Quadrocopters are already accomplished piano players and Kinect-assisted navigators. Now they are playing tennis.
ETH Zurich’s Flying Machine Arena hosted a quadrocopter tennis match, involving a human-robot volley, a doubles match and an impressive robot-to-robot juggling act. The robots were outfitted with tennis rackets, allowing them to fly toward the ball and return a human’s serve. Watch it below.
Mark Müller, Sergei Lupashin and Raffaello D’Andrea conducted this experiment, part of ETH Zurich’s ongoing project examining adaptive high-performance maneuvers. The team was also responsible for teaching a quadrocopter to play a Christmas carol last year.
The quadrocopters are apparently pretty competitive — notice how they dive for the ball even when it’s out of reach.
Sorry I haven’t update the blog in Soooooooo long, but it has been a busy time. First SouthEastCon (see previous post) and then I worked the Smoky Mountain Regional (SMR) First Robotics Competition last week!
At the SMR all six of the Memphis City School teams were their along with some 41 other teams. The RoboWolves (Team 3227) were in 25th Place at the end of the qualifying rounds and were the top placed Memphis team. They also went away with the “Judges Award”.
The second annual National Robotics Week will be April 9-17, 2011.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the inaugural National Robotics Week in 2010! We celebrated with over 50 affiliated events in 21 states, DC, and Puerto Rico. Over 46,000 people participated, including over 24,000 K-12 students.
The purpose of National Robotics Week is to:
* Celebrate the US as a leader in robotics technology development
* Educate the public about how robotics technology impacts society, both now and in the future
* Advocate for increased funding for robotics technology research and development
* Inspire students of all ages to pursue careers in robotics and other Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math-related fields
Why is robotics important?
* Robotics technology is a growing industry which creates high-tech jobs in the US
* Robotics technologies are helping to improve healthcare, national defense, homeland security, energy, manufacturing, logistics, transportation, agriculture, education, consumer goods, and many other sectors
* Robotics provides an exciting, hands-on way for students to learn Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math
Each year in the South East Region (Region 3) the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE for short) host its annual conference SoutheastCON. One of the most popular events is the Student Hardware (Robotics) Competition.
This years scenario is search and rescue after a disaster (very timely don’t you think).
The conference this year is in Nashville, TN.
I know teams from the University of Memphis and Christen Bothers University are planing to field a robot for this event (I an the adviser for the UofM team).
In the mean time, here is a video I shot recently when they were testing their bot to see if it will be able to go over the obstacles……
I will be posting pics and news about the event….so stay tuned.
Just added two more robots to my collection. Last year I got a Hexbug for my E-Day Demonstrations and yesterday I was in RadioShack and saw these and just had to pick them up!
The one on the left is a Spider and is remote control. The other is the Ant it uses the antennas on the front a wire loop on the back to sense an obstacle and change direction (and boy is it fast). Should make for some fun demo’s for next years E-Day!
ROS (Robot Operating System) provides libraries and tools to help software developers create robot applications. It provides hardware abstraction, device drivers, libraries, visualizers, message-passing, package management, and more.
The Microsoft® Robotics Developer Studio 2008 R3 (Microsoft RDS) is a Windows®-based environment for academic, hobbyist, and commercial developers to easily create robotics applications across a wide variety of hardware. All previous editions of Microsoft RDS 2008 R2 (Express, Standard and Academic) have been combined into one new version, RDS 2008 R3 and can be downloaded at no charge.
RobotSEE Freescale side project that is a simple robot programming language. Also see TowerGeeks for more on this project. Also check out the IMX53QSB Single board Computer.
Still looking for more info on:
The low-cost Freescale Robot ( FreeBot ) is a 4 Degrees Of Freedom walking robot with touch sensors, and a 3-axis accelerometer. The robot is a sensor programming training assistant, used in hands-on classes around the world. The robot is upgradeable with a low-cost embedded Linux computer converting it into a Linux/Android programming and Computer Vision training platform.
The video says it will be available on the Freescale website on April 4, 2011 for $199, but I can’t find it yet……..
Vgo Robot
Cogmation Cogmation Robotics Simulation Software. See video generated below:
PS they are working with USFirst to develop there simulation software!
BeeBot BeeBot programmable robot for small children.
Hamburger making NXT Robot
Building Robots for Fun and Learning
Don’t worry if you missed this one, you can watch most of the presentations on the web, you can also mark your calendar for future events….just go to the link below:
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
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
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/
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/
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.
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.
