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bobsweepmop · 6 years ago

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RoboCup 2018 – Montreal June 18 to 22

RoboCup 2018 is set to take place in Montreal from June 18 to 22 at the Palais des Congres. Around 4000 participants from 35 countries will compete in a variety of challenges to see which robots are the most versatile and intelligent. The event started in 1996 and has grown considerably in size and scope. Organizers have divided the event into two main sections, Junior and Major, each with their own lists of competitions.

RoboCup Federation is a reputable international scientific initiative with the goal to advance the state of the art of intelligent robots. When established in 1997, the original mission was to field a team of robots capable of winning against the human soccer World Cup champions by 2050. Today, the federation still holds this dream, however, the necessary technologies to accomplish these landmark projects in Artificial Intelligence takes dedication, much research and development.

RoboCup Junior

Onstage

RoboCup Junior OnStage invites teams to develop a creative stage performance using autonomous robots that they have designed, built and programmed. The objective is to create a robotic performance between 1 to 2 minutes that uses technology to engage an audience.

Rescue

The Rescue league is split into three sections: line following, maze solving and simulation navigation. Participants which have entries in all three stand a strong chance of creating a robot for the Major rescue competition later. This competition is targeted to primary and secondary students. The robots are complex and small. Students must make use of onboard sensors to detect and navigate, as well as carry out the required mission.

Line

An autonomous robot should follow a black line while overcoming different problems in a modular arena formed by tiles with different patterns. The floor is white in color and the tiles are on different levels connected with ramps.

Maze

The land is simply too dangerous for humans to reach the victims. Your team has been given a difficult task. The robot must be able to carry out the rescue mission in a fully autonomous mode with no human assistance. The robot must be durable and intelligent enough to navigate through treacherous terrain with hills, uneven land and rubble without getting stuck.

Simulation

Teams have to develop and program appropriate strategies for both real and virtual autonomous robots to navigate through the real and virtual worlds to collect objects while competing with another team’s robot that is searching and collecting objects in the same real and virtual worlds.

Soccer

The Junior soccer league not only helps students show off their robot building and programming skills, but also their knowledge and skills at soccer and team play.

In the RoboCupJunior soccer league, a team of two autonomous mobile robots competes against another team in matches. 2-on-2 teams of autonomous mobile robots play in a highly dynamic environment, tracking a special light-emitting or passive ball in an enclosed, landmarked field.

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RoboCup Major

@Home

The @home challenge is quite different from what most people associate with RoboCup in that the focus is not a sport, nor even a structured task, but rather an unstructured, previously unexplored environment and the need to succeed at a wide variety of tasks. The emphasis is the ability to autonomously assist humans in situations like a grocery store. The mobile robots make use of one or more arms to pick up and manipulate objects.

The RoboCup@Home league aims to develop service and assistive robot technology with high relevance for future personal domestic applications. It is the largest international annual competition for autonomous service robots and is part of the RoboCup initiative.

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RoboCup Industrial

A natural extension of the @home challenge is the industrial challenge. This league covers both robots which provide manufacturing services (standardized on the FESTO Robotino platform), as well as robots which help in the workplace.

@Work

The RoboCup@Work is the newest league in RoboCup, targeting the use of robots in work-related scenarios. The robots in this league utilize proven ideas and concepts from other RoboCup competitions to tackle open research challenges in industrial and service robotics.

RoboCupLogisitics

The RoboCup Logistics League is an application driven league inspired by the industrial scenario of a smart factory, where a number of machines provide manufacturing services to refine, assemble, or modify a workpiece eventually resulting in a final product.

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RoboCup RESCUE

The Rescue league involves robots which are considerably larger and more versatile their their junior counterparts. Correspondingly, the tasks are considerably more difficult. There is bot ha physical robot challenge as well as a simulation challenge.

Robot

Robot rescue challenge assists first responders in assessing an emergency situation such as searching for potential victims and provide an automated map of an environment with uneven terrain, stairs and navigating through doorways.

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Simulation

The purpose of the RoboCup Rescue Simulation 2D and 3D league is twofold. First, it aims to develop develop simulators that form the infrastructure of the simulation system and emulate realistic phenomena predominant in disasters.

RoboCup Soccer

Soccer is the sport which most people think about when they hear about RoboCup. The objective is to create a team of robots able to compete and win against human players. Full-scale humanoid robots are still incredibly expensive, so in order to ensure the competition is accessible, and focus on the software needed, the organizers have subdivided this league into simulation, small, medium and large sized robots. There is also a standard platform using SoftBank’s NAO humanoid robot which teams can make use of.

The main focus of the RoboCup competitions is the game of football/soccer, where the research goals concern cooperative multi-robot and multi-agent systems in dynamic adversarial environments. All robots in this league are fully autonomous.

Humanoid

Standard Platform

Middle Size

Small Size

Simulation

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Have you attended a RoboCup event in the past, or are you planning to attend RoboCup 2018? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section below.

Sources

robocup.org/

robocup2018.org

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bobsweepmop · 6 years ago

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Our Journey In Drone Racing – Final Chapter

Hello everyone, Seán here as usual. This is the third and final chapter of me and my team’s rollercoaster of a ride to build, fly and compete in drone racing (click to read the first and second chapter). It has now been about a week after the national finals of Syndic8. We entered the competition with 2 teams with a drone each; we emerged with one.

Before we begin, I would like to apologize for the limited number of pictures, unfortunately, something happened with our camera so we only have a couple of pictures.

How did we do?

One of our drones

The one-million-euro question. How did we do? Well, we didn’t do as well as we had hoped. We didn’t lose but we didn’t win either. As of yet, we don’t know our precise place in the competition but I am hopeful that we placed at least within the top 5.

What were the competitors like?

One of Syndic8 winning teams

The competition was quite varied. At the start, we had very high hopes of winning because some of the competitors were disqualified after it was found they had not obeyed the competition rules. After a while, however, we began to see the high level we had expected with people coming from schools all over the country.

What was the event itself like?

Syndic8 at Royal Hospital Kilmainham

Though we didn’t do as well as we had hoped, we did have tremendous fun at the event itself. We spent time talking to competitors and visitors about how we build our drone, what resources we used, the various processes and more. We also got to see entries for the other categories, F1 car racing, and RC Rally. The quality and level of expertise there was extremely high and we were delighted to be a part of such a great event.

Our Final Thanks and Goodbye

One of our aircraft used in drone racing

We would like to thank RobotShop for kindly sponsoring us in our endeavor and without whose help, this would not have been possible. We would also like to thank our school, friends, and family (I sound very cliché) for supporting us and last but most certainly not least, anyone reading this for taking this journey with us. And so, the journey comes to a close. Slán go foill.

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bobsweepmop · 6 years ago

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Interview with Hollywood Producer Amy Kim – Robots in Movies

Earlier this year, we had the pleasure to collaborate with Daphne & Velma by providing 3 Lynxmotion Phoenix Hexapods. We’re super excited to see the movie released earlier this month, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to share with you our interview with the movie’s producer Amy Kim. Amy will share some insights about robotics in movies and her journey in Hollywood.

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What was your journey in the Film Industry?

I began my production career at Warner Bros. Television (while at the same time producing independent shorts and pilots, and serving on the IATSE boards). My indie producing effort WEST BANK STORY earned an Academy Award. Then, I became Director of Production at Nickelodeon (also supporting TV Land, Nick at Nite, and TeenNick) while also successfully managing development, current, and on-air. I later joined Michael Eisner’s digital studio, Vuguru, as Head of Production, creating original scripted content for various partners including Hulu, AOL, and Yahoo. Since starting Lifeboat Productions, we have been working in the digital space with major studios and networks.

How Robotics have been used and are being used in the Movie Industry?

Still from Daphne & Velma – Featuring a Lynxmotion Hexapod

My mind goes to animatronic puppets and drones with cameras and I’m sure that is what most people think of as well.

A newer development is 3D printing. Admittedly, this is “robotics adjacent”, but the ability to print small and intricate items is very interesting. I’ve mostly read about mass printing character faces for stop motion animation and how it has allowed for an exponential increase the level of expression and nuance.

I look forward to seeing how other departments, like props, special FX, or make-up, can use the exactness of 3D printing to bring a computer model into the real world of something otherwise impossible to create.

In your opinion, what has been the best use of Robotics in Movies?

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Using robotics to create otherworldly beings, creatures, and/or machines is by far my favorite. Instead of a person in costume or CGI only, having real robots on a set to play characters allows for talent to interact and crew to react at the moment, and that is how you can get those fantastic unpredictable moments. The “happy accidents” that can only happen when shooting on a real set with real people… and robots.

With more and more movies using CGI, do you think there’s still room for Robotics/Animatronics in production?

Still from Daphne & Velma – Featuring a Lynxmotion Hexapod

Definitely. CGI is great and many creatures and contraptions are impossible and need to be fabricated in a computer. However, we’ve already seen productions make animatronics & machines for the set and then augment the footage with CGI.

We’ll continue to see practical effects and animatronics on set more and more, as the technology develops. Ultimately, both robotics and CGI will be used together to create the best possible result.

Do you think a Robotics professional could make their way into the Movie Industry?

Still from Daphne & Velma – Featuring a Lynxmotion Hexapod

The way things are going, it might be a case of movie and TV’s professionals making their way into robotics and other technologies. Tech companies are making their own content while content companies are making & using technology to tell game, VR, and AR stories, so the convergence is interesting and there will certainly be changes to come.

Lynxmotion products have been used previously in TV shows like New Girl and in commercials like KFC – How/Why did you pick them?

Still from Daphne & Velma – Featuring a Lynxmotion Hexapod

Our decision was a practical one. The hexapods had the right look for our “security defense” machines within the world of our story, and the team at Lynxmotion were fantastic and willing to work with us on our tight schedule and budget.

How was working with Lynxmotion Hexapods?

I love those little guys! They were easy to manage, worked every time and looked great. When are they going to be able to design costumes?

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bobsweepmop · 6 years ago

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New Version of Pixy Now Available on RobotShop !

We are super excited to announce you some great news. Without more suspense, a new version of the Pixy is here at RobotShop. As some of you might know, Pixy is the popular robot camera/vision sensor released by Charmed Labs. The first version of Pixy has successfully raised $274,352 from 2802 backers through its Kickstarter campaign. Today, we are happy to let you know that Pixy2 is available.

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Here are some features of the Pixy2 compared to its predecessor :

Faster: 60 frames per second (vs 50 frames per second for Pixy1)

Smaller: less than half the size of Pixy1

Cheaper: Pixy2 costs $59 (vs $67 for Pixy1.)

New “line following” mode: many educational and hobbyist robot makers create robots that follow line paths. Pixy2 has custom algorithms for detecting and tracking lines. It can also decode “road signs”. The road signs can tell your robot what to do like turning right, turning right or slowing down, etc.

Improved software: Pixy’s software PixyMon is improved by making it more intuitive and responsive. The Arduino and Raspberry Pi libraries have also been revisited by adding more examples, making them easier to understand and extending their functionality

Redesigned Pan Tilt: The new pan tilt is smaller and faster than the Pixy1 Pan Tilt

Built-in light source (dual LEDs) for illuminating what Pixy is looking at

Pixy2 Packaging

Pixy2

Pixy2 Pan&Tilt

Pixy2 vs Pixy

Pixy2 and Pixy2 Pan&Tilt can be purchased here :

Charmed Labs Pixy 2 CMUcam5 Image Sensor

Charmed Labs Pan/Tilt Kit for Pixy 2 CMUcam5 Image Sensor

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bobsweepmop · 7 years ago

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Saildrone Obtains $60M in Series B Funding

What are Saildrones?

Congratulations to Saildrone which have just raised $60 million in series B funding (May 2018) to continue development and deployment of their autonomous sailing robot. Saildrone launched commercially in 2016 and its current mission is to build and deploy a fleet of 1,000 fully autonomous ocean-capable vessels. They hope to have 200 drones completed by the end of this year. So what exactly are Saildrones?

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Although seaworthy autonomous vessels are certainly not new, designs which have successfully crossed oceans and are made to be mass produced are rare. The technology used in its propulsion involves the patented hard wing / sail technology means it does not have a standard propeller and relies on the wind, as has been done for centuries. The use of this wing allows it to cross vast distances with no onboard stored energy, aside from what is needed to reliably power the electronics. In 2014, they set out to sail around the world without human intervention.

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What are Saildrones capable of?

Each 23 foot long drone is equipped with a wide array of sensors, making it incredibly versatile in terms of potential applications. The team foresees these drones being used to monitor both weather and ocean conditions (environmental monitoring) and fish (and shark migration soon enough) all in real time. Missions can last up to 12 months and so far have not required human intervention. The company is also offering the drones for “rental”: for $2,500 a day a drone can be re-tasked based on customer needs. One or more drones which may already have been deployed can be redirected, which greatly reduces the time needed to obtain data. Should a drone not be close by to the target area, one can always be deployed.

Saildrone Data Capabilities

What can Saildrones do?

So what can’t these drones do? Aside from putting themselves into the water, they can pretty much do everything autonomously. The drones have needed a bit of human help in certain situations like being towed out to deeper water for easier deployment, or where the wind is stronger. Humans can also not only obtain sensor data in real time from the drone but also images. Currently, fixed buoys are used for a variety of reasons worldwide from monitoring weather and sea conditions to detecting possible tsunamis. A secondary objective is to use the drones as replacements to manned research vessels, which not only require scientists and sailors, but also food and provisions. This has the effect of greatly reducing the cost of obtaining relevant data, as well as reducing the risk of injury to humans in potentially dangerous situations.

Sources

www.saildrone.com

www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2018-05-15/the-robots-roaming-the-high-seas-video

www.wired.com/2014/02/saildrone/

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bobsweepmop · 7 years ago

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Our Journey In Drone Racing – Chapter 2

Hi, this is Seán again. So it has been a while since the first post of our journey in drone racing and a lot has happened since then. The national competition will be on the 15th of May (only 5 days away from when I’m writing this. Yikes!). So let’s get right down to it.

Why are we competing in Drone Racing?

As explained in the first chapter of this series:

Drone Racing (FPV) involves a mini camera mounted on your drone streaming live video, giving the pilot first person view of the action! This competition involves designing and assembling your own FPV Drones. Using hi spec goggles and a mini camera on top of your drone, whizz around obstacles, LED gates and other competitors as you hurtle towards the finish line! Not only will you learn how to design and build your own drone but you will also master controlling it at speeds of up to 185 Km/h!

By entering the Syndic8 competition, we’ll learn about team management, sponsorship research and negotiation, designing and manufacturing our aircraft, documentation writing and presenting, and of course drone racing!

A quadcopter UAV

Where are we now?

In the previous post, we had only just ordered our equipment but now, they have arrived. Me and two others have been extremely busy these past few days, pulling the circuit together with the motor kit and cameras. We have been working tirelessly over the weekend and staying up late to make sure our drone will be perfect. While the three of us have been working on the circuits, our designer has been working even harder to finish and polish off the final design for our drone frames to be 3D printed as soon as possible.

There’s been a lot of soldering lately for our drone boards

What have we left to do before the Syndic8 competition?

We’re relieved and proud to only have very little left. The frames have yet to be 3D printed but we are sure we will have them ready soon. We are currently finishing up our portfolio that we will print off soon. Once our drones are put together, we will hopefully be putting it through a series of tests both to check for any possible problems (hopefully very few) and to determine who our flyers will be. We’re confident our prototypes will be amazing from the start.

Almost ready to race!

Have we encountered any issues?

Unfortunately, yes. Our biggest issues at the moment are our First Person View (FPV) goggles. Due to an unexpected issue with the suppliers, we probably won’t be able to have our goggles in time for the competition. Luckily, Syndic8 (the entity hosting the competition) have told us that, just in case, they will have some for us.

Our next biggest issue is relatively minor. We have yet to figure out how we will be traveling to the competition. Because the competition will be held on a working day, we need a way to get to the competition and we also have yet to talk to our year head so that we may miss school.

Luckily, those are our only problems. And they should be easy to tackle.

That’s all for now and next time, I will be talking about our experience at the competition and hopefully, how we won in a blaze of glory

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bobsweepmop · 7 years ago

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Is the Future of Agriculture in Robotics?

Modern combine in a field – Soon this will be an autonomous robot

Every single day we are reminded that the robot revolution is moving forward. From autonomous vehicles to automated cashier, the robots are taking a larger and larger place in our daily lives. And while our attention has been focused on robots in manufacturing industries, there’s one vital field of activity they might disrupt even more than anything else. Indeed, to quote the authors of one of the most renowned papers on the topic:

“[…]food is a necessity that must be produced at all costs. We therefore need either more farmers or more ways to produce food with limited manpower. The robots are coming to the rescue.”

Are you ready for the robo-agriculture?

The Agricultural Robotics Market Is About to Blow Up

Today, it’s the 2nd biggest market for professional robotics and estimated to be worth $2.75 billion. According to many researchers, the agricultural robots market should have an annual growth rate of over 20% until 2022. Eventually, it will reach a market capitalization of $13 billion. This spectacular growth will be fueled by the democratization of automated machines, by their ever-decreasing costs, but mostly by the diversification of the nature of the machines.

Today, a vast majority of robotics on farms are for milking cows or indoor machines. But in the very near future, robots will start working outdoors. You may have already seen some automated tractors or drones but, truth be told, these are still sparse initiatives. That being said, the day when we’ll see robots roaming through farms is closer than you can imagine. For instance, we already have advanced prototypes for feeder robots, surveyance, and weeding. A future à la Interstellar with fully automated farms might just be around the corner.

Tractor in a field

According to a MarketsandMarkets Research report, the most important applications will be in:

Harvesting Management

Field Mapping

Dairy Farm Management

Soil Management

Irrigation Management

Pruning Management

Weather Tracking and Forecasting

Inventory Management

It’s then safe to say that most of today’s farming is about to be disrupted by robotics.

Modern Farming is Broken and Inefficient

Starting from the premise quoted earlier, the robot-enhanced agriculture is also a question of survival. Today’s farming is far from optimal on so many levels. According to an FAO report, family-run farms produce over 75% of the world’s food. And about 75% of all farms in the world are smaller than one hectare. And those small farms are way more efficient than the large ones. Contrary to the rule of thumb that large-scale productions see a decrease of inputs per unit of production, farming is actually more efficient and productive at smaller scales.

Bringing robots and technology into the equation will improve all farms’ productivity. If we want to tackle the challenges of feeding the ever-increasing world’s population, we’ll need to make sure that the food production process minimizes the inputs needed and maximizes the yields. That’s something only robots can help us achieve. The future of farming is technology and data-driven.

Modern irrigation, while it got better, is still inefficient

Let’s take for example the modern irrigation. What do you think will be most productive? Using hundreds of meters of aerial pipes like we can see today in linear or central pivot irrigation…Or arrays of moisture sensors spread across the field, making sure the soil has the perfect moisture levels at the perfect places for crops to grow as productive as possible (without mentioning the use of weather forecasts to adapt the irrigation schedule to ensure as little water is used as possible)? Which brings us to our first point.

Agricultural Robots Will Be So Much More Efficient

The first obvious improvement brought by farming robots will be that they’ll be autonomous. While people will be able to focus their mind on more interesting tasks, they will be roaming the properties, relentlessly accomplishing their mission. Whether it’ll be surveyance, removing weeds and pest, caring for crops,… you can be sure that you won’t have to be behind them to get the job done.

Thanks to online databases and forecasts, combined with the data provided by external and internal sensors, they will have a complete understanding of the situation, far beyond what any human could. This will allow them to make informed decisions, and obtain the optimal outcome.

Furthermore, as all of these robots will be powered on batteries and electric motors, they will also have a positive impact on the energy consumption and carbon footprint of the farms. Some of them might even be perfectly independent thanks to solar panels on them. They’ll be an important part of a greener future for mass-scale farming. Besides, this will also allow for a quieter exploitation. Thus it will also reduce the noise pollution generated by agriculture.

Milking is already in majority done by milking robots

In a nutshell, by bringing artificial intelligence and around-the-clock activity, the robots will help optimize the yield of the farms far beyond what could humanly be possible. Maximizing the production while minimizing the costs in energy, water, time,… Can you imagine greenhouses with automatic lighting and watering designed to get the best crops for the minimal energy? Or tractors relentlessly roaming the fields with drones surveying cattle day and night and rovers on a permanent weed-control duty? Or watering hectares and hectares of lands using only the optimal amount of water for each square meter? This is what tomorrow will be made of.

Robots on Farms Will Improve Human Lives

Farm employment is far from a riskless job. It often exposes workers to pesticides, long working hours in the heat and sun, and poor sanitary conditions among other direct health risks. There are many serious health hazards affecting farmworkers. For instance, the Organic Dust Toxic Syndrome, caused by grain and silage dust, is a common illness among farmers. Less known, the exposure to excessive noise produced by machines can permanently damage workers’ hearing. Furthermore, most of the work is physical and outside. Thus increasing the risk of accidents caused by fatigue, difficult environment and weather, and aging tools.

However, only some of these risks are being covered by employment and health insurances. Some are not even covered by national legislation and regulations. By bringing robots to do these tasks, we will be reducing the risks on the human workers. Which will not only have a positive impact on their lives, but also on the people around them, and the society at large.

Robots will be able to farm 24/7 – No more driving tractors in the middle of the night

And obviously, as mentioned above, the more efficient the farming, the better we all are. Maximizing yield while reducing the environmental and societal costs can help us tackle the challenges of a growing population and the lack of efficiency of modern intensive farming. We can all agree that a healthier planet would be a very strong improvement in everybody’s lives!

There Are Many Questions Raised by the Farming Robots…

… And they might impact their democratization more than you could suspect. As with any technological revolution, many questions need to be answered. Today, the focus of governing entities is on the legislation and regulation of the potential agricultural robots. Due to the fact that these robots will be in an open environment and will probably be massive pieces of machinery. While it’s for obvious security reasons (you don’t want a pilotless combine to go on a road trip), it can create serious entry barriers to startup trying to break into this field.

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Indeed, the certification process can already decide of the fate of a prototype. For instance, the Centéol developed by AgreenCulture is a promising autonomous robot weighing 300kg. However, until it gets its certification of conformity with the European Union norms, it can’t be officially released on the market. This is just one of many examples of speedbumps that the farming robots will have to overcome to become mainstream.

Governments Are Jumping on the Bandwagon for Agricultural Robotics

Seen all that legal blur and balancing it against the numerous advantages, some governments are starting to realize the possible impact and the need for action. Whether it’s the positive fallback of leading the way on that matter or the risk of missing the train on that new revolution. For instance, France, one of the largest agricultural production in the world, through its national agronomic and research agency IRSTEA, has announced in November 2017 the creation of an accelerator program “RobAgri“. Its goal couldn’t be any clearer: “Intensify the conception, validation, and dissemination of tomorrow’s robots“.

Investing in agricultural robotics is sowing the seeds of a prosperous future

One of the biggest government programs on that topic in the world, RobAgri gathers almost 50 public and private stakeholders in order to impulse a dynamic collective to conceive robotic systems fitting the needs of farmers and markets. Besides its workgroup, RobAgri is partnering with Naio Technologies to organize a yearly convention about agricultural robotics. The Forum International de la Robotique Agricole (FIRA) will hold its 3rd edition on December 13th and 14th in Toulouse, France.

Likewise, back in 2014, the UK set out an “agri-tech” strategy with over £150M in public funding to develop and commercialize agricultural technologies.

You Too Can Have Your Own Agricultural Robot

The robotic farming isn’t reserved to only big exploitations. If you wanna be part of the agricultural revolution brought by robotics, we can only suggest you get yourself a FarmBot. This open-source project allows you to build your own automated veggie garden. Powered by a Raspberry Pi and an Arduino board, it offers to bring a CNC head to your raised bed. Thanks to its open-source software you can access your crop from anywhere and make sure everything’s running alright. Thanks to its link with OpenFarm.cc and weather data, FarmBot can optimize the care of your crops. According to its manufacturer, it can save you up to $1,500 a year for your vegetable consumption. Or if you’re looking for a smaller-scale project, there’s the MoAgriS project over at Hackaday that will be a great start.

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If you’re looking to automate your garden’s irrigation and watering systems, then look no further than the GreenIQ Smart Garden Hub available at RobotShop.com. Using data from weather services or from moisture sensors (3 are included with the base product), this hub can save you up to 50% of your water consumption. You can use its additional master channels for a water pump and a fertilizer tank. It can also take control of your lighting based on sunset and sunrise schedules. And obviously, you can control it from your computer or your smartphone from anywhere in the world. Or ask Alexa to do it for you!

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Or if you’re looking to bid farewell to the mowing chore, then you should take a look at our catalog of robotic lawn mowers. Like the robotic vacuum cleaners you might already have inside your house, these robots will relentlessly roam across your lawn to make sure it’s always looking perfect. These are also about to become a common thing as their market is projected to reach values of around $3 billion by 2023 with a CAGR over 15% for the next five years.

Needless to say, whether you’re part of it or not, the agricultural robotic revolution is well underway.

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bobsweepmop · 7 years ago

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M.I.T.’s Rapid Liquid Printer

M.I.T.’s Self-Assembly Lab, in collaboration with Steelcase and Christopher Guberan, have displayed the results of a new 3D printing concept they call “Rapid Liquid Printing”. A video is always best to show how it works:

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Additional examples of what they have been able to create:

A gel acts as support for material being extruded. Interestingly, the gel “self heals”, which allows the nozzle to move continuously within the gel and not disrupt the printing process or support by creating voids or tunnels. Skylar Tibbits, co-director of MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab:

3D printing hasn’t taken off as a mainstream manufacturing process for three main reasons: 1) it’s too slow compared to conventional processes like injection molding, casting, milling, etc. 2) it’s limited by scale – although it’s good for creating small components, it’s not possible to produce large scale objects 3) the materials are typically low-quality compared to industrial materials. Rapid Liquid Printing addresses all of these limitations: it is incredibly fast (producing structures in a matter of minutes), designed for large scale products (you can print an entire piece of furniture) and uses real-world, industrial-grade materials.

The machine itself, created around a small industrial robot arm, can be scaled to any size:

Rapid Liquid Printer

The gel is similar to a hair gel or hand-sanitiser and has two key functions. The first is that it can suspend objects so that we aren’t fighting gravity and we don’t require layer-by-layer printing or support materials, which are time consuming to print. This means that a part can be printed quickly within the gel and then removed and simply washed off with water. The second is that the gel self-heals after the nozzle passes through. This allows you to continuously move and print within the gel and not create tunnels or cavities which would fill up with printed material.

Sources: selfassemblylab.mit.edu/rapid-liquid-printing/ selfassemblylab.mit.edu/liquid-printed-products/

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bobsweepmop · 7 years ago

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How to Make an Internet-Connected Lock: The GO-Lock

We had the pleasure to sponsor a very interesting school project that targeted a real-world problem. These two smart students developped their own connected lock and are sharing today the story of their project.

Who are we?

We are Nathan Hampton and Quinn Sulejmani. Two Engineering Design and Development students at the Career and Technical Center in Frisco, Texas.

What problem is our project trying to solve

Security Instruments Corp. reported that in 2014, 35.2% (504,000) of home burglaries across U.S. suburbs and apartments were considered walk-in burglaries. A walk-in burglary essentially consists of an unlawful entry, where a burglar enters a home without having to use force to break in. Our project, the GO-Lock, tackles this problem, attempting to reduce the number of walk-in burglaries across the United States.

Unlawful entry – Image courtesy of SafeT Systems

Overview of our product : a connected lock

The GO-Lock attempts to decrease this high amount of walk-in burglaries by allowing the user to control access to their home from anywhere via a smartphone. The lock essentially acts as a traditional deadbolt that is powered by electronic components rather than a human hand. It consists of four main pieces of electronics: a servo motor, a potentiometer, a magnetic sensor (Reed switch), and a NodeMCU ESP8266 board.

An overview of the product

Functions of each component:

The magnetic sensor tells the user whether their door is closed or open.

The potentiometer tells the user whether their door is locked or closed.

The servo motor turns the deadbolt via a 3D printed axle. When the door is closed, it will lock the door if it is unlocked, or unlock the door if it is locked. When the door is open, the servo will not turn regardless of user input.

The ESP8266 board acts like the brain of the system. Using code developed by the Arduino Programming IDE, it connects to the user’s smartphone, allowing them to view the outputs of the magnetic sensor and potentiometer, and send an input to the servo motor.

The breadboard with the ESP8266

The first three components are all connected to the ESP8266 via wires and a breadboard. This allows them to receive power from a 6V power supply, and receive or send inputs to the ESP8266. On the other side of the system is the user’s smartphone, which connects to the ESP8266 board via WiFi connection. The smartphone uses an interfaced app that consists of two buttons to toggle the servo and two LEDs: one to display if the door is locked and one to display if the door is closed. The app is provided through the parent-app Blynk, which allows users to create apps to connect to their systems. This app, combined with the lock system attached to their door, allows the user to monitor and control the biggest threat to their home’s safety.

Assembly and Testing

We made the following general observations while testing the GO-Lock:

When turning clockwise (unlocking door) deadbolt does not return to the position entirely flush with face of door, due to slack inside deadbolt mechanism. Should not be of much issue though.

Axle and Servo holder did not show any signs of wear after 30 tests (60 servo turns total).

The magnetic switch has a semi-wide range of detection; does not only output a high value when sensor and magnet are face-to-face.

The connection between ESP8266 and wireless network can be slightly delayed, as the signal is often choppy.

The connection between smartphone (Blynk) and ESP8266 is instantaneous.

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Conclusion

Throughout the process designing, modeling, building, and testing the GO-Lock prototype, we faced many setbacks and large changes to our overall system. For instance, the learning curve of coding the ESP8266 with Blynk packages was very high and took us nearly a month to fully understand and complete. However, that knowledge allowed us to make quick changes to the electronics side of the system. Additionally, one of our most significant changes to the system was switching from a servo motor casing that could freely rotate, essentially acting like a doorknob for the lock, to a stationary casing that’s sole purpose is to hold the servo in place while it operates. All of these obstacles and altercations to our project ultimately allowed us to refine it with great detail so that it can perform its functions in an efficient manner.

The GO-Lock is a plausible solution to prevent walk-in burglaries. Our results from testing show that there are little to no issues or delays turning the servo motor, displaying statuses to the user’s smartphone, and with the connection between the wireless network, the circuit board, and the smartphone. Our final prototype, after various changes to the system, successfully meets the criteria and constraints we set for ourselves at the start of our journey, performing each of its functions how we expected it to.

Special thanks to:

RobotShop, for donating many of the electronic components used in our project

Garver Engineering, for providing mentorship throughout the process

The Career and Technical Education Center

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bobsweepmop · 7 years ago

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Interview with TheBrickWall, LEGO geniuses

You may have probably stumbled upon one of their videos depicting some incredibly ingenious concepts of Lego builds. From Zambonis to hay-balers, their YouTube channel has gathered over 13 million views in less than 3 years. Their latest invention, a LEGO brick picker called “Rumba”, caught our eye and so we went ahead and interviewed this creative duo.

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Hi TheBrickWall! Thanks for joining us! Can you introduce yourself for our readers who might not know you?

There are two creators behind The Brick Wall channel. Michael and Iouri. We live in Canada, Michael is 13.5 years old and I am his father and a bit older. I work for one of the Canadian telecom company in the area close to computers and IT architecture.

A Hay Baler entirely made of LEGO and functional!

You’re known for your channel “The Brick Wall” where you share inspiring and awesome videos about your Lego builds. How did this all start?

My son Michael had been playing with LEGO bricks since he was 3 years old. Later he moved to Lego Technic world and then it has become growing hobby. As long as I remember Michael was a little destroyer as all sets he got did not last long and always end up in a new shape or form.

Two years ago Michael asked to create a Youtube channel to share his Lego creations and ideas. I am a fan of Pink Floyd and suggested the name for the new channel, Michael added the word Brick to it. I observed his first videos and decided to join his adventure. Step by step I was working with my son on a few projects. I am so happy I can spend time with my son.

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Did you expect to gather millions of views when you started your channel?

Love this question. To be honest we had started the channel with three goals: get to know how to use video editing software, get to know how to create the YouTube channel and share some of the modifications that Michael did already. We have agreed from day one that we will do YouTube for 1 year no matter what.

Your constructions are pretty awesome – are they all original creations or do you use LEGO or online plans?

We started with modification of existing Lego sets. In the beginning, we simply did not have enough parts and money to build our own creations.

Over time, we had a good collection of parts and moved to design and build of our creation. We did not use online plans. What is interesting, we did not realize when we moved to a custom project, it was natural.

A LEGO Harvest Machine cutting green onions

How are you coming up with the designs?

Often ideas come from what we see outside or in the hobby stores and our Youtube channel subscribers are also a great source of inspiration. We have family time when all speak out what we called “crazy” ideas and then we write them down on the paper and put it on our brick wall.

From time to time, we check the list and pick up an idea that we feel like ready to work on. One of the best in our opinion idea was the Hay Baler project. It was triggered by the trip to the countryside. When we saw a working Hay Baler, the decision was made to build one.

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Has Michael any plans to pursue education and/or career in robotics/engineering (as he seems predisposed to)?

He will go to high school next year, we picked the school that had a very strong robotic team.

Being from Canada, TheBrickwall obviously made a snow-blowing machine

Do you think LEGO is a good platform to learn about engineering and robotics?

I think it is a fantastic platform. It is affordable, super flexible, and it can grow with you as long as you wish to grow.

I think there will be a moment when Michael will switch to a more sophisticated platform; but for now, let’s play :).

…and a snow removal truck too!

What is your favorite LEGO kit?

This is a tough question as we do not have too many kits. I think LEGO Xerion 5000 (42054) gave us a few opportunities.

What is the next project you are working on?

There are about 10 good ideas on our brick wall right now. The next project will be Lego breakfast machine. Let us keep the details for now as it is in a middle of the design stage.

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bobsweepmop · 7 years ago

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How I Built a RC Star Wars Tie Fighter

What do you do with two wheelchair motors, a welder, and a desire to learn robotics? You build a freakin’ Tie Fighter. At least, that’s what Allan Carver does. Allan is one of our loyal customers and is sharing with us some details about his latest project that went viral a couple of weeks ago.

A Work in Progress shot of the Tie Fighter in Allan’s workshop

Building an RC Tie Fighter and becoming an Internet sensation

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The response to the finished product continues to blow my mind. No sooner did I post the video below and interview requests started pouring in.Even Daily Planet from the Discovery Channel wanted to know more about it and why:

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How did you build it?

I try to upcycle whenever and wherever I can. So much of the materials are left over from other projects.

A Work in Progress shot of the Tie Fighter in Allan’s workshop

The frame is steel that required shaping and welding. The skin on the center pod is L200 foam, the wings have 2-inch thick rigid insulation that you can find at any building supply store, and the detail bits are my wife’s old yoga mats (which she discovered after they were glued in place).

How do you control it?

Now for the juicy robotic bits! I have never built an RC project from scratch, so I picked a robust transmitter and receiver. But the secret bit that made that whole project even possible was the Sabertooth 32 Amp Dual Motor Driver from Robotshop.com. It was just plug-n-play! The motor driver lets me turn on a dime even though this tank of a Tie Fighter is 6-feet wide.

The Tie Fighter ready to roll out

For the finishing touch, I loaded the Empire music and Tie Fighter sound effects onto a soundboard and pumped it through a 30-watt amplifier.

What’s next for you and your Tie Fighter?

Next up on the project list is an electric Batmobile go-kart, the 90s animated version… the cool looking one. Stay tuned!

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bobsweepmop · 7 years ago

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Have you met Sophia, the first robot to receive citizenship?

You may or may not have heard, but the world saw the first robot obtain citizenship last fall. Although this was a historic milestone in the history of robots, it hasn’t come without its lot of controversies (both about the citizenship and the praise for the robot). This left many a bit clueless about what to think or believe about Sophia. We’ll let you form your own opinion from our reporting below.

What’s the real deal about Sophia?

Who’s Sophia the robot?

Sophia is a humanoid robot developed by Hanson Robotics, a Hong-Kong based company. It was activated in 2015 and made its first public appearance in 2016 at South By Southwest (SXSW). Many AI companies were involved in its development including Alphabet (Google’s parent company) and SingularityNET. The former was in charge of her voice recognition system and the latter of powering its brain. It is known for its human resemblance and was modeled from Hollywood’s Golden Age actress Audrey Hepburn.

According to its manufacturer and creator, Sophia uses many layers of artificial intelligence (including visual data processing and facial recognition) and human mimics (gestures, facial expressions,…) to be able to sustain a conversation with humans. Thanks to SingularityNET’s software, it also can also benefit from machine learning, and learn from its interactions to improve over time. Its camera systems allow it to recognize individuals, follow faces, and sustain eye contact. It even beat Jimmy Fallon to a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors on national TV. In January 2018 it was upgraded with legs and the ability to walk. It has seven “siblings”, all created by Hanson Robotics, but it is the most advanced one.

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How did it get citizenship and what does it imply?

In October 2017, the robot was officially granted citizenship by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during a program at the Future Investment Initiative – a networking event between rich Saudis and inventors. It was a historic feat for the robot to be the first in the history to receive citizenship.

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The robot declared on this occasion that it was “very honored and proud for this unique distinction…It is historic to be the first robot in the world to be recognized with citizenship“. Later, it declared that it wanted to use its unique position to fight for women’s rights in the Gulf nation.

Following that citizenship announcement, Tokyo granted a chatbot official residence status in the Shibuya ward of the city. The European Parliament is also considering the possibility of declaring some robots “electronic persons”. This trend of personifying and anthropomorphizing robots is not baseless. One of the legal challenges of AI and robotics is to define the person responsible for the actions of an autonomous machine. By giving robots a legal status, whether it is citizenship or defining them as electronics persons, a solid step is being taken in the direction of recognizing the autonomous machines as responsible entities.

What are the controversies around Sophia?

Many controversies arose from this announcement. Many pointed out that the citizenship had been granted to a machine while it’s still not possible for foreign workers (about 33% of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s population) or children of Saudi women married to foreigners or non-muslims to obtain it. Even more infuriated people asked why the country would make a robot a citizen while denying women equal rights. Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, even told Newsweek “Women [in Saudi Arabia] have since committed suicide because they couldn’t leave the house, and Sophia is running around“. The consensus seems to be that this was nothing but a publicity stunt. One that damaged the public understanding of how AI works and what it implies, and created a legal void which could go as far as challenging the very notion of human rights itself.

The other main controversy around Sophia is about its actual capacities and intelligence. According to experts, Sophia should at best be classified as a chatbot with a face. Many experts in the AI field disapprove the hype surrounding the robot. For The Verge, Sophia’s capacity for consciousness is exaggerated by Hanson Robotics which “gross misleads” the public opinion. Last but not least, Yann LeCun (Facebook’s Director of Artificial Intelligence Research and Professor at Collège de France) tweeted in January 2018 :

This is to AI as prestidigitation is to real magic. Perhaps we should call this "Cargo Cult AI" or "Potemkin AI" or "Wizard-of-Oz AI". In other words, it's complete bullsh*t (pardon my French). Tech Insider: you are complicit in this scam. https://t.co/zhUE4V2PSR

— Yann LeCun (@ylecun) January 4, 2018

An overhyped portrait, while sounding harmless, could actually prove to be the base for terrible choices leading to ineffective and harmful policies. Needless to say that, despite its omnipresence in the news about robotics over the last 6 months (only challenged by Boston Dynamics videos), Sophia is a very controversial machine. While sensationalism might depict her as a humanoid on par with science fiction movies, we have to remain cautious about its real abilities and the political agenda carried by its citizenship.

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bobsweepmop · 7 years ago

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The Arduino Cookbook Review

Arduino is a 15 years old brand and I believe that nowadays everyone with minor interests in technology may be owning one of these microcontroller boards. But how many of you are actually using it or have ever made a useful project with it? Sometimes the Arduino is abandoned on a shelf or resting in a drawer because of a lack of inspiration and time, or missing information and education. There is a ton of documentation, sketch, and books available out there into the wild internet. As the magic thing of Arduino is that it’s an open source device. This means most of the information can be found online and everyone has access to the main code and is free to modify it. But if you want to push your knowledge a little bit further, I suggest you buy or rent a book.

I understand that it can be pretty hard to choose a book only by its cover. You may wonder “What this book has to offer more than another one?”, “Why should I pick this one rather than that one?”.

That’s why I decided to try this wonderful book: “Arduino Cookbook” and write a review of its general content. In the same time, I could figure out if the information it contains is rare or may easily be found on the Internet.

The beautiful cover of the book

First impressions

First of all, by a quick look at the cover, I could say that this book would please me. It features a bunny toy with some gears and abstract mechanic concept inside its belly. It is pretty obvious that this book is intended for inventors, “geeks”, and curious-minded persons. But what about beginners in electronics? Well, this is an Arduino related book, not an electronic book. And the authors are not trying to hide it. In the very first chapter, they let you know that there won’t be any explanation of basics electronic concepts. In my humble opinion, this is all right because if you really want to learn electronics, there are several other books for you. Keep in mind that if you are interested in this field, you should at least know what are a resistor and a capacitor, understand the functioning of a transistor, and know the basics of logic doors.

What are you going to learn?

If you’re new to the Arduino world, this book will teach you the basics: how to set your board, install the program, what language to use, and how to communicate with the processor. Once you’re done with the software and basics, you may proceed further in the book. This is where I figured out how much this book was aptly named. The ‘Arduino Cookbook’ features over 200 common tasks that can be accomplished with an Arduino board, some electronic parts, and simple coding. This book can simply be summarized as a bible for digital designers, engineers, and inventors. With all the recipes these pages contain, you will be able to create many wonderful projects and achieve any ideas you have. It goes from driving servo motors with the appropriate shield to storing data in permanent EEPROM, without forgetting LCD display, audio output, infrared commands, wireless communication, Ethernet, and networking functions (to only quote a few).

A great kit you may try with this book.

What’s in there really.

Here are some of the interesting learnings I’ve found in this book. Did you know that you could create a clock with the help of the Arduino board? The Arduino quartz crystal is good for timing and would lose only about a couple seconds per day. Through this, the sketch presented in this book is teaching you how to “set the time” function.

On a completely different section of this work, you will also find how to actually display information on an LCD. Somewhere else in an early chapter, you will learn how to drive a relay with the Arduino board. Near the end, you may use a portion of code to send a message through the internet.

You may say to yourself: “Wow. they just enumerated a bunch of random capabilities of the Arduino”. And you could say that, but you should envision a bigger portrait.

With the help of this book, I could create a home automation system that will trigger lights, music and temperature control on a schedule and send me states of my sensors in an e-mail message. Great, right? That way, I could keep tracking of what’s going on into my house and with a small text command, I could turn on the lights when my guests arrive!

Actually, this is only a tiny example of what you may learn and cook with this book. This is even a smaller fraction of what the Arduino board is capable of.

With the help of the Arduino Cookbook, I just felt like I needed more than ever an Arduino Mega to achieve bigger and bigger project. If you are a “geek hacker” in your mind, you will enjoy the section on “using a Wii Nunchuck accelerometer” and even more this chapter on “how to display text on a TV“!

Arduino Mega – Our suggestion

Finally, is it for you?

This book is intended to speed up your learning of the Arduino line of products. It will help you design, combine and create all the circuits and projects you’ve been dreaming of, but couldn’t figure out how to. To be honest, I didn’t know the Arduino was capable of that much before taking a deeper look at this book. When the only limit is your mind, don’t waste time on searching recipes on the net, use the Arduino Cookbook and start crafting your dream today!

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