Uploaded on Jul 5, 2008
This is a quick video of one of the sessions I recently ran. These kids had no robotics experience to start with, and finished up with this routine after just 2.5 hours.
"Visually the Circle Wave is really cool, but basically it’s all about timing and coordination. Every single move is forward 2 seconds at power 100, then back – right up until the spin and note playing at the end. In between it’s all timing. All my class robots are numbered. We first did all robots in and out, odds in, evens in, main compass points in, secondary points, and then the rest (15 robots in all didn’t break down neatly in imaginary clock or compass points). Then in and out one at a time and finally each spin while playing a note. The robots were set up sequentially around the circle and the students used algebraic formulas to figure out their programming code, with X being equal to the number of their robot. For example, wait 5 seconds – X, then move forward 2 seconds."
"Plenty of robots can fly — but none can fly like a real bird. That is, until Markus Fischer and his team at Festo built SmartBird, a large, lightweight robot, modeled on a seagull, that flies by flapping its wings. A soaring demo fresh from TEDGlobal 2011. "
Play against I.B.M.'s question-answering supercomputer.
"Scientists already have the ability to create a robot that looks like a human and learns in the same way. Mr Korb says the goal of producing a human-like intelligence is "very far away". He says different sorts of artificial intelligence are used to help control automobiles and military weaponry, and this will continue to grow."
"The daily grinding of evolution, as accelerated by technology, churns out more and more complex organisms, with higher rates of energy use, and with increasing specialization. Minds are the ideal way to express complexity, energy density, increasing specialization, expanding diversity -- all in one system. Mindedness is what evolution produces. Mindedness is what technology wants, too."
As part of his four-nation Asia tour, President Obama has visited students at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo where he was welcomed by a humanoid robot. Honda's Asimo robot demonstrated its running and football skills, fielding a powerful kick and then celebrating by hopping on one leg. The president appeared bemused and later told the students he had found it slightly unnerving.
Kinetic sculptor and artist Theo Jansen builds 'strandbeests' from yellow plastic tubing. The graceful creatures evolve over time as Theo adapts their designs to haness the wind more efficiently. They are powered only by the wind and even store some of the wind's energy in plastic bottle 'stomachs' to be used when there is no wind.
"University of Pennsylvania's flying robot quadrotors perform the James Bond Theme by playing various instruments. These flying quadrotors are completely autonomous, meaning humans are not controlling them; rather they are controlled byt a computer programed with instructions to play the instruments."
"An Australian teenager's simple idea that would allow a complete quadriplegic to control a wheelchair by voice has earned her international recognition and a top science award for school students, handed out by Commonwealth science agency CSIRO."
"Are we nearing the singularity, the point where philosophers say the computer programs we create will be smarter than us? Artificial intelligence is all around us. In phones, in cars, in our homes. Voice recognition systems, predicative algorithms, GPS. Sometimes they may not work very well, but they are improving all the time, you might even say they are learning. Come on an entertaining journey through the ethics of artificial intelligence or AI, the science behind intelligent computer programs and robotics. Some software engineers think about the philosophy of the artificial intelligence they are creating, others really don't care."