NextGen Education and Research Robotics Virtual Summit

Posted on March 10, 2011 by dkohn96

The NextGen Education and Research Robotics Virtual Summit will take place 10am-5pm EST on March 10, 2011. The virtual event will focus on the implementation of robotics to accelerate learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) among K-12 and college-level students. The free conference is ideal for educators, government representatives, robotics solution providers, integrators, hobbyists, researchers, and scientists.

Robotics Virtual Summit Sessions

VEX Robotics and STEM Education
The VEX Robotics Design System has been the apparatus of choice for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education programs because of its affordability, accessibility and scalability. From remedial math education to being the system of choice for a comprehensive, project-based engineering curriculum educators around the world continue to prove that VEX is key to their STEM education programs successes. Success of current and future STEM education programs will depend on collaboration between equipment suppliers, such as VEX, and educators around the world. VEX Robotics is continually seeking education partners, big and small, to figure out how robotics could play a part in their STEM efforts.

Using Robotics to Teach Engineering in the K-12 Classroom
Over the last 15 years, Tufts has become one of the players in the new field of engineering education research though its Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO). The CEEO involves professors from many of the engineering disciplines as well as from Arts and Sciences, a lot of students, and companies from LEGO to Google (and even Pixar at one point), all aimed at teaching engineering to everyone – from kindergartners to college students. They work with LEGO on the development of their LEGO Mindstorms product line, with National Instruments on their LabVIEW for High School product, and with Klutz books and others on teaching with stop action movies. This talk will present an overview of some of the research that happens at the Center . The results of LEGO engineering from students on almost every continent will also be shown.

Robots in Education – Bridging the Gap
The phrase “students learn by doing” is especially true in today’s world. Bringing robots into the classroom lets kids “do” science, technology, engineering, and math. Besides learning mathematical and computational ideas, students also learn to work together, think creatively and solve problems. Robots engage kids by providing real world interaction that they can control, create and customize. Robots bridge the gap between hands-on activities and abstract concepts typically found in technical curricula. Today’s wide range and low cost of sensors, actuators and microcontrollers coupled with easy to learn visual programming languages enable students to explore advanced concepts. This talk will focus on how robots are being used in New Zealand education to stimulate innovation and develop tomorrow’s workforce.

Evolution of Open Robotics Platform
Lloyd Spencer and Dan Kara of CoroWare will make a presentation on robotics trends.

Virtual Fireside Chat
Attendees can chat live with Dr. Dennis Hong, Associate Professor at Virginia Tech

To sign up goto http://vshow.on24.com/vshow/nextgen/registration/1224#

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NXT Resources

Posted on March 9, 2011 by dkohn96

Thanks to Dan from Triangle Amateur Robotics here is a resource list for NXT Robots:

For the mechanical/LEGO techniques side of things, start with Tora No
Maki (this recently became available in book form, but you can still
download it legally and free – the author asks for a donation if you
use it): http://www.isogawastudio.co.jp/legostudio/toranomaki/en/download.html

Some handy NXT resources:
NXTStep blog: http://www.thenxtstep.blogspot.com/
NXC (C-style programming language):
http://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/nbc/ http://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/
mindboards: http://mindboards.sourceforge.net/
Tinkernology blog: http://tinkernology.blogspot.com/

CAD options (my guess is that there won’t be time for saving designs
from the camp, but these could still come in handy – they’re widely
used for piecing together designs without parts handy, and can be used
for making instructions as well):
LDraw/MLCAD: http://www.ldraw.org/
LDD: http://ldd.lego.com/

I’m not sure where to find the official rules for the sumo robots
they’re making but you can check out some examples:
NXTLog (LEGO’s official repository for kid’s NXT creations) sumo
creations: http://us.mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/community/nxtlog/DisplayProjectList.aspx?tag=sumo
One set of rules: http://web.mac.com/aklego/Sumo/Rules.html

NXT Programs (one-kit models/programs/instructions for all versions of the NXT kits – also noteworthy for the instructions being actual photos taken while taking the models apart): http://www.nxtprograms.com/

Sure to be of use down-the-road as kids inevitably lose parts:
BrickLink (Buy/sell individual parts online): http://www.bricklink.com/
LEGO Education (frequently has parts and kits not available through regular stores, such as the Education edition kit the camp is using): http://www.legoeducation.us/store/

Some more general LEGO links
Brickset (set image/review database): http://www.brickset.com/
Peeron (set inventory/instructions database): http://www.peeron.com/inv
LUGNET (LEGO User Group NETwork – includes a number of databases, resources, and newsgroups): http://www.lugnet.com/
MOCPages (social network for sharing creations): http://www.mocpages.com/
BrickShelf (image hosting for creations – you can sort by theme to filter for Mindstorms and Technic): http://www.brickshelf.com/

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Top 10 Robotic Kinect Hacks

Posted on March 8, 2011 by dkohn96

From: IEEE Spectrum
BY: Evan Ackerman / Mon, March 07, 2011

We love Microsoft’s Kinect 3D sensor, and not just because you can play games with it. At a mere $150, it’s a dirt-cheap way to bring depth sensing and 3D vision to robots, and while open-source USB drivers made it easy, a forthcoming Windows SDK from Microsoft promises to make it even easier.

Kinect, which is actually hardware made by an Israeli company called PrimeSense, works by projecting an infrared laser pattern onto nearby objects. A dedicated IR sensor picks up on the laser to determine distance for each pixel, and that information is then mapped onto an image from a standard RGB camera. What you end up with is an RGBD image, where each pixel has both a color and a distance, which you can then use to map out body positions, gestures, motion, or even generate 3D maps. Needless to say, this is an awesome capability to incorporate into a robot, and the cheap price makes it accessible to a huge audience.

We’ve chosen our top 10 favorite examples of how Kinect can be used to make awesome robots, check it out:

1. Kinect Quadrotor Bolting a Kinect to the top of a quadrotor creates a robot that can autonomously navigate and avoid obstacles, creating a 3D map as it goes.

2. Hands-free Roomba Why actually vacuum when you can just pretend to actually vacuum, and then use a Kinect plus a Roomba to do the vacuuming for you?

3. iRobot AVA iRobot integrated two (two!) Kinect sensors into their AVA not-exactly-telepresence prototype: one to help the robot navigate and another one to detect motion and gestures.

4. Bilibot The great thing about Kinect is that it can be used to give complex vision to cheap robots, and Bilibot is a DIY platform that gives you mobility, eyes, and a brain in a package that costs just $650.

5. Gesture Surgery If you’ve got really, really steady hands, you can now use a Kinect that recognizes hand gestures to control a DaVinci robotic surgical system.

6. PR2 Teleoperation Willow Garage’s PR2 already has 3D depth cameras, so it’s kinda funny to see it wearing a Kinect hat. Using ROS, a Kinect sensor can be used to control the robot’s sophisticated arms directly.

7. Humanoid Teleoperation Taylor Veltrop put together this sweet demo showing control over a NAO robot using Kinect and some Wii controllers. Then he gives the robot a banana, and a knife (!).


8. Car Navigation Back when DARPA hosted their Grand Challenge for autonomous vehicles, robot cars required all kinds of crazy sensor systems to make it down a road. On a slightly smaller scale, all they need now is a single Kinect sensor.

9. Delta Robot This Kinect controlled delta robot doesn’t seem to work all that well, which makes it pretty funny (and maybe a little scary) to watch.

Kinect Controlled Delta-Robot from Enrique Ramos on Vimeo.

10. 3D Object Scanning Robots can use Kinect for mapping environments in 3D, but with enough coverage and precision, you can use them to whip up detailed 3D models of objects (and people) too.

roboScan from Shawn Sims on Vimeo.

Posted in IEEE, Robot News | Leave a comment

Interesting Website / Free Robot Book

Posted on February 26, 2011 by dkohn96

Just found http://www.roboteducation.org/ with a free book “Learning Computing With Robotics“. This book, and the website are part of The Institute for Personal Robots in Education (IPRE).

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Modular Robotics’ Cubelets Prototypes on Video

Posted on February 22, 2011 by dkohn96

from IEEE Spectrum
POSTED BY: Evan Ackerman / Fri, February 11, 2011

Modular Robotics’ Cubelets are designed to be an absurdly simple way to build robots. You don’t have to know how to program anything or even how to build anything; just snap a few specialized Cubelet blocks together and poof, you’ve got a robot. Want to build something different? Just use different blocks in different combinations, it’s that easy:

Cubelets Engineering Prototypes from eric schweikardt on Vimeo.

See FULL ARTICLE

Link to company website

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Watson Update

Posted on February 22, 2011 by dkohn96

By Daniel Kohn

With the category of “US Cities” and the clue ” Its largest airport is named for a world war II hero; its second largest, for a world war II battle” and his wrong answer of “What is Toronto???????” Watson still outperformed its human competitors in Jeopardy! this past week. I think Ken Jennings note (below) might be a bit premature

but I am really impressed with Waton’s technology. I still have many technical questions, but for the most part it is a very impressive attempt at understanding natural human communication. Watson’s ability to pick out the most important information and be able to play Jeopardy does signal that computers are coming that will rival HAL in 2001 (although hopefully without the murdering part).

I see, very soon, that Watson could be broken down into component programs that people could run over the internet, similar to how Folding at Home or Seti at Home works now, but in Watson’s case, each computer would run a part of Watson’s “Intelligence” and as people need the processing power, it is spread out over the computers on the net running the Watson@home software. But in this case, it could also use the internet as its database (Watson on Jeopardy was NOT connected to the internet). Think of the what could be done with this technology, especially when harnessed with Voice Recognition software on a local computer. IBM (the makers of Watson) could take search to the next level and be the next Google.

Am I saying that the question of Artificial Intelligence has been solved…..NO! But this is a significant leap forward that will have a profound effect on computer technology for years, maybe even decades to come.

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Jeopardy! Update

Posted on February 17, 2011 by dkohn96

Following Jeopardy! Win, Experts Discuss Future Of Computers And Humans.

The AP (2/17, Robertson, Borenstein) reports IBM’s Watson computer soundly defeated its two human opponents in Jeopardy! “Watson’s victory leads to the question: What can we measly humans do that amazing machines cannot do or will never do?” The article offers responses from an array of engineers and scientists, including experts from IBM, Carnegie Mellon University, the Envisioneering Group, Portland State University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, among others. “The next step for the IBM machine and its programmers: taking its mastery of the arcane and applying it to help doctors plow through blizzards of medical information,” among other potential applications for “technical support centers, hospitals, hedge funds or other businesses that need to make lots of decisions that rely on lots of data.”

Full Article

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Programming Contest at UofM

Posted on February 15, 2011 by dkohn96

We’d like to invite you and students to participate in the 2011 Programming Challenge at the University of Memphis on Saturday April 30th, 2011. This event will be an opportunity for your students to learn about exciting technologies in computing.

The theme for this year is Web App Design and Programming Robots.

In this one-day event, students will learn about the technologies in the morning. And in the afternoon, they will compete with each other in teams. For detailed information, including REGISTRATION and PREPARATION for the competitions, please visit http://www.cs.memphis.edu/programming_challenge

Space is limited. Registration must be done by March 15, 2011, so we have time to prepare. Information about registration and preparation is here: http://www.cs.memphis.edu/programming_challenge/ .

If you have questions, please feel free to contact us.

Regards,

Vinhthuy Phan
Associate Professor of Computer Science
University of Memphis
Email: vphan@memphis.edu
Event website: http://www.cs.memphis.edu/programming_challenge/

Posted in Computing, Memphis Robotics, Teaching Technology | Leave a comment

Watson takes on Jeopardy Champions

Posted on February 14, 2011 by dkohn96

IBM’s Watson is challenging the two best human Jeopardy Champions. Will a computer prove it can beat humans at this popular game show?

Tonight (ooops missed it) and the next two nights watch Jeopardy to find out.

Nova did a wonderful special on Watson. Watch the full episode HERE. Below is just the preview:

Here is a preliminary round with PBS Host Miles O’Brien recorded last week.

Follow this story at GOOGLE NEWS

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International Space Station Comes Together

Posted on February 13, 2011 by dkohn96

Original FLASH VERSION

Posted in Space | Leave a comment