Beyond | IT : robots

Why RoboChamps has something for you

john.mullinax — Sat, 03 May 2008 07:52:48 GMT

Do you like robots? How about the idea of robots? Wish you had your own, but don't have time to build from scratch or a few thousand dollars to buy one? Ever think it would be cool to control the Mars rover?

If so, check out RoboChamps where you can develop and control robots without actually needing the robot. Write real code to control simulated robots in simulated environments over the Internet! There are even challenges to complete, and yes, you can program and control the Mars rover (at least, a simulated version). The only way to have more robot fun would be if someone gave you one... and if you compete the in tournament someone just might!

Why RoboChamps and whose behind it?

Microsoft created RoboChamps to help people overcome some of the traditional challenges of learning to develop for (ok, play around with ) robots, and to help folks interested in robots discover the Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio CTP1 that was recently released. Excerpt from the RoboChamps overview page:

"While there has long been a large audience interested in robotics, there have also been a number of barriers to entry, both real and perceived. Robots are not widely available in traditional retail stores. If one could find a programmable robot, the cost was often times non-trivial. In addition, the ‘robot’ that could be purchased was often in the form of a kit and required hardware knowledge and skills. And if one could both find and afford a robot, there was a perception that programming one must be difficult.

"RoboChamps is a new robotics programming league that removes those barriers to entry and makes robotics available to a broad audience. RoboChamps is based in simulation, which removes the barriers to entry of availability, cost, and deep hardware knowledge."

The RoboChamps site has a community dimension (forums, blog, etc.), learning materials, a competition league, and you can get a Vista sidebar gadget to keep track of feeds and competition standings, as well as other "robot bling". You can login with your Windows Live ID, and all the software needed to control your RoboChamps robot is free and downloadable via links on the RoboChamps site -- and it's the same software you would use to write code for real robots.

Are you thinking, "Cool, but so what?"

Check out Mary Jo Foley's post, Why business users should grab a copy of Microsoft’s new robotics toolkit. Would you have guessed that MySpace uses the current version of Microsoft's Robotics Studio toolkit to program across it's own distributed network? In particular, they (and others) are interested in somethings called the Concurrency and Coordination Runtime (CCR) and Decentralized Software Services (DSS) for developing multi-core distributed systems. CCR makes easier to handle IO asynchronously to smooth data flow and better manage computational resources. Essentially, think "theory of constraints" on a micro scale.

The DSS provides "a flexible foundation for defining applications as compositions of services interacting in a decentralized environment" (see here). Among other things, DSSP helps you create applications that are contextually aware and can change behaviors based on events like changes in state within an environment -- even across many different sensor inputs. For a conceptually simply example:

"If gas tank is less than half full, set transmission shifting pattern to 'fuel-saving' profile."

Or, you might orchestrate a system to adapt it's behavior based on a composition of many services:

"If gas tank is less than half full, set transmission shifting pattern and engine control unit strategy to 'fuel-saving' profile unless there is a gas station along my route AND gas is less than $2/gallon AND the gas station is closer than my estimated "miles-until-fuel tank empty".

These embedded automotive examples are a small-ish conceptual step from robots, but it's also possible to use DSS (as well as CCR) in many others kinds of systems -- including enterprise applications, modeling, scientific computing, etc.

Finally, here's a little bit of what BillG has to say about Robots (more here) a few months back:

"The challenges facing the robotics industry are similar to those we tackled in computing three decades ago. Robotics companies have no standard operating software that could allow popular application programs to run in a variety of devices. The standardization of robotic processors and other hardware is limited, and very little of the programming code used in one machine can be applied to another. Whenever somebody wants to build a new robot, they usually have to start from square one…. Despite these difficulties, when I talk to people involved in robotics–from university researchers to entrepreneurs, hobbyists and high school students–the level of excitement and expectation reminds me so much of that time when Paul Allen and I looked at the convergence of new technologies and dreamed of the day when a computer would be on every desk and in every home."

Good luck with the Mars Rover!

Technorati Tags: Robots

Toyota Robot Video - playing violin and trumpet

john.mullinax — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 19:05:47 GMT

Yesterday I posted here on Toyota's violin playing robot. Cool stuff. Here's a video that shows a nice close up view on the fingers on the strings. Sorry the video quality itself is poor -- obviously it's not Silverlight HD.

Also came across this video of a Toyota robot playing a trumpet.

Technorati Tags: Toyota,Robots

Share the Robot Love! Toyota's violin playing bot and the GM FIRST Robot Challenge

john.mullinax — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 05:46:18 GMT

I'm a fan of robots. As such, two things caught my attention recently -- one far from home and one very near. First, on Thursday Toyota unveiled a white, 5 foot tall, violin playing robot that bowed with its right arm and pressed strings with its left. Perhaps the performance lacked "soul", but it was far better than I could do!

Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe said he expects robots to be a major business for Toyota in the future. Perhaps a little surprising, but it makes sense if you think about it -- for one thing, Toyota uses robots in the automotive assembly process. More importantly, Toyota has always been an engineering and manufacturing firm, and started out as a loom company (that's loom, as in weaving). In fact, Toyoda (as it was spelled back then) had already been in the loom business for more than 40 years when the "Automobile Department" was formed as part of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, Ltd.

Physorg.com has more on the violin playing robot here.

Also, last week I learned of a robotics competition that GM is sponsoring, and that students at the Golightly Academy of IT are entering. If you're not familiar with Golightly, it's affiliated with two more well-known organizations you might be familiar with: Detroit Public Schools (DPS) and the National Academies Foundation (NAF). High School students accepted at the Golightly Academy of IT spend half their day following a "traditional" curriculum and half their day learning professional IT skills based on a NAF-sponsored IT curriculum. The program is hugely successful with graduation rates of 90%, and 80% of students going on to college.

The Golightly Academy of IT is looking for some help with their robotics team. If there are any folks out there who love robots, and also love helping kids discover the power and beauty of technology, please reach out to me through this blog. I'll then put you in touch with the faculty at the academy who can give you more details. :-)

The Academy is specifically looking for someone who knows how to develop in C and would like to mentor a team of high school students. The time commitment is somewhat flexible, but not more than a couple hours per week. Ideally, they're looking for someone who would be available most weeks between January - April. Meetings are either at Golightly Academy of IT or the GM Tech Center in Warren, MI.

I look forward to hearing from you all -- let the rush begin!!! :-)

Technorati tags: automotive, toyota, gm, robots, education