Category Archives: Robotics

ScienceBlog.com (blog)

Rehab robotics field promises to return control, mobility to aging population ScienceBlog.com (blog) There has been increased interest in the rehab robotics driven by an aging population dealing with the aftermath of debilitating health problems based on the promise of restored physical movement and control. Most rehab robotic therapies ...

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Rehab robotics field promises to return control, mobility to aging population - ScienceBlog.com (blog)

In January, I talked a bit about Vision Charter Schools First Lego League robotics teams and how awesome they did at the regional qualifying competition for state. Now I know how they did at state on Jan. 28!

The best news, in my opinion, is that the Crazy Cobra team brought home the Teamwork trophy. They deserved it, too, because not only did the power and lights go out while they were presenting, but they also had a major accident involving their robot just one week before the competition and had to reconstruct it at the last minute!

The Terminators also brought home a trophy, for presentation, for their project presentation of an original song and a bat box they designed. That same team earned 12th place out of 42 in the robot competition.

Story continues below video

As for Mammal Madness, they tied the Terminators in actual points in the robot game and earned a perfect score on their project evaluation!

Congratulations to all of you! Way to represent!

Next up for Vision Charter robotics: All four of the schools teams (if you were counting, theres another team that didnt make it to state) will come together to build and compete with sumo robots.

This could be interesting.

Treasure Valley encouraged to read The River Why

I wasnt aware of this program before, so maybe you werent, either, but theres a reading program called Read Me Treasure Valley that encourages everyone in the Valley to read the same book. This year, the book is David James Duncans The River Why. Organizers billed it as a wonderful novel of fly fishing and spirituality, then quoted Barnes and Noble as calling it a coming-of-age comedy about love, nature and the quest for self-discovery.

Meanwhile, youth and families are being encouraged to read Where the River Begins (beautiful picture book) by Thomas Locker or Chomp (bestselling and humorous 290-pager) by Carl Hiaasen.

If any of that interests you at all on a book lover level or a be-part-of-the-community level, or even a fly fishing level, there will be a launch party at 11 a.m. Thursday at Esther Simplot Parks Central Pavilion, at 614 N. Whitewater Park Blvd. in Boise.

The follow-up event to that will be a visit from the author, David James Duncan. He will come by in early May for a special presentation, so Id suggest having the novel read by then.

Woman to teach happiness workshops at Nampa library

A former owner of two software services companies sent the IPT an email Monday to announce that shes giving four workshops on rather interesting topics, may I add at the Nampa Public Library (215 12th Ave. S.) on Tuesdays from 10:30-11:30 a.m., beginning this Tuesday and ending March 7.

The womans name is Rose Edvalson, and her topics are:

Feb. 14 Imprinting happiness

Feb. 21 Betraying happiness

Feb. 28 Experiencing a change of heart

March 7 Living a meaning-filled life

The workshops are free and are based on the works of Martin Seligman (director of the Penn State Positive Psychology Center) and Terry Warner (a philosopher and business consultant who focuses on self-deception).

Link:

Front Porch: Vision Charter robotics teams perform well at state - Idaho Press-Tribune

Image: Mime Industries

Think it's tricky to build and program a robot arm? Think again.

Powered by the Raspberry Pi, the MeArm Pi is a robot arm designed to be simple enough that kids aged 11+ can build and program it.

The lightweight plastic arm, which can pick up small objects such as Lego bricks, comes as a kit that keeps the number of screws to a minimum and is relatively straightforward to assemble using the included hex keys. It can be controlled via the Pi, either using joysticks attached to the included Pi HAT add-on board or by programming it from the Pi.

Programming the arm is possible using drag and drop programming tools like Scratch or Blockly, or for more experienced users, using the Python or JavaScript programming languages. Ultimately any programming language that can be used to interact with the pins on the Pi should be able to be used. For those unfamiliar with the command line, the MeARM can be programmed via a web app in the browser.

SEE: Raspberry Pi in 2017: New boards, new OSes and more

There's also a Node.js app that performs various functions, including allowing users to control the servos in the arm via the Pi's General-Purpose Input Output (GPIO) pins and even to control the arm remotely via a web browser.

The MeARM's add-on board is compatible with the Raspberry Pi Model B+ form factor, and should work with the Pi Zero but won't fit in the case.

The company behind MeARM also makes Mirobot, a build-it-yourself WiFi drawing robot that teaches children about technology, programming and mathematics.

The MeARM is available in orange or blue has already passed its 10,000 funding goal on Kickstarter, raising 14,770 with 28 days to go. The standard kit costs 60 ($75).

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Raspberry Pi-powered arm: This kit aims to make robotics simple ... - TechRepublic

Photo: Rethink Robotics Rodney Brookss startup Rethink Robotics is releasing software to make its collaborative robot Sawyer more versatile and easier to program.

Rethink Robotics is taking the wraps off a massive project that the company has been working on for two years. Its been a big part of our development that the world hasnt seen, says Rethink founder and CTO Rodney Brooks. Ive been so excited about this because I know what it can do.

A little over a year ago, Rethink started shipping Sawyer, a collaborative robot designed to be faster, stronger, and more precise than the companys first cobot, Baxter, which didnt sell like hotcakes, as Brooks had expected. But developing a brand-new robot was just part of Rethinks post-Baxter plans: Another goal was completely rebuilding its software platform, called Intera, which is responsible for controlling all of Sawyers functions as well as allowing users to program the robot.

Intera 5, which the company is announcing today, is a big jump from previous versions and will make Sawyer more versatile and easier to program, Brooks tells IEEE Spectrum. Itscompletely new, he says, adding that 30 people worked on the software platform, which is based on ROS.None of my code anymore. My code is gone.

At the heart of the new system is what Brooks calls a behavior engine that lets users program complex tasks based on simpler ones. While in previous Intera releases large sequences of tasks were difficult to modify, now all tasks are graphically arranged as abehavior tree, making it easierto visualize, understand, and adjust what the robot is doing at every step.

The new software is critical for Rethinks bid to gain more traction in the rapidly growing collaborative robots market. The Boston-based startup, which was founded in 2008 and has raised $131.5 million in VC funding, hasnt disclosed sales numbers, but it says Sawyer is selling much better than Baxter, helping the company triple its revenue last year.

Other robot makers, including startups like Franka Emika, which plans to launch a cobot this year, are also devoting a lot of attention to their user interfaces and software features. Analysts credit an easy-to-use interface as a major factor in helping Danish firm Universal Robots dominate the cobot market, with thousands of robots shipped per year.

Rod Brooks says Rethinks experience with Baxter showed that software is just as important as hardware when it comes to convincing manufacturers to embrace automation. With earlier versions of Intera, it was easy to get the robot to do most simple tasks, especially by using its teach-by-demonstration feature. But what Rethink found out is that many customers actually want to do much more complex tasks, and while Sawyer was in principle capable of carrying them out, programming the robot was the biggest hurdle.

We were concentrating on teach by demonstration, and it was producing an internal representation which wasnt visible to the user, Brooks explains. And the more sophisticated you were, the more frustrating the opaqueness of what was happening inside was.

Intera 5s behavior trees aim to solve this problem. The new interface provides an explicit visual diagram of the sequence of tasks the robot will run through. Every node of a behavior tree, you can click down and get every possible parameter, every possible detail [of the robot], Brooks says. Theres nothing hidden.

Brooks hopes the new system will help users master Sawyers advanced vision and force-sensing capabilities to tackle complex automation jobs, especially in the electronics manufacturing sector. To illustrate the point, Brooks likes to show off videos of Sawyer performing challenging tasks. In one, the robot uses its Cognex camera and force sensingto inspect switches, bolts, and wires on a water pump:

In another video, Sawyeris seen inserting a DIMM memory module on a motherboard. First, the robot positions the module on the socket by feeling its corners; it then gently pushes the DIMM down, measuring the force to detect whether it clicked or not. We exposed a lot of the force control, Brooks says. So you can say, Press down with 2 Newtons, but no more than 2 centimeters downwards, and be compliant in x and y, but rigid in rotation about the vertical z-axis.

Another challenge Rethink wants to solve with Intera 5 involves coordinating Sawyer and all the other assembly line componentsconveyor belts, equipment to feed and sort parts, machines like drills and CNCs. Factories typically connect things using programmable logic controllers, or PLCs. And PLCs suck, Brooks says. You can quote me on that. A company would buy a Sawyer and put it to run right away, he says, but getting the PLCs and all the rest connected could take weeks and months. Nowin typical Internet of Things, or IoT, fashionusers will be able to plug a variety of assembly-line equipment directly to Sawyer and then control that with the same behavior tree that controls the robot on Intera.

Ultimately Brooks wants to focus on automating ever more complex tasks, disregarding the relatively simple applications that other cobot companies are currently pursuing, a market he believes will soon be taken over by cheaper robots from China. I want to go somewhere different, thats a much more interesting place to be, and which I think is the bigger market.

At the same time he explains that making robots easier to use is much more than a business strategy for him. Its something thats been with me since Day 1, he says, noting that our consumer goods require no training and the same should apply to robots. How many people need to be trained to use this? he says, waving his iPhone. It trains the person.

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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This factory robot can be trusted not to kill itshumancoworkers 29Dec2016

A powerful artificial intelligence won't spring from a sudden technological "big bang"--it's already evolving symbiotically with us1Jun2008

It's smaller, faster, stronger, and more precise: meet Sawyer, Rethink Robotics' new manufacturing robot 19Mar2015

Rodney Brooks's new start-up wants to spark a factory revolution with a low-cost, user-friendly robot 18Sep2012

The Danish company continues to expand by offering robot arms so easy to program that even a reporter can do it 12Mar2015

Take a walk, a jog, or a bike ride with 19 kg of stuff autonomously following you 2Feb

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 27Jan

R&D lab Draper is using genetic engineering and optoelectronics to build cybernetic insects 25Jan

3DSignals' deep learning AI can detect early sounds of trouble in cars and other machines before they break down 27Dec2016

Exclusive photos take you through the first mission of Stanford's diving robot 21Dec2016

A programmable chip turns a robots long pauses into quick action 19Dec2016

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 16Dec2016

Automation allows thousands of possibilities when building weird new organisms 29Nov2016

KAIST's PIBOT can sit in the pilot's seat and fly a regular aicraft just like a human would 15Nov2016

I don't know what a robot-plant biohybrid is, but I'm sure there's a horror movie in there somewhere 15Nov2016

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 4Nov2016

Quantum computing pioneers want to patent AI telerobotics controlled by humansand monkeys 22Sep2016

This robot uses innovative direct-drive motors to go pretty much anywhere 19Sep2016

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 16Sep2016

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 2Sep2016

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Rethink's Robots Get Massive Software Upgrade, Rodney Brooks So Excited - IEEE Spectrum

Certainly one of the more entertaining talks of the 33rd Chaos Communications Congress was [Kari Love]s talk on her experiments in mixing food with function. In [Kari]s talk at the 2016 Hackaday Supercon, she talked extensively about working on soft robotic for NASA. At the 33C3, her focus was twofold: on a fun side project to make mobile robots out of stuff that you can eat, and to examine the process of creative engineering through the lens of a project like this.

If you look up edible robotics, you get a lot of medical literature about endoscopes that you can swallow, or devices that take samples while theyre inside you. Thats not what [Kari]s after at all. Shes after a robot thats made of candy, a yummy machine. And while this is still a work in progress, she demonstrated a video of an all-licorice cable-based actuator.

But more than that, she demonstrated all of the materials shes looked at so far, and the research shes done. To some extent, the process is the substance of this project, but theres nothing wrong with some tasty revelations along the way.

This talk was a potpourri of helpful tips and novel facts. For instance, if youre working in candy robotics, dont eat your mistakes. That stomach ache that your mom always said youd get? You will. Did you know that the gummi in gummibears is re-heatable and re-moldable? In addition, of the gels that she made, it was the most delicious. And finally, Pop Rocks dont have enough CO2 in them to drive pneumatics. Who knew? [Kari] knows. And now you do too.

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33C3: Edible Soft Robotics - Hackaday

Fort Worth Star Telegram

Keller students Starstruck on robotics Fort Worth Star Telegram Gautam Vachasputi of Keller Middle School Team 1 makes some repairs and adjustments to his team's robot before they enter the arena in the next round of the Keller ISD Robotics Contest at Hillwood Middle School in Keller Saturday, Jan. 28, 2017.

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Keller students Starstruck on robotics - Fort Worth Star Telegram

WPI News

WPI Robotics Team Has a Mission with Mars | News | WPI WPI News A team of robotics students and faculty and staff from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) is among 20 finalists in the NASA-sponsored Space Robotics ... and more »

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WPI Robotics Team Has a Mission with Mars | News | WPI - WPI News

February 7, 2017

For many seniors and stroke victims, a trip to Disneyland with the little ones is physically out of reach.But Thomas Sugar, an ASU mechanical engineer who specializes in wearable technology, predicts that in the next five years, older people and others with mobility problems will be able to rent robotic exoskeletons that make dream vacations as well as mundane tasks a possibility.

Were on the cusp of making these technologies available and affordable for the general public, Sugar said Tuesday. His ASU spin-out company, SpringActive Inc., aims to have a robotic prosthetic ankle in production for the general population within the next year.

Sugar and more than 300 other rehab robotics researchers, clinicians and industry leaders gathered this week at ASU for the fifth annual Rehabilitation Robotics Conference.

At the fifth annual Rehabilitative Robotics conference, researchers discussed advances in the field. Thomas Sugar (left), an ASU mechanical engineer, predicts that in the next five years the public will have access to wearable robotics. Neville Hogan, meanwhile, predicts widespread clinical acceptance in the near future. Photo by Terry Grant/ASU

There has been increased interest in the rehab robotics driven by an aging population dealing with the aftermath of debilitating health problems based on the promise of restored physical movement and control. Most rehab robotic therapies originated to help military veterans, but the next generation will seek to serve the general public.

The field covers a range of assistive therapies and devices, including exoskeletons that support walking and lifting, treadmill-like robots that help stroke survivors use their arms and legs, and prosthetics that allow users to sense space and dimension.

The conference provides our junior investigators with an unprecedented opportunity to hear about three decades of research from the people who created the field, said Marco Santello, a neurophysiologist and director of the School of Biological Health Sciences. We have collected research on neuroplasticity, locomotion dynamics and a myriad of other body-machine interfaces. The next phase will bring a new generation of rehabilitative technologies.

Widespread clinical acceptance of rehabilitation robotics is the most significant change well see in the next decade, said Neville Hogan, a mechanical engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who spoke at the conference.

Tech-savvy therapists recognize the value of assistive robotics and see the standardized data collection they afford as a major benefit, Hogan said.

Its far less subjective than the clipboard methods of the past, and enhances our ability to tailor therapy to individual patients, he said.

Dario Farina, chair of neurorehabilitation engineering at the Imperial College of Londons Department of Bioengineering, also presented at the workshop.

His research has enabled the simultaneous processing of hundreds of motor neurons the signals the brain sends to muscles without invasive procedures. The breakthrough has challenged classic views on the neural activity that drives steadiness in the performance of precise tasks and is expected to result in prosthetic devices that give patients unprecedented levels of fine motor control.

In the near future, it will be possible to fully decode the neural information sent from the spinal cord and build man-machine interfaces for the natural and dexterous control of bionic limbs,Farina said, explaining that patients will be able to control prosthetic devices with the same, automatic mental commands used to control their natural hands.

Because health problems affect patients differently, fine-tuning rehab therapies is the next focus for Panagiotis Artemiadis, an ASU mechanical engineer whose research includes mechatronics and human-robot interaction.

In the next five years, he said, well be able to adjust robotics to be patient specific.

Top photo: At the fifth annual RehabilitationRobotics Conference, Denise Oswalt demonstrates a virtual reality application from the lab of Bradley Greger, an ASU researcher who specializes in neural engineering. Photo by Terry Grant/ASU

Communications specialist , Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering

480-727-4089 Theresa.Grant@asu.edu

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Rehab robotics field promises to return control, mobility to aging population - Arizona State University

The Mount Paran Christian Eagle Robotics team competed last weekend at East Cobb Middle School, and after a nail biter of a competition finished with the Inspire award which will advance the team into the state championship. Mount Paran Christian made Robotic history as being the only team to win two Inspire awards in one year. The Eagle Robotics Diamond plate team of freshman and sophomores, finished the seeding round of forty in fifth place. They were selected into the third seed alliance as first pick, won the semifinal round in 2 out of 3, and landed in the finals, which is also a best 2 out of three match event. The Eagles won the first finals round match and was left with only one match to win the tournament. A mechanical malfunction in the second round left them 1 and 1 with the entire tournament riding on a single two-and- a- half minute match. The Eagles completed the match driving on only three wheels and with the score so close that no one knew who had won. When the score had been counted, it was confirmed that for the first time in the history of the First Tech Challenge, the final match had ended in a tie. The Eagles lost the final tie-break match, but finished the day with the Inspire award, which is considered the highest trophy for the event. The team will now compete in the state championship at Clayton State University on Feb. 18.

The Robotics team encourages high-quality work, emphasizes the value of others and teaches respect for individuals and the community. Coach Brad Smith commented that Robotics give students who might not enjoy competitive athletics a chance to see what it means to be part of a team that needs to work together, organize, plan, and find the discipline needed to prosper in a competitive environment.

If it wasnt enough to win top honors at the competition, one of the teams members was being interviewed for another prestigious award. Jasmine Chrisp, a junior at Mount Paran Christian was interviewed at the competition for the Robotics Deans List Award and reached semifinal status. She will find out at the state championship if she will be a Georgia finalist.

It is the intention of FIRST that these students will continue on, post-Award, as great leaders, student alumni and advocates of FIRST.

Jennifer Bonn is a freelance writer and Kennesaw resident who teaches at Mount Paran Christian School. She has been published in several magazines, and has published a book titled Stay Away from the Girls Bathroom, A Teachers Guide. It is available from Deeds Publishing at http://www.deedspublishing.com.

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Mount Paran Christian School Robotics Team has engineered their way to State Competition - MDJOnline.com

OWATONNA Once modest in size, the Owatonna High School robotics team has quickly grown into a force.

And as part of an effort to assure the squad remains in capable hands for many years to come, the current members have begun appealing to Owatonnas youth with robot demonstrations, like one held Thursday at McKinley Elementary.

I went to McKinley, and sitting there for a presentation like this when I was a kid would be really inspirational to me, said Braydon Kubat, a senior member of the robotics team. I feel like it will be for them, too.

Justin Kiel, principal at McKinley, said he believes this to be a great opportunity for McKinley students.

We are always looking for partnerships in the community to extend the learning beyond our classroom walls, Kiel said. This is a unique experience for students to see robotics in action.

And robotics clubs are growing exponentially, Kubat said. There are more than 6,000 worldwide, and Minnesota already has more high school robotics teams than high school hockey teams.

A handful of robotics team members discussed what goes into making a robot, as well as the competitions the team engages in. When they let the robots loose, students screamed in excitement when the machines picked up and fired orange balls.

This is a glimpse into whats out there, what they can do, Kubat said. One reason students attend a STEM school like McKinley is so they can do stuff like this.

Students see how robotics can integrate all content areas, Kiel said. Also, our students can see how thinking, questioning, and technology can come together to solve a problem.

In the robotics club, known as the Rebel Alliance, you can make a robot do what you want, which is cool, Kubat told the McKinley assembly. You get to learn a whole other language, too.

Students can sign up for the squad as freshmen, said Sam Bendorf, another member of the team.

We have a spot for each and every one of you, [and] well be waiting for you, Bendorf said.

The OHS team competes across the Midwest, and theyll head to Duluth at the beginning of March to tangle with more than 60 other squads, said Kubat, who is in his first year as a member of the Rebel Alliance.

You get to travel, build stuff with your hands and have fun while doing it, said Kubat.

In fact, the hands-on nature of the club is what attracted Kubat this year. Although hes on the business side of the squad, hes learned a great deal about building robots already.

The business team contends with financing, working with businesses to secure capital for the expensive extracurricular activity, he said. Fortunately, we have lots of community support.

The requirements for the competition change each year, and this year the theme is focused on Steamworks, he said. Teams have six weeks to build robots, which receive points for completing various tasks during the competition.

The rules, though they change each year, must always be followed. Consequently, the first few weeks after seeing the next years video and learning the parameters are devoted to designing and prototyping the robot, Bendorf said.

They begin by sketching plans on a white board, then put those plots physically onto the machines, Bendorf said. Later, they wire it, and the last two weeks are devoted to final design.

Students in the robotics club are eager to give back by teaching younger children, said Val Rose, the adviser for the club.

The STEM is what we want to build on, said Rose.

Reach reporter Ryan Anderson at 507-444-2376 or follow him onTwitter.com@randerson_ryan

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OHS robotics club dazzles McKinley students - Southernminn.com