Category Archives: Robotics

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What: St. Vrain Valley VEX Robotics Showcase

When: 5:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday

Where: Boulder County Fairgrounds' Exhibit Hall, 9595 Nelson Road, Longmont

Cost: $5 for adults, $3 for children, includes spaghetti dinner from Longmont's Ragazzi Italian Grill

More info: tinyurl.com/hjzel3r

Students at Longmont's Central Elementary School are testing, changing and retesting the robots they've worked on since the start of the school year as they get ready for a state VEX Robotics competition this weekend.

From left: Fifth-graders Fiona Glynn and Willa Conlin use a laptop to program a series of commands for their robot Thursday at Central Elementary School in Longmont. (Matthew Jonas / Staff Photographer)

"We're never really done," fifth-grader Anna Kragerud said as her team worked to make their robot turn. "There's always something to modify."

They must "drive" the robots around an arena using a remote control and program them to move on their own, completing tasks that involve hexagon-shaped balls to earn points. They also earn points in a teamwork challenge that requires them to work with a second team.

"It's really cool," Kragerud said. "You get to program a robot to do what you want it to do. You get to use your imagination to build the robot. It's not already built for you."

Classmate Erik Swanson is in his fourth year building and competing with robots, working mainly as a programmer. His team is first in the state for robot skills this season, with a goal of qualifying for the world competition for the third year.

"This is a growing world of technology," he said. "The better you are at technology, the better of you will be."

To celebrate students' accomplishments and give the community a firsthand look at its robotics program, St. Vrain Valley is hosting its first robotics showcase and fundraiser on Thursday.

About 300 students from 28 schools are expected to attend to demonstrate the problem-solving, collaboration and construction required.

Plans include "build" activity stations with unassembled or partly-built robots so participants can experience building a robot, while "programming" stations provide an opportunity to use computer language. "Drive" stations also will offer completed robots to try.

The fundraiser portion, which includes a silent auction, has a goal of raising $10,000 to pay to send teams to out-of-state national and international competitions and for ongoing support of the program. The event is supported by the Education Foundation for the St. Vrain Valley.

St. Vrain also is hosting a state VEX IQ tournament Saturday at Trail Ridge Middle School. So far, 38 teams are registered, with most of them from St. Vrain.

Altogether, St. Vrain has hosted 12 competitions this year, with six middle school teams expected to compete in the U.S. Open Robotics Championship in April in Iowa. Another six or seven elementary teams are expected to compete in VEX Worlds in April in Kentucky.

Axel Reitzig, robotics and computer science coordinator at St. Vrain Valley's Innovation Center, said about 26 district schools have almost 200 teams involved in competitive robotics, up from five schools competing four years ago.

Two dozen high school students working on robotics at the Innovation Center also serve as mentors, supporting clubs and running tournaments.

"The growth has been huge," Reitzig said.

The district used its four-year, $16.5 million federal "Race to the Top" grant to start robotics programs, he said. Now that the grant is ending, the fundraiser is a way to help sustain programs.

He said the district likes the VEX program because it creates an authentic, real-world engineering experience.

"Students are applying a whole wide range of STEM skills," he said. "There's computer-aided design, programming, collaboration, project management, documentation and presenting to judges."

Middle school students can choose robotics as an elective at many schools. At the elementary level, competitive robotics is often an after-school club.

Cyrus Weinberger, principal at Erie's Red Hawk Elementary, said competitive robotics extends classroom learning for students passionate about computer science and programming.

"Kids can really push themselves," he said.

Red Hawk has six teams, with five qualifying for the state competition.

"The kids really learn a lot about collaboration and teamwork and sportsmanship," Weinberger said. "There's no one solution. It's very engaging. It gets their minds just really ticking and problem-solving."

Westview Middle School teacher Danny Hernandez leads teams at both Central and Westview. Four teams from Westview are heading to nationals, as are two Central teams.

Westview, in its fifth year of VEX robotics, was among the first schools to try the program.

"We've been getting more and more competitive," Hernandez said. "It's kind of like a competitive sport. You have to try out here to make the team."

His students have bins full of metal pieces bolts and other parts to use as they build their bots plus a large arena to practice and test them. Part of the need for the fundraiser, he said, is to help other schools start what can be an expensive program.

"We have schools that can order all the supplies and schools that can't," Hernandez said. "We want kids at other schools to benefit. It's an awesome program."

Westview students said they like that what they learn through robotics is preparing them for future careers in technology or engineering.

Seventh-grader Kaia Wing noted her team spent a lot of time researching different designs before starting to build. They also learned coding basics.

Teammate Sierra Bindseil added that she's become better at working with a group, something that's carried over in other classes. At competitions, she said, there's also a lot of collaboration, with other teams always willing to lend a part or help solve a problem.

Plus, she said, building robots is just really fun.

"You get to create something, and there aren't really any limits," she said.

Amy Bounds: 303-473-1341, boundsa@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/boundsa

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St. Vrain Valley schools to host competitive robotics showcase, fundraiser - Boulder Daily Camera

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Members of the Jupiter High School Mars Robotics Team(Photo/Thomas Cordy)

MARS (Mega Awesome Robotic System) Team 1523 students from Palm Beach Gardens, Jupiter and William T. Dwyer High Schools, as well as private and home-schooled students, today and Saturday are participating in the at the FIRSTRobotics Competition South Florida Regional at the Palm Beach County Convention Center, 650 Okeechobee Boulevard, West Palm Beach.

The event, from 8:30 a.m. 6:30 p.m., is free and open to the public

The competition is scheduled to have 48 teams. Teams from 10 states and international teams from Brazil, Colombia, Netherlands and Turkey will be attending the event.

On average each team consists of 30 students (plus parent chaperones, teachers and mentors), so organizers expect to have at least 2,500 people attending each day during the three days that the competition lasts, plus the event is open and free to the public.

With the guidance of adult mentors, students brainstorm a robot design, then while using hands on experience team members learn electrical and mechanical engineering, construction, metal working, programming, prototyping, fundraising, community outreach, website design, multimedia, design a team brand, costume making, create team spirit, and hone teamwork skills.Its as close to real world business and engineering as a student can get.

ParticipatingFIRSTRobotics Competition students are eligible to apply for more than $50 million in college scholarships.Three out of every five Fortune 500 companiessupportthe not-for-profitFIRST organization.

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North County students compete in robotics contest - Palm Beach Post (blog)

Image: IEEE Spectrum; Robot photos: Cobalt, Aethon, Simbe, Savioke, Diligent Droids, and PAL Robotics Companies developing indoor robots for commercial spaces include [from left] Cobalt, Aethon, Simbe, Savioke, Diligent Droids, and PAL Robotics.

This is a guest post. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not represent positions of IEEE Spectrum or the IEEE.

Venture funding for robotics has exploded by more than 10x over the last six years and shows no signs of stopping. Most of this investment has been focused on the usual suspects: logistics, warehouse automation, robot arms for manufacturing, healthcare and surgical robots, drones, agriculture, and autonomous cars.

But after looking into the robotics industry as I set out to launch my own robot company, Cobalt, founded last year and which came out of stealth today, I became convinced thatthere is a new emerging segment about to become one of the fastest-growing in coming years: Autonomous indoor robots for commercial spaces.

For many years, autonomous indoor robots meant one of two domains: 1.Manufacturing or material handling robots in factories and warehouses; or 2.Simple home robots. These robots sit on opposite ends of the structured spaces spectrum:

In years past, robots in factories and warehouses required extremely structured environmentsessentially, automation engineers modified the environment and kept people at arms length so that the robots could perform repetitive tasks in relative isolation. With advances in compliant manipulation (e.g. Rethink Robotics and Universal Robots) and mapping (e.g. Fetch Robotics), this equation is slowly changingbut thats a story for another day.

On the opposite end of the structured spaces spectrum is the home. Homes are notoriously unstructured and dynamic. Homes can change moment to moment and they have extremely high variability, lots of people (adults and children alike), pets, clutter, stairs, and unreliable communications. Of course, wed all love to have a general-purpose home robot (i.e. Rosie from The Jetsons) to clean, do the laundry, feed the pets, etc. But its pretty obvious that inexpensive appliances (like Roomba) and robot toys (look at CES this year) are the only viable home robots at this time: The home is hard!

But theres a massive, untapped market that sits between these two on the spectrum: Commercial spaces such as hotels, hospitals, offices, retail stores, banks, schools, nursing homes, schools, malls, and museums.

Commercial spaces could serve as a great stepping stone on the path toward general-purpose home robots by driving scale, volume, and capabilities. Commercial spaces have a number of key advantages compared to the home:

Owing to these factors, weve started to see a number of autonomous indoor robots for commercial spaces popping up in the last few years. To name just a few:

In fact, each of these companies is building what amounts to an autonomous car,but with different form-factors, value propositions, and customer segments. So while billions of dollars are being spent on autonomous vehicles for R&D and production at scale, these new applications reap the benefits (tech advances and cost savings) on sensors, computing hardware, algorithms, AI, machine learning, and open-source software.

However, indoor robots present some of their own unique challenges. Unlike autonomous cars, indoor robots are required to interact closely with and around people and integrate seamlessly into brand-conscious enterprise organizations. Because of this, factors such as industrial design, human-robot interaction, and psychology become increasingly important. Therefore, it is increasingly important for companies in this new market segment to engage experts in these fields early on (that was certainly the case at Cobalt).

Im excited about the prospect for this new market segment. These companies are eschewing the classic roboticist temptation to building sexy robots for the sake of robots. Instead, they are solving real, diverse problems with real, paying customers. Many, if not most, of the companies mentioned are already starting to deliver robots in the field, so keep an eye out for them. If my intuition is correct, there will be a lot of these robots very soon!

IEEE Spectrum's award-winning robotics blog, featuring news, articles, and videos on robots, humanoids, drones, automation, artificial intelligence, and more. Contact us:e.guizzo@ieee.org

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Why Indoor Robots for Commercial Spaces Are the Next Big Thing ... - IEEE Spectrum

Four years ago, there were no robotics teams at Brentwood Academy. This Saturday, March 4, the school will be hosting the VEX Robotics Tennessee State Championship, where six BA teams, collectively known as the Iron Eagles, will compete against 38 teams from 21 different Tennessee schools.

The electric pace of robotics surging popularity at BA is a testament both to the intellectual precocity of the schools students and to the acumen of dedicated teachers who first saw in robotics a unique learning opportunity.

Because competitive robotics is not just about competition. Its not just about gears and fuses and batteries and wires. Its about constructing a sense of community and instilling a passion for curiosity and practice. Its about different parts learning to work together for a common purpose.

Wendy Stallings was not a competitive robotics expert when she first thought up the idea. The physics teacher simply thought that building robots could be a stimulating, rewarding experience for her students.

I had a group of students who were very into computer programming and mechanical engineering, Stallings said. I asked if they wanted to build a robot, and they said yes and the next thing we knew we had unintentionally won state and started an official robotics team.

It really did happen almost that quickly. BAs first robotics team consisted of five people and was formed in the fall of 2013. The following spring that team was in the world championships in Anaheim, California. The next year, 40 students signed up to be on robotics teams.

We opened it up to the whole school just to see, and it really exploded, Stallings remembered.

In its second year, the program was even more successful than in its first. At the world finals, one BA team won the design award, the second highest award that VEX, the company that organizes robotic competitions, gives out. Another placed 4th out of 450 teams in the tournament phase of the contest.

Stallings currently considers herself the head coach emeritus of BAs teams. She has passed along most of the day-to-day coaching duties to her former assistant coach, Chris Allen, BAs Computer Technology Director.

They are both consistently impressed by the dedication of BAs Iron Eagles, noting how some students will spend up to 40 hours a week in the summer coming to school to work on their robots. Allen estimates that many robotics team members work 600 to 800 hours a year on their machines, including weekends and holidays oftentimes.

Its not that they are required to do so. In fact, Stallings mentioned how sometimes she had to intercede to get students to work less on robotics, but they just love it so much they dont seem to want to stop.

Allen is currently overseeing six teamsteams A through F that will participate in Saturdays state championships. Each team has between three and five students who build a robot each year to compete in whatever contest VEX has designed. This year the game is Starstruck and involves teams trying to get their robots to place Stars and Cubes on their opponents side of a separating barrier.

Brady Cole is a junior on BAs Team E. Hes been doing robotics for two years now, although for one year prior to that he acted as the schools tournament DJ, traveling and playing music while other students competed. Its a lot of 8-bit music and movie soundtracks, is how he describes his ideal robotics playlist.

After all the DJing, Cole sensed that he had more contribute to the robotics program.

I found that I had a knack for the designing process, he said.

That knack has resulted in Cole designing a wildly unorthodox robot for the state championships. Audrey II, named after the man-eating plant from Little Shop of Horrors, is a behemoth of a robot that separates into two parts connected by a tether, and which can extend from 18 to 52 long. Coach Allen said hes never seen anything like it in competition before.

Freshman Katie Ann Edgeworth and senior Will McClellan are on Team C. Edgeworth is a math and science fan who, as a prospective enrollee on a tour of Brentwood Academy, saw a robotics trophy on the wall and immediately wanted to know more.

McClellan is a three-year veteran of the team who got into robotics on a lark. It was kind of just an opportunity I saw, and I just decided to jump on it, he said.

As educators, Stallings and Allen have in mind certain things that they hope these three students, and all of their robotics compatriots, will get out of the program.

For Stallings, the science teacher, that hope revolves around the demystification of science from some sort of abstract, imposing subject to a practice that can be accessible and even thrilling.

I think one of the greatest benefits of a robotics program is providing students insight into how engineering and science really works, with the whole plan, test, rebuild, process, she said. We have a lot of students who might not normally be interested in something like science or engineering because they feel like they dont get good enough grades or they feel like theyre not smart enough, but when they get involved in the process of building and they learn how creative science and engineering fields are, they learn how fun science and engineering can be, and then they learn that anybody can do it. Its about hard work and not text book grades.

Allen sees other potential benefits as well. For example, robotics, he believes, will not only make students smarter, but also help them cultivate practical skills they can use in their day-to-day lives.

Id say the other in terms of skills would be communication skills, time management skills and then social skills, too, he said. Theyre having to work on a team thats maybe not structured like a football team per se, where its a more intimate setting.

For their part, Cole, Edgeworth and McClellan trace their enthusiasm for robotics to a number of factors.

Edgeworth, for instance, especially enjoys the satisfaction that comes with knowing that her hard work is going towards a definable goal and will likely pay off one day.

The more time you put into it, the more you get out of it, she said.

McClellan appreciates that aspect of robotics as well, but also expressed his appreciation for the way tournaments have expanded his understanding of the differences and similarities between different cultures.

It kind of shows how robotics crosses national boundaries, he said. You get to worlds and you see people from all across the world and youd assume itd be so different, but everyone there is committed to a common goal.

Then theres the community part of it as well. Robotics made McClellan feel like he really belonged.

I came onto the team as a sophomore with really low self-esteem and didnt think I could do anything, he said. And before I knew it, I had been to two world competitions and won state tournaments and everything, and it really boosted my self-esteem to have that and to have that group of friends that I could rely on who are not only funny and nice to talk to but who are smart too.

That social side of robotics really stands out for Cole, too.

I enjoy the community, he said. Its a very nice group of people. Whenever things go wrong were always all there more as a school. It sounds really cheesy but we always say, Were all Iron Eagles, andbefore your individual team comes your school. When we need to, we all come together, and its a really nice, close-knit community.

The VEX Robotics Tennessee State Championship will be held all day Saturday, March 4 at Brentwood Academy.

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Robotics are big at Brentwood Academy, where the state championship will be held on Saturday - Nolensville Home Page

Mississippi middle and high school students compete during the 2016 FIRST Tech Challenge at UM. Photo by Kevin Bain/Ole Miss Communications Middle and high school students from across the state will compete in Mississippis fifth annual FIRST Tech Challenge robotics competition Saturday(March 4)at the University of Mississippi.

Hosted by UMsCenter for Mathematics and Science Education, judging begins at 7 a.m. in Tad Smith Coliseum. Public events begin at 10 a.m., and the competition runs through5 p.m. Admission is free.

Two dozen teams of students, ranging from seventh to 12thgrade, will pilot their robots with the hopes of qualifying for FIRSTs South Super Regional competition in Athens, Georgia, later this month. This years game is dubbedVelocity Vortex, a challenge where robots are programmed to push or lift different sized balls in a specially designed arena.

Our goal is to inspire students into learning because we are losing our engineering group, said Mannie Lowe, FIRST program manager at the Center for Mathematics and Science Education. Our engineers are aging out and no one is coming up to fill the void in this country.

The For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, or FIRST, nonprofit organization was founded 25 years ago by inventor Dean Kaman in an effort to build interest in STEM fields.

Teams comprise up to 15 people, and any organization can form a team, not just schools. Students are guided by teachers, coaches, mentors and community members. Teams must design and build their own robots, keep an engineers notebook and do some kind of outreach to promote STEM careers.

I guarantee you, part of my group would not have otherwise thought about a STEM career beforehand, said Holly Reynolds, team mentor for Bigwelds Bots and associate dean for the UM College of Liberal Arts.

Bigwelds Bots is an all-female team featuring members of Girl Scout Troop 33016, one of two Girl Scout trrops in the state that does robotics. The two troops soon will be featured on Mississippi Roads a PBS show.

During the competition, teams of two face off against each other. This allows teams to learn how to work with other teams and enjoy healthy competition at the same time.

Each match plays for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. For the first 30 seconds, the robots operate autonomously, then they are operated by the students through handheld driver controllers for the final two minutes.

The robots can be built out of virtually any material as long as teams follow regulation rules. In the past, some teams have built their robots out of PVC pipe, wood and aluminum. However, the competition is about more than just robots.

The fun in my job is watching and working with the kids, Lowe said. When you see their aha! light come on, it is amazing. Its the realization that they can do this. They can build, they can program, they can design.

Once they realize that, the world is theirs. They can do whatever they want.

In the past, Mississippi teams have done well at FIRST Super Regional competitions. Last year, a Mississippi team won the Inspire Award, the highest given in the competition.

Some 5,000 teams participate worldwide, and the program has grown tremendously in Mississippi, where only four teams took part in the challenge five years ago.

Students begin designing and building their robots in September when the theme is announced. Last-minute changes are normal, and teams keep working to improve their robots until the competition begins.

FIRST events are part rock concert, part NASCAR race because of the sponsor logos and team numbers on the side of each robot, Lowe said. They are also part chess tournament, due to each teams different strategy, and just general fun. Its a big party.

By Alexandria Paton

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UM Hosts State Robotics Competition this Weekend - HottyToddy.com

Get used to hearing a lot more about artificial intelligence. Even if you discount the utopian and dystopian hyperbole, the 21st century will be defined not just by advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, computing and cognitive neuroscience, but how we manage them. For some, the question of whether or not the human race will live to see a 22nd century pivots upon this latter consideration. While forecasting the imminence of an AI-centric future remains a matter of intense debate, we will need to come to terms with it. For now, there are many more questions than answers.

It is clear, however, that the European Parliament is making inroads towards taking an AI-centric future seriously. Last month, in a 17-2 vote, the parliaments legal affairs committee voted to begin drafting a set of regulations to govern the development and use of artificial intelligence and robotics. Included in this draft proposal is preliminary guidance on what it calls electronic personhood that would ensure corresponding rights and obligations for the most sophisticated AI. This is a start, but nothing more than that.

If you caught any of the debate on the issue of electronic or robot personhood, you probably understand how murky the issues are, and how visceral reactions to it can be. If you have not caught any of it, now is a good time to start paying attention.

The idea of robot personhood is similar to the concept of corporate personhood, which allows companies to take part in legal cases as both claimant and respondent that is, to sue and be sued. The report identifies a number of areas for potential oversight, such as the formation of a European agency for AI and robotics, a legal definition of smart autonomous robots, a registration system for the most advanced ones, and a mandatory insurance scheme for companies to cover damage and harm caused by robots.

The report also addresses the possibility that both AI and robotics will cause massive job losses and calls for a serious assessment of the feasibility of a universal basic income as a strategy to minimise the economic effects of mass automation of entire economic sectors.

We, Robots

As daunting as these challenges are, lawmakers, politicians and courts are only beginning to skim the surface of what sort of problems, and indeed opportunities, artificial intelligence and robotics pose. Yes, driverless cars are problematic, but only in a world where traditional cars exist. Get them off the road, and a city, state, nation, or continent populated exclusively by driverless cars is essentially a really, really elaborate railway signalling network.

AI is predicted to be humanised through real emotions

I cannot critique here the feasibility of things such as general artificial intelligence, or even the Pandoras Box that is Whole Brain Emulation whereby an artificial, software-based copy of a human brain is made that functions and behaves identically to the biological one. So lets just assume their technical feasibility and imagine a world where both bespoke sentient robots and robotic versions of ourselves imbued with perfect digital copies of our brains go to work and Netflix and chill with us.

It goes without saying that the very notion of making separate, transferable, editable copies of human beings embodied in robotic form poses both conceptual and practical legal challenges. For instance, basic principles of contract law would need to be updated to accommodate contracts where one of the parties existed as a digital copy of a biological human.

Would a contract in Jane Smiths name, for example, apply to both the biological Jane Smith and her copy? On what basis should it, or should it not? The same question would also need to be asked in regard to marriages, parentage, economic and property rights, and so forth. If a robot copy was actually an embodied version of a biological consciousness that had all the same experiences, feelings, hopes, dreams, frailties and fears as their originator, on what basis would we deny that copy rights if we referred to existing human rights regimes? This sounds like absurdity, but it is nonetheless an absurdity that may soon be reality, and that means we cannot afford to laugh it off or overlook it.

There is also the question of what fundamental rights a copy of a biological original should have. For example, how should democratic votes be allocated when copying peoples identities into artificial bodies or machines becomes so cheap that an extreme form of ballot box stuffing by making identical copies of the same voter becomes a real possibility?

Should each copy be afforded their own vote, or a fractional portion determined by the number of copies that exist of a given person? If a robot is the property of its owner should they have any greater moral claim to a vote than say, your cat? Would rights be transferable to back-up copies in the event of the biological originals death? What about when copying becomes so cheap, quick, and efficient that entire voter bases could be created at the whim of deep-pocketed political candidates, each with their own moral claim to a democratic vote?

How do you feel about a voter base comprised of one million robotic copies of Milo Yiannopolous? Remember all that discussion in the US about phantom voter fraud?Well, imagine that on steroids. What sort of democratic interests would non-biological persons have given that they would likely not be susceptible to ageing, infirmity, or death? Good luck sleeping tonight.

Deep thoughts

These are incredibly fascinating things to speculate on and will certainly lead to major social, legal, political, economic and philosophical changes should they become live issues. But it is because they are increasingly likely to be live issues that we should begin thinking more deeply about AI and robotics than just driverless cars and jobs. If you take any liberal human rights regime at face value, youre almost certainly led to the conclusion that, yes, sophisticated AIs should be granted human rights if we take a strict interpretation of the conceptual and philosophical foundations on which they rest.

AI provides a fear of the loss of individual human identity

Why then is it so hard to accept this conclusion? What is it about it that makes so many feel uneasy, uncomfortable or threatened? Humans have enjoyed an exclusive claim to biological intelligence, and we use ourselves as the benchmark against which all other intelligence should be judged. At one level, people feel uneasy about the idea of robotic personhood because granting rights to non-biological persons means that we as humans would become a whole lot less special.

Indeed, our most deeply ingrained religious and philosophical traditions revolve around the very idea that we are in fact beautiful and unique snowflakes imbued with the spark of life and abilities that allow us to transcend other species. Thats understandable, even if you could find any number of ways to take issue with it.

At another level, the idea of robot personhood particularly as it relates to the example of voting makes us uneasy because it leads us to question the resilience and applicability of our most sacrosanct values. This is particularly true in a time of fake news, alternative facts, and the gradual erosion of the once-proud edifice of the liberal democratic state. With each new advancement in AI and robotics, we are brought closer to a reckoning not just with ourselves, but over whether our laws, legal concepts, and the historical, cultural, social and economic foundations on which they are premised are truly suited to addressing the world as it will be, not as it once was.

The choices and actions we take today in relation to AI and robotics have path-dependent implications for what we can choose to do tomorrow. It is incumbent upon all of us to engage with what is going on, to understand its implications and to begin to reflect on whether efforts such as the European Parliaments are nothing more than pouring new wine into old wine skins. There is no science of futurology, but we can better see the future and understand where we might end up in it by focusing more intently on the present and the decisions we have made as society when it comes to technology.

When you do that, you realise we as a society have made no real democratic decisions about technology, but have more or less been forced to accept that certain things enter our world and that we must learn to harness their benefits or get left behind, and, of course, that we must deal with their fallout. Perhaps the first step, then, is not to take laws and policy proposals as the jumping-off point for how to deal with AI, but instead start thinking more about correcting the democratic deficit that exists onwhether we as a society, or indeed a planet, really want to inherit the future Silicon Valley and others want for us.

To hear more about the future of AI and whether robots will take our jobs, listen to episode 10 of The Conversations monthly podcast, The Anthill which is all about the future.

Christopher Markou, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge. This article first appeared on The Conversation (theconversation.com)

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Robots and AI could soon have feelings, hopes and rights we ... - The Independent

Photo: Cobalt Robotics Cobalt Robotics' security robot uses advanced sensors and AI to navigate autonomously and look for suspicious activity.

Finding a viable business case for a commercial mobile robot is very tricky. At this point, the most you can realistically expect from a reliable and affordable autonomous platform is the ability to navigate in a semi-structured pre-mapped environment, which Savioke (to take one example) has managed to do with its delivery robots for hotels. Despite the fact that robots can do work for businesses, its been difficult to identify use-cases where they can be valuable enough that said businesses will pay money to use them.

Today, Cobalt Robotics (a startup based in Palo Alto, Calif.) is announcing an autonomous mobile robot designed for indoor security applications that can work alongside human guards to provide better security than people can do alone.

The key realization here is that security guards spend the vast majority of their time doing almost nothing, and even in a worst case scenario (like someone trying to break in, or a fire or other serious problem), their primary responsibility is making the right phone call as quickly as possible as opposed to dealing with the situation directly. In general, a security guard needs to be able to walk around a building checking on things, occasionally interact with humans in a limited capacity, and (this is the most important thing) notice if anything unusual is going on and tell someone about it.

Cobalts robot is able to do all of these things. It can navigate around pre-mapped areas in buildings, it can recognize people and read badges, and it has a pile of sensors (day-night cameras, lidar, microphone array, RFID and badge readers, andeven smoke and CO2 detectors) that helps it to recognize potential security issues (unauthorized people, open doors and windows) and hazards (suspicious items, moved items, water leaks) and flag them for review.

Cobalt was founded by Erik Schluntz, a former engineer at SpaceX, and Travis Deyle, whos written for IEEE Spectrum in the past and comes from Georgia Techs Healthcare Robotics Lab by way (most recently) of Google X. TheCobalt teamhas enough background and experience with robots to know that, while autonomy is important, having the option for a human in the loop can solve a lot of problems, so its easy for a remote operator to hop into the robot and control it via telepresence whenever necessary.

We should note that there are other robots in this space alreadynamely, Knightscope, which makes a very imposing security robot. Knightscope is taking a bit of a different approach, with a large and heavy platform that uses minimal HRI elements and is (if that Velodyne on top is any indication) quite expensive. Knightscope can operate outside, which is certainly an advantage, and it seems more likely that it might scare away any baddies, but Cobalt isnt really interested in the scare factorfor Cobalt, its more about detection and then making sure the right people know whats going on in a timely manner, and having a robot that people will be comfortable working around.

Comfort is another key differentiator that Cobalt has been working on. The overall form and appearanceof the robot come from Swiss designer Yves Bhar, who came up with something that (rather refreshingly) incorporates a lot of soft, tactile fabric rather than plastic and metal. We decided that the robot should not adopt a humanoid personality, Bhar said in a statement. Instead, it should aesthetically align with the furniture and dcor of the office environment.

As with any robot intended to do the same kind of job that a human can do, theres a concern here that Cobalts platform will be taking jobs away from humans. And, well, yeah, if you just go and replace a security guard with a Cobalt robot, then thats what happens, and it may make sense for some businesses to do this. However, there are a few other things to consider here. First, Cobalt may be an option for companies who want security but cant afford a human guard, or cant afford one for all hours. Second, Cobalt says that their robots can work sort of like force multipliers, working alongside existing guards to help them be more effective at their jobs. Cobalt will also be creating new jobs for robot monitors, who will be remotely managing multiple robots from a central location.

And lastly, we should keep in mind that security is one of those utterly dull jobs that does not take advantage of the talent or creativity that humans have to offer, and long term, finding jobs for people that are more interesting and engaging is probably better for everyone, if we can make it happen.

For more details on Cobalt, we asked Deyle, the companys CEO, a few questions over email:

Why is indoor security an ideal application for a mobile robot?

One major, traditional function of indoor security is observe and reportlooking for anomalies or intruders, and contacting the authorities if andwhen anything bad happens. Using extremely capable sensors (including night vision cameras, lidar, thermal) combined with recent advances in computer vision and deep learning, robotscan provide super-human capabilities and consistent operation around the clock without getting bored, sleepy, or losing focus. Our robot has eyes on the back of its head, can see in pitch black, and never needs to sleep. And when it finds something, it can skype in a highly-trained pilot to make hard decisions. or talk to anyone in the space.

Mobility affords robots a number of unique benefits. First, robots can reposition themselves to get an infinite number of vantage points, including opportunistically relocating themselves to obtain additional information. This isnt possible with stationary security cameras; to quote one of our customers, No matter how perfect you think your security camera setup is, when something happens you always wish you had a different view or angle.Second, many security policies do not allow guards to put themselves in harms way to confront would-be intruders; mobility allows the robot torespond immediately to a would-be intruder and reduce intruder time-on-premises. A third thing is that a mobile robot roaming the premises serves as an active deterrent to undesired behavior.

Why havent mobile robots been used in indoor security in the past? Or, whats special about Cobalt that youre able to deploy robots in these semi-structured environments?

Its partially about timing. Many of the component technologies (AI, machine learning, sensing, computation, communications, etc.) are now sufficiently mature to make this product feasible. Those components continue to make big gains due to investment in other areas of robotics and AI.

Its also partially about fortuitous encounters between experts in otherwise-disparate fields (robotics and physical security). Theres a famous quote from world-renowned computer scientist Alan Kay that says, A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points. Cobalt was founded by technologists and roboticists with many years of experience working with indoor robots. We spent a substantial amount of time speaking with forward-looking visionaries in the physical security industry who became our close advisors, initial customers, and biggest champions. While other people may have looked at robot security, we happened to look at it from the right perspective:our customers perspective.

What are some unique challenges that your robotswill have to deal with, and how are you handling them?

Indoor security is about more than deterring and detecting intrudersits also about making employees feel safe and comfortable. We focused heavily on industrial design and human-robot interaction to make our robot as easy to interact with and as pleasant to be around as possible. We use warm materials like fabric and anodized aluminum that would normally be seen in a high end office, rather than the plastic and steel of an industrial robot. The centerpiece of our robot is a touch-screen to let people interact with the robot and video chat with our pilots.

Another challenge was providing consistent security coverage for an entire night shift, or even an entire 48 hour weekend shift. We realized that the robot should never turn off while its rechargingits always on, looking for unusual activity and ready to respond. Its just like a guard standing watch at the front desk between patrols.

Can you describe how Cobalt is mixing autonomy and telepresence by having the option for a human in the loop?

We fundamentally believe that robots should interact with and around people. Cobalt provides a solution that dovetails advanced autonomous functionality with human telepresence capability. So sometimesthe robot will autonomously respondfor example, navigating up to a person and requesting badge credentials. In other situations, the robot will video call with a pilot for human-level cognition and response.

Is the security solution that Cobalt is offering both reliable and cost effective relative to a human? How expensive are the robots, and how much money would a company be saving over employing humans?

Security is necessary, but its often cost prohibitive for companies to provide 24-hour security presence. This is a real problem with real needs and real budgets. Cobalt can provide security coverage where there are currently major gaps at 1/5 to 1/3 the cost of a traditional solution.

Security personnel work with a fleet of robots to provide a more reliable and more cost-effective service. Robots help with the dullest, hardest parts of security (like night shift patrols) without falling asleep, and they will alert the rest of your security staff only if theres something worthy of note. Each robot pilot can oversee tens of robots, which allows guards to cover more ground and have visibility exactly when and where they need it. Plus, all of the sensors and components of the robot are becoming remarkably cheaper thanks to other industries, such as self-driving cars!

Cobalt will be starting pilots very soon, and were very much looking forward to seeing autonomous mobile robots out in the world doing useful things.

[ Cobalt Robotics ]

IEEE Spectrum's award-winning robotics blog, featuring news, articles, and videos on robots, humanoids, drones, automation, artificial intelligence, and more. Contact us:e.guizzo@ieee.org

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Cobalt Robotics Introduces a (Mostly) Autonomous Mobile Security ... - IEEE Spectrum

The Klamath Coyotes robotics team will compete in the FTC Western Super-Regional Championship tournament next weekend after winning the Innovate Award for their robot design at the State Championship in Portland last weekend.

The team, made up of nine students from Klamath Union High School and one from Ponderosa Middle School, competed against 48 teams for two days at Benson Polytechnic High School in Portland to secure their place, playing five matches and an elimination match, which knocked them out.

I am thrilled for them, co-coach Betsy Neuman said. They are learning so much more than robotics and engineering, including, teamwork, problem solving abilities, stress management and gracious professionalism. They are gracious competitors and thats a great skill they take with them in sports and school.

Story continues below video

The team has been together for five years, starting out as a FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) LEGO League tasked with researching and developing a solution to real-world problems, such as food safety, energy and recycling; and designing, building and programming a robot to compete with others in the same field.

Last season the team moved up to the FIRST Tech Challenge and have competed at various tournaments across the country, including the World Championships in St. Louis, Mo. in 2016. This is the second time the team will attend the Western Super-Regional Championship.

Inside the groups den in downtown Klamath Falls, they came together on Tuesday to discuss some of the robots imperfections that need fixing, ways to make it stronger for the upcoming competition and fundraising methods to cover the competitions admission cost of $500.

Using a homemade replica of the competition ring, students directed the robot, KCHOWL5B, via a wireless internet connection between a smartphone on the robot and two video game controllers connected to another smartphone manned by the team.

The Coyotes are the only team from Southern Oregon and one of 13 teams of around 500 in the state to go to the Western Super-Regional Championship in Tacoma, Wash. on March 10 through March 12, co-coach Mike Neuman said, adding the team has a one-in-three chance of making it to the World Championship for the second year in a row.

Im excited, team member Seth Gebauer said. It was a close call though, we almost didnt make it and state is super competitive.

The team is looking forward to interacting with other teams from various states at the tournament, including, Alaska, Hawaii and California, and said they enjoy seeing familiar faces from previous years and other competitions.

The game is more than robots, Neuman said. Its about connecting with other players and forming relationships.

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Robotics team carves path for success - Herald and News

PHRED hopes to pick up steam through qualifying tournaments this month and make it into Aprils First Robotics Challenge district championship.

The Philomath High Robotics Engineering Division team participated Feb. 18 in the annual FRC scrimmage at Corvallis High School and team members felt it went well.

I'd say that we did better than we do most years since we had a mostly functional robot on the field and everyone who was interested had a chance to drive the robot and act as a human player, sophomore Konoha Tomono-Duval said. We also had a chance to find any problems that might affect us later and we've been fixing those up until bag day.

Bag day occurred this past Wednesday and represents when the team must stop working on the robot and put it in a bag until competition.

For me personally, I had a chance to drive and I spent some time as the drive coach, which is what I'll be doing in the competition, Tomono-Duval said. That means helping the drivers set up, watching the field and talking with our teammates about strategy. I think that the scrimmage went well.

In all, 25 teams from across the Pacific Northwest participated in the opportunity to try out their robots. PHRED Team 847 will compete March 9-11 in Wilsonville at the District 3 qualifier. Two weeks later, the team will head to Clackamas Academy in Oregon City for a qualifying event. This years district championship is scheduled for April 6-8 at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Washington.

At last years scrimmage, the teams robot wasnt functional until the event had nearly ended.

We were able to do 90 percent of what we need to do for the competition, said sophomore Daniel Arthurs, now in his third year with robotics. We were able to average three gears on the airship while most teams were able to only get one or two.

The PHRED robot didnt perform perfectly, however, with some kinks to work out.

During a few of our matches, the chain powering the front right wheel fell off and in two rounds a gear that we were trying to collect fell into a slot in the robot, Tomono-Duval said. There was also some work we hadn't finished on the autonomous programming.

In the days after the scrimmage, the students got back to work.

We solved the chain problem by moving a motor backwards/sprocket sideways and just added a piece of plastic to stop gears from catching in the robot's front, Tomono-Duval said. The programmers on the team can work on software after bag day, so time isn't much of an issue while they're adding to the code.

Arthurs added, We were not able to do any climbing, but that did work later at the shop, so hopefully that problem has been fixed.

This years FRC game, called Steamworks, is described by FIRST as inviting two adventurers clubs, in an era where steam power reigns, to prepare their airships for a long distance ride. Each three-robot alliance must build steam pressure through the collection of fuel (which are balls), start the rotors and deliver gears to pilots on their airship for installation. Eventually, they prepare for flight with robots latching onto their airship before the end of the match.

Points are scored during the 15-second autonomous period when the robot operates only on pre-programmed instructions. Student drivers take over for the remaining 2:15 of the game, working with teams on the alliance to collect as many points as possible before the end of the match.

Freshman Elliot Foley said in the Steamworks game, the robots have to move a lot faster so it's more difficult to control fine movements and since the robots are bigger, it is harder to be as precise, especially since we are manipulating the gears.

Each team member enjoys robotics for their own reasons. Foley is among those students in his first year.

It has all the good parts that you get from sports without the bad parts, Foley said. Also the robotics team is like a family.

For Tomono-Duval, he likes either working with the rest of the team in the design phase or at competition strategizing with our allies for the match.

Team camaraderie is another attractive benefit for many students.

What I like best is going to the competitions, staying in the hotels and hanging out with friends, Arthurs said. It is a place where you can learn and have fun with what you put all your hard work and effort into.

One common characteristic is the commitment that each team member puts in.

While the season doesn't go for as long as a sports team, there's still the year-round weekly meetings, projects and fundraisers and the longer Saturday meetings, Tomono-Duval said. Plus, there's the time at competitions. Yes, it can get intense at times. But it has the focus and teamwork of a sport, while being a fun mental challenge and project.

And you learn some interesting skills that you can use later in life that aren't in the high school. In the end, it's also just fun, he added.

During build season, students meet five to six days a week with all-day sessions on Saturdays.

There isn't a lot of personal free time during build season, Arthurs said. I do it because I get to learn a lot about robotics including how to wire a robot and code in Java.

Foley is enjoying all aspects of the experience.

Its intense because of the time commitment, Foley said. I am involved because I enjoy the learning experience, team environment and competition.

PHRED also supports a First Tech Challenge team, which has been doing well this season. In fact, team No. 8892 just competed Sunday at Benson Polytechnic High School in Portland in the FIRST Tech Challenge Championship.

The Philomath team won three of its matches and placed 10th in the Tech division one of two at the competition. Team 8892 didnt make it to the semifinals.

This is the first year the PHRED FTC team has qualified for the state tournament, so that was a milestone in itself, mentor Tom Thompson said. The team also got one of the autonomous modes working so they were able to score more points during that part of the game. I think we learned a lot from seeing this level of competition that we can apply to the next season.

The FTC robots, which are smaller than their FRC counterparts, features team members that range in age from the seventh to 12th grades. This years competition, Velocity Vortex, involves two teams of two robots trying to score points through various tasks, primarily shooting whiffle balls in the right place.

The hardest single action in the game is raising the cap ball exercise ball up almost 4 feet and placing it in the center vortex, a plastic ring, Tomono-Duval, who is involved with both FRC and FTC, said about the game. For the whole match, it would be efficiently scoring in the center vortex. During the whole season, I think it was making a good autonomous program for when you don't have control of the robot that hit the randomized button accurately. Getting the sensors working was hard.

The FTC team started building its robot this past fall and first competed Jan. 29 in a meet at Oregon State University. The PHRED team came in third qualification, was a team captain of one of the four championship alliances and won the Motivate Award.

Team 8892 advanced to a super-qualifier Feb. 12 at Poynter Middle School in Hillsboro and came in fifth. Due to the second- and third-place teams forming an alliance, PHRED became the captain of the fourth-place championship alliance.

The appearance went well enough for Team 8892 to advance to this past weekends FTC championship in Portland.

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Full steam ahead: Philomath robotics students work hard on challenge - Corvallis Gazette Times

Britain's most successful engineer Sir James Dyson is taking on Google and Facebook with a $2.5bn investment to turn the former RAF base at Hullavington near Malmesbury into a research campus for robotics, AI, and other advanced technology, including batteries and vision systems.

The size of the planned facility dwarfs the existing HQ.

The investment marks both a change of direction for Dyson, which will now begin to challenge US data giants in the race to find practical implementations of AI, and expresses a vote of confidence in a post-EU British economy. The founder recently hinted that it was examining how to incorporate pattern recognition and decision making into its 360 Eye robot vacuum cleaner.

Dyson already employs over 2,000 staff at its existing Malmesbury HQ, where many of its 3,000 engineers are based. Only last year Dyson completed a 250m expansion of the HQ to 56 acres. The company expects to employ an additional 5,000 staff and bring in 4bn of annual revenue by 2020. It currently banks 1.5bn annually. The RAF site covers 517 acres.

Sir James found himself publicly vilified when he backed the campaign for the UK to leave the European Union last year. Dyson argued that Europe's supposedly neutral legal processes were in reality rigged in favour of German manufacturers that produce less efficient products.

How so?

In several ways, it turns out.

Several of Dyson's hallmark products are more energy efficient because they use more power for a shorter period than conventional products on the market, some of which are made by German rivals including Bosch and Siemens. But the EU's energy labelling regulations decree that voltage, not real-life energy consumption, is what matters.

Even Remain supporters, like this commenter on a Times article, applauded Dyson.

Dyson also contended that testing only new, pristine vacuum cleaners also removed one of its key competitive advantages. The General Court of the European Union even agreed that this was daft, but produced a perverse verdict claiming that the European Commission was not at fault since Dyson could not devise an alternative set of tests that were reproducible.

Dyson is appealing against this at the ECJ, arguing (among other things) that it misrepresented his challenge, and failed to give him a chance to present his evidence.

Thirdly, and in a case that echoes the diesel emissions scandal, Dyson discovered that German rivals lower their power consumption when running an EU test, but double their power output in real-life use.

"Bosch has installed control electronics into some of its machines to wrongfully increase energy consumption when in use to cheat the EU energy label," Dyson said in 2015. "Their behaviour is akin to that seen in the Volkswagen scandal."

The RAF acquired the land in 1935 and it performed many training functions until 1995. The site continued to be used as an airfield until last year, but was when it was released by the MoD.

Given Sir James's battles in an industrial landscape dominated by German interests, it isn't hard to see why Britain's leading technology exporter fancies his prospects outside the European Union.

He wants a level playing field. And they don't come much more level than an old airfield.

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Dyson backs Britain plc with $2.5bn AI and robotics investment - The Register