotics and autonomous systems (RAS) form one of the Eight Great Technologies that Britain believes are vital to its future prosperity, and UK Robotics Week throws an annual spotlight on the countrys ambitions to lead the field, inspiring pupils, undergraduates, and professionals alike.

The events are hosted by the UK-RAS Network, an action group of academics run by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the UKs main agency for funding research in these areas. Robotics Week 2017 ended on 30 June with a showcase that also launched an independent report on the quality, reach, and impact of the EPSRCs work.

So are the robots rising in the Brexit gloom?

The panel that produced the report chaired by Prof. David Hogg of the University of Leeds, with senior representatives from Dyson, Harvard University, UC San Diego, UCL, and Kings College London, among others concluded that while there is world-class research in the UK, there are greater opportunities to collaborate across disciplines, such as robotics, machine learning, and computer vision, and to identify critical investment gaps.

One way of doing this would be to establish a shared UK infrastructure for RAS research, says their report. It urges private companies to provide universities with experimental facilities, and information-centric organisations such as Deep Mind and Amazon to place their data in the public domain, complementing the UKs wealth of anonymised data sets. Industry-specific data will be a huge growth market over the next 5-10 years.

But another of the reports recommendations might prove to be more challenging, thanks to Brexit rearing its ugly head once again:

The RAS research community and EPSRC should work to sustain and develop international research links and joint funding opportunities, both within Europe and beyond.

What the EPSRC calls a risk of a reduction in funding for UK institutions from the EU is a certainty if Brexit goes ahead, and it may affect inward investment from elsewhere, too. That said, a number of technology companies, including Apple and Google, have significantly increased their presence in the UK since the referendum.

There are other signs of hope. The UK may benefit from a Trump bump in robotics research at least, according to one delegate. Pietro Valdastri, Professor and Chair in RAS at the University of Leeds, told diginomica how Trumps America first policy is damaging international collaboration within the US, so he has come to the UK to seek a more welcoming community. Other experts may follow as Trumps disinterest in science and the environment takes its toll.

The EPSRC notes that while there will always be a need for fundamental UK research into robots which another delegate described as the arms, legs, and eyes of the internet there is:

an opportunity for a greater proportion of the overall portfolio to be linked to societal needs and industry challenges.

In other words, academic research into RAS sometimes takes places in an ethical, societal, and industrial vacuum and gives too little consideration to the technologies real-world purpose. Backroom boffins must do more to translate their efforts into applications that benefit society as a whole.

Speaking at the event, Dr Lester Russell, Senior Director EMEA Scale Team at Intel, urged the RAS community to consider the ways in which the black box of AI can be used for social good:

You do need the people and the process and the technology to each be set to one, otherwise the output will be zero. If either the people or the process is set to zero, all the technology in the world will make zero difference.

He added that by considering the ethical and societal impacts at the design stage, the future application of robots, AI, and autonomous systems will be less about replacing workers, and more about how we segment our work and create new jobs.

The showcase also saw the launch of four UK-RAS white papers on: the development of AI and machine learning; RAS for resilient infrastructures; robotics in extreme or hazardous environments; and robotics in social/health care.

In Britain, the last two are particularly important.

The UK will spend 2bn every year for the next 100 years cleaning up its nuclear waste principally that left behind by the arms race, rather than by nuclear power stations. So RAS represents a 200 billion opportunity in one industry alone.

Nuclear fusion is another robotics hotspot in every sense but extreme temperatures, electronics-killing radiation, and residual magnetic fields currently make it almost as hazardous to robots as to human beings. So there are enormous opportunities to develop haptics, AI, and autonomous/remote systems to work in the power stations of the future what RAS-UK calls a race to zero in terms of human intervention.

With climate change, the global need for early warning technologies and more resilient critical systems is just as clear. According to RAS-UK, 263 million people worldwide were affected by disasters in 2010 110 million more than in 2004, the year of the Asian tsunami.

The UK already has a strong network of universities that are conducting world-class research into sensors, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), batteries, and AI in these fields, along with leading institutes, such as the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and the National Oceanographic Centre (NOC), which offer global perspectives on their application.

Search and rescue bots, smart oil fields, and the remote maintenance of offshore wind farms are further areas in which the UK is conducting world-beating research.

The paper makes a number of recommendations on how the UK can capitalise on its extreme- environments expertise. These include the need for:

The white paper concludes that RAS technology has reached a tipping point in these areas, with massive commercial opportunities already being demonstrated. It adds:

Careful regulation and strategic stimulus is required to ensure that the UK has a significant impact in the use of, as well as the design, development, and manufacture of, RAS services and solutions.

Robotics will also have a significant impact on social/health care worldwide, as ageing populations create unprecedented societal challenges.

The need for technology assistance is real. By 2020 there will 12 million people over the age of 65 in the UK, and by 2035 that figure will have increased to 17 million. There are too few qualified nurses and care professionals already, together with high staff churn, and yet public spending on social care is falling in real terms.

In England and Wales, 2015-16 expenditure stood at 8.34 billion, only fractionally more than the 8.3 billion spent a decade earlier. Factor in the effects of inflation and an increase of nearly two million in the 65+ population during that timeframe, and this represents a per-capita reduction in available funds of more than one-third, according to RAS-UK figures.

Fortunately, the UK has a number of world-leading university research projects (at Bristol, Hertfordshire, Sheffield, Edinburgh, and elsewhere) exploring how RAS technologies can help ageing, sick, or disabled people to live more independent lives: a programme of assistive and rehabilitative care rather than the dehumanised system that some have predicted.

According to RAS-UK, these technologies can help address physical, cognitive, and companionship challenges within ageing populations, and provide smarter home, residential, and hospital environments, tele-health systems, and more. For people with disabilities, driverless vehicles could be a transformative technology.

The white paper counters the widely held belief that RAS in a social/health care environment will mainly be about replacing human workers:

First, as technologists who are trying to understand the challenge of care, we are very aware of the level of human skill involved in everyday care activities [] RAS can be developed to assist with these activities, but they will not match or replace the ability of human carers in the near future.

Second, the interpersonal aspects of care, such as empathy and understanding, are uniquely human. AI personal assistants and social robots may be able to provide a form of synthetic companionship that people may find engaging, but this will never replace human companionship.

The paper recommends that RAS development in these fields should focus on relieving the burden of repetitive, strenuous work so that human carers can handle the professional, human-to-human aspects of care. It adds that robotics will have an important role to play in rehabilitation and the delivery of medical assistance in the home, with systems that allow people to stay in their own homes for longer.

Excellent progress for the UK, and positive goals for researchers and suppliers. So lets hope that customers dont only see the opportunity to slash costs, rather than augment human abilities.

But a lot of buy-side analyst and think tank research on robotics, automation, and AI focuses on the potential to remove human workers rather than to assist humans, improve society, or complement skills.

Take the recent Reform group report on robotics and automation in the public sector, which saw opportunities to remove 250,000 staff, including teachers and nurses, and create an automated environment in which human workers compete via reverse auction for ad hoc work.

Like all of the UK Robotics Week publications, the social/health care white paper is a clarion call for UK ambition and talent. It concludes that the UKs innovation culture, combined with its thriving academic base and a burgeoning SME sector, proves that Britain can be a world leader in RAS over the next quarter century.

However, todays Brexit landscape of political instability and regulatory uncertainty, together with a lack of central investment in the national infrastructure and secondary education, mean that the UK has a fight on its hands to avoid squandering its own potential and to persuade buyers not to junk real benefits in favour of easy, cheap answers.

Image credit - pinterest

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Country School competes in robotics – New Canaan Advertiser

Posted: at 8:17 am

New Canaan Country Schools Middle School Robotics Team participated in the eighth annual ROBOnanza!, a competition for Westchester and Fairfield county independent schools held in Greenwich on May 13. The Country School Cougar Bots, robots built completely out of LEGOs and programmed by the fifth and sixth graders, contended against robots from other schools in three levels of challenges.

The CSI-inspired theme of this years ROBOnanza! was Forensic Frenzy. With that in mind, the students were challenged to build robots that could travel down a lane and knock over as many burglars (pins) as possible in a 5-frame game (Bowling For Burglars); navigate to five numbered areas with various LEGO evidence worth various point values (Collect the Evidence); and complete an obstacle course autonomously (Police Academy Training).

Country School sixth graders Sofie Petricone (Rowayton) and Charlotte Calderwood (Darien) took home the first-place trophy for Police Academy Training, while the fifth grade team of Malcolm Stewart (Darien), Cyrus Pearson (New Canaan) and Decatur Boland (Rowayton) netted second-place honors in the same category. The Cougar Bot designed by sixth graders Tyler Rosolen (Norwalk) and Sam Cherry (Westport) scored second place in Collect the Evidence, and the fifth grade team consisting of Waverly Walters (New Canaan), Katey Charnin (Darien) and Annie Nichols (New Canaan), placed third. Sixth grader Parakram Karnik (New Canaan) scored second place in Bowling for Burglars.

Fifth grader Peter Metcalf (Darien) won a special trophy for being the only person in the competition to fully complete the Police Academy challenge. He was also cited for successfully navigating his robot around the outline of a human body.

Sixth grader Rebecca McKee (Stamford) earned praise for designing a robot which successfully navigated almost all of the line challenges, in addition to getting out of a box.

All team members took home certificates for successfully completing challenges.

It was a great combination of STEM challenge, creative problem-solving and teamwork, said sixth grade teacher Fraser Randolph. Once again, the students worked hard and showed their resiliency in the face of challenges. Many of the robots had to be completely reprogrammed on the spot and the students did so successfully with great results.

New Canaan Country Schools Middle School (fifth and sixth grades) Robotics Team members recently demonstrated their skills in ROBOnanza!, a competition for Westchester and Fairfield county independent schools. In front, from left, are Charlotte Calderwood (Darien), Annie Nichols (New Canaan) Waverly Walters (New Canaan), Cyrus Pearson (New Canaan), and Katey Charnin (Darien). In back are sixth grade teacher Fraser Randolph, Sam Cherry (Westport), Tyler Rosolen (Norwalk), Sofie Petricone (Rowayton), Decatur Boland (Rowayton), Malcom Stewart (Darien), Rebecca McGee (Stamford), Parakram Karnik (New Canaan), Peter Metcalf (Darien) and technology teacher Bruce Lemoine. Torrance York photo. New Canaan Country School middle school students recently competed in robotics.

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Tough competition during FIRST Robotics final – Kingman Daily Miner – Kdminer

Posted: at 8:17 am

Photo by Aaron Ricca.

A Lego robot moves stones across a table. Two robots faced off while moving and lifting different objects across the space-table for points. The robots also had avoid small obstacles in order to not lose points.

KINGMAN The competition was fierce, but fun.

After a week of learning to program and build Lego robots, as well as conducting research and building friendships, 40 third- through eighth-grade students put their skills to the test during the final trials of the 2017 FIRST Lego League Lego Camp at Kingman High School Friday.

Kingman FIRST Robotics Team 60 coaches and high school science teachers Celeste Lucier and Jody Schanaman, along with Team 60 student mentors, watched, learned, advised and cheered the various teams on as they and their Lego robots scrambled to lift, shift and move random Lego parts across a space-table during coordinated exercises for points.

Theyll also conducted research to identify real world problems, learning how to create innovative solutions and create a presentation to share their findings.

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Robotics Online – News

Posted: July 2, 2017 at 9:21 am

June 2017

Macomb-OU Incubator Introduces a New Client Company

POSTED: 06/30/2017

The Macomb-OU Incubator is pleased to introduce new client company CoPilot Vision Systems (CPVS). CPVS has developed a proprietary, commercial

MCRI Recognized for Safety Achievement

POSTED: 06/29/2017

Motion Controls Robotics was presented with a certificate of safety achievement through the Sandusky County Safety Council

Welding With OCTOPUZ Software

POSTED: 06/27/2017

Welding with OCTOPUZ is Unique A unique quality of OCTOPUZs software is that it is ONE software solution to program all

Robot Automation Making a Positive Difference

POSTED: 06/27/2017

Roger Varin, CEO of Staubli Corporation speaks about automation making a positive difference in the workplace.

OCTOPUZ Officially Certified by Universal Robots

POSTED: 06/27/2017

OCTOPUZ Inc. is proud to announce that is has officially become a certified software by Universal Robots. This means that

KC Robotics' Jack Justice Speaks at RIA Webinar - Robotic Welding Tools, Tricks, Accessories and End of Arm Tools

POSTED: 06/26/2017

KC Robotics Jack Justice wasa panelist in theRIA Welding Webinar, Robotic Welding Tools, Tricks, Accessories and End of Arm Tools.

FPC Series Suction Cup, Portrait of a Specialist!

POSTED: 06/22/2017

The universal suction cup for all types of FlowPack packaging. FPC stands for FlowPack Cup: COVAL's new suction cup is

Intelligrated Solution named to Supply & Demand Chain Executives 100 Top Supply Chain Projects for 2017

POSTED: 06/22/2017

Automated palletizing solution handles 95 percent of Bee Sweets fruit varieties with flexibility to run 27 different stacking patterns

A3 Fall Conferences Spur Manufacturing Growth and the Creation of Entirely New Categories of Jobs

POSTED: 06/22/2017

Conferences Provide In-Depth Training in Robot Safety, Motion Control, Vision Systems, and Collaborative Robots

Automated Painting Solution for General Industry

POSTED: 06/20/2017

Drr and Kuka, leading manufacturers in the fields of production and automation technology, have joined forces: together they have developed

The Miniature Servo Controller for Extreme Conditions

POSTED: 06/19/2017

A rugged, compact powerhouse: The new ESCON Module 50/8 HE servo controller from maxon motor controls DC motors up to

Schneider Packaging Equipment to Introduce its Newly Redesigned Bottom-Loading Vertical Case Packer

POSTED: 06/16/2017

Schneider Packaging Equipment Co., a leading manufacturer of end-of-line solutions for case packing, sealing and palletizing, is introducing its newly

Schneider Packaging Equipment Case Sealers With Water-Activated Tape

POSTED: 06/16/2017

Schneider Packaging Equipment Co., a leading manufacturer of end-of-line solutions for case packing, sealing and palletizing, is reducing downtime for

Schneider Packaging to Feature Cutting-Edge Pallet Generation Software

POSTED: 06/16/2017

Schneiders proprietary HMI software that powers their industry-leading palletizing solutions wasfirst unveiled at the PACK Expo International last fall, the

Schneider Packaging Brightens Productivity with Intelligent Illumination Technology

POSTED: 06/16/2017

The toast of computer gamers and lighting manufacturers now has a potentially critical role in the packaging industry with the

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