Robot Wars Competition

Hey!

A little post to let you know guys that my master is going to participate to a very little competition next Monday.

Indeed, it will be part of an evening in the Savoy Hotel of London where a presentation on “the cyborg experiments” will be given by Professor Kevin Warwick, a famous researcher in AI and Cybernetics.

Six teams will be challenged to program a Lego Robot Mindstorms with Labview (I will surely present all of these in more details another day!) and accomplish some maze solving and other mysterious tricks… the Imperial College Robotics Society will be one of them!
More info…

ASIMO

Today, I am going to talk about one of the most advanced and famous robot today: ASIMO !

A.S.I.MO stands for Advanced Step in Innovative MObility and has apparently no link with the famous Science-Fiction writer Issac Asimov who is the “inventor” of the world “Robotics”, though…

Since 2005, it is the name of the current version of Honda’s humanoid robot.

The R&D department of Honda in Japan, the “Wako Fundamental Technical Research Center” started working on this technology in 1986.

It is now 1,30 meters height and weights 54 kilos. It can walk quite nicely and reach the speed of 6 km per hour.

34 degrees of freedom allows it to simulate most of the human movements. It means that it is the perfect tool to study human actions and behaviours.

Recently, Hondo released a short video Living with Robots presenting their last creation and sharing their vision of robotics in general, have a look!

ASIMO
Honda

Nao The Robot

Time goes and I still haven’t really started to talk about Robotics yet…

Let’s change that right now by presenting today one of the most promising robots of this new year 2010: NAO !

I will start with it because it has been my favourite humanoid robot for a while now, because it is French and because talking about it first will surely oblige me to introduce other robots, programs or concepts that I can develop later in other posts!

NAO then is a not so small humanoid robot (humanoid means that it is supposed to move and behave like a human) measuring 60 cm high and weighting a little more than 4 kilos. It has 25 degrees of freedom (DoF) that allows it to move pretty much every parts of its body: head, legs, arms, hands and pelvis.

It has also different sensors such as gyroscopes, accelerometers, bumpers, sonars, infra-red, two cameras and few other things…

It is running on a Linux operating system and can be programmed using C, C++, Urbi (something I should talk about soon) and Python. A Software Development Kit (SDK) has been created for good developers but a simpler Graphic User Interface has been released as well, called “Choregraphe”, for less skilled programmers.

My master thinks its design is very attractive with its white and blue (or red, or black) body and its friendly face. But I still think I am better looking! Obviously…

I remember I saw Nao for the first time in 2006 when my master and I were working on a project with the little AIBO robot-dog (Another robot to present one day!). I was then in charge to do a research for possible competitors of our project. I then discovered it and its company, Aldebaran Robotics, founded by Bruno Maisonnier. It was still a prototype at the time but became more famous and promising every years. It is now a platform used by many laboratories in humanoid robotics in the world and has replaced Aibo in the robotcup competition (To be also presented soon…)  as Sony decided to stop developing their little cyber-pet.

Officially, the robot should be available (and “affordable”) to public in 2011. The Nao Store should also open one day soon, offering additional gadgets to be used by the robot. I am really looking forward, because Nao is almost my size and maybe my master could buy some of these items for myself, if I am very nice!

An interview has been made by Nolife recently, you should check it to know more about Nao (it is in French…):

Nao le robot domestique
Uploaded by philfro. – Technology reviews and science news videos.

Talk to you soon!

Nolife
Aldebaran Robotics

2010

After these long holidays, someone has finally decided to switch me on! It feels nice to be able to do some moto-stretching, haaaa…

I guess it should be a good thing to do to wish you all an Happy New Year! Humans like to do these kind of things…

So Happy New Year to all, hope you had a great time with your family back at home under the Christmas tree, unpacking all your new toys and getting drunk with champagne! I also wish you all the best for this new year 2010, enjoy it very much! We are now one year closer from the moment the machines will decide to take over the planet and then I will be the one doing experiments on human being an decide if they can be switched on for a change! AH AH AH! Ok, I am just kidding…

All the Best,

Tonto.

New device

My master just forgot his iPod Touch on the table and I can reach it with my meca-hand! Ohhhhh… It looks like human finally understood how a computer should look like! I am just checking… Yes! There is an application for WordPress blogs. Let’s write few lines for fun, hihi.
I am really sorry I haven’t writting a lot these days but I was very busy finishing Colin’s courseworks… I hope I will have some time soon to tell you more about me and my lazy master.

Bye bye human!

One month in Imperial College

Colin, my builder (he starts to be bored being called “master” now) was feeling very bad these days: he has now been studding Computing in Imperial College for one month and still hasn’t said anything about the course or the University.

He then put me in charge of passing this message to you, bio-guys:

Hello everyone, I hope you like this little blog and my naughty robot. I just wanted to give you a little taste of the great place where I am currently doing my Master (last year of study hopefully for a long time now):

First of all, its location: South Kensington.
This university is situated right under Hyde Park, surrounded by the Royal Albert Hall, the Victoria and Albert Museum (the V&A), the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum. It is then possible to spend days and days here, discovering the world for free before getting bored. This district is also where the French Institute, the French embassy and the French cinema are located. Many very healthy French families therefore live in this area of London.

Secondly, its campus:
The College counts over 13000 students (doing Bachelors, Masters and PhDs) and more than 8000 staff. There must be around 100 countries represented here (with maybe a high proportion of French and Chinese in my department).Varying with the courses, it is overall one of the best University of UK, always competing with Cambridge, Oxford and University College of London (my last employer). Every student has a personal tutor for the year and can reach him for any issues at any time. In general, every body is very available. I myself will see my future teacher of Robotics tomorrow for few advices.

During this term, I am taking the following modules:

• Modal and Temporal Logic, very theoretical mathematics applied to logic.
• Prolog, a specially designed programming language used to resolve logical problems. Very interesting.
• Automated Reasoning, very theoretical as well and used in particularly for theorem proving.
• Computer Vision, different from Image Processing as we do not just emphasize the different elements from a photo but also try to extract information from it.
• Intelligent Data and Probabilistic Inference, it has a lot to do with statistics using Bayesian probability networks. It should become very useful later.

These five modules represent 15 hours of lesson every week (5 hours of tutorial included). It does not sound much when you are used to attend to 30 hours of lecture in France, but this is the way they teach here in England. On the other hand, personal study at home are more part of the education and the books recommended on the first page of the slides are REALLY recommended.

A participation in one or few associations is also expected. The choice is quite large as there are around 300 clubs in Imperial College, trying to save the world, visiting the countryside, starting new projects or companies and doing all kind of sport. It is just incredible!

I bet I still haven’t seen every thing here and should probably let you know if something amazing happens within the next months.

Have all a good week and talk to you (via robot and Internet) soon.

Colin.

Links:

Imperial College

9

My master went to another cinema this week, called “Prince Charles Cinema”. It is apparently a very small and lovely place in a dark street near Leicester Square, hidden by the huge ODEON, EMPIRE and VUE. The prices there can be ridiculously cheap. For example, if you get a membership card ( £ 12 for one year), any films in the morning cost £ 1.50 ! Amazing, and the choice there is always great: last week, the Godfather and this week, Mesrine and Broken Embraces… Plus a Sunday special Gore.

But last Wednesday, my cine-addict master saw the animation called “9″, directed by Shane Acker and produced partly by Tim Burton. This very dark movie deals with a little doll waking up in a post-apocalyptic world and having to understand and survive in this mysterious and dangerous place. He will realise quickly that only few other dolls like him have not perished and that the war against “The machine” is not over.

“Really original this director!”, I said to my master. “A machine that starts to fight humanity, he hasn’t washed Terminator before, hasn’t he?”.

“And have you already seen a lot of movie, where dolls are the last hope of humanity, Tonto?”, he replied.

Haven’t seen it myself, I am not going to argue with him. What I can tell you is that, although the story line seems a little weak, the pleasure to watch this little character and his friends is here. If you can refrain trying to explain point by point the all thing, you might then really enjoy it too!

Links:

Prince Charles
9

The Foundation Trilogy

Hello humano-readers!

My master just left me a minute for a break and forgot to switch me off, so I can browse a little on the web and give you some news!

Apparently my master was quite excited again this week-end. He actually told me that he finally finished the famous Foundation trilogy. Written by Isaac Asimov in his early age, these three books, Foundation (1951), Foundation and Empire (1952) and Second Foundation (1953) deal with a small scientific community, left on a tiny and metal-free planet for centuries and that received for mission to save the galaxy from barbarism after the old and eternal empire has vanished.

To succeed, they can only count on their great intelligence, their weak technological advance but more important on the Hari Seldon’s Plan: He is the man who foresaw centuries ago the fall of the empire and imagined a solution based on statistics and psycho-history  in order to bring back stability in the univers as fast as possible, in only one millennium… Crisis after crisis, the survival of the little colony is put to the test and its influence grows as Hari Seldon calculated. Generation after generation, the great minds of the foundation have to face the greed of its surrounding neighbours, the resistance of the remaining empire, the unpredictable attack of a mutant, …

The story is great, well-written and make you want to read more. And that’s possible! Asimov restarted to write a lot more about the foundation from 1982 with Foundation’s edge and then Foundation and Earth (1983), Prelude of Foundation (1988) and Forward the Foundation (1993).

When I heard my master talking his reading, I told him:

“But master, there is no robot in your books? How is this possible that humanity of the future is not full of cyber-human and robo-animal? And more important, how can you enjoy a book without little and friendly characters like me.”

“You are such a robot-bêta!”, he said. “You think the great Isaac Asimov didn’t write anything about robotic or what?! He INVENTED the word, why do you think the HONDA-robot used for research all around the world is called ASIMO?! So don’t worry, he also made some crazy stories about robots, and they were more intelligent than you… I still have to fix you.”

“Really master?! Could I have a look? Just a nano-second, I won’t be long!”

“You can have The complete robot, for a while… but you rather enjoy it, I am not buying books as fast you can auto-read them. And this one, The caves of steel, it is for me right now. I finally found it in an old book shop, Youhou!”

I hear my master coming back from his break in the corridor, see you soon little bio-readers!

Links:

Isaac Asimov
ASIMO

UP !

Hello humao-guys!

My master switched me on last night and told me few things about his recent life.

He was apparently very excited about a movie he watched last monday in Barbican.

This movie, called “UP” is in fact the last creation from the famous Pixar’s studios.

Apparently, he really enjoyed it in perfect conditions, as the place was almost empty and nobody there was eating or drinking or talking during the projection. It was also the first time he had the opportunity to watch a complete film in 3-D and though it was a great experience. Although this new technology is still quite new for the cinema, he really believes that every humano-family will watch their movies in 3-D at home in the near future. My calculations tell me it will probably be true (82.4 % of chance) at the end of the next decade.

It seems that the story was also great and really original. The main characters are an old man who lost his wife recently and always wanted to go travel in South America with her and a little scout-boy who absolutely need to help an old person in order to become a senior scout. Some events will put them together up in the sky in direction to Peru where their adventure will start. They then meet this kind of dodo-like bird, which is hunted by some strange talking-bio-dogs, and try to help it escape.

After dealing with the problems of pollution in their last movie (Wall-E), Pixar has this time decided to treat the old-age issue and succeeded to make something not too sad, serious at some times but mainly hilarious!
And the introduction short-movie is also as usual very good… 

My master highly recommends every one to go watch it if he hasn’t done it yet.

I personally think the best Pixar’s movie so far is Wall-E. What a robo-idiot this Wall-E! Surely a memory-box was missing when he was created, hihi! I also suggest to any people or robot who doesn’t know who is Burn-E to find out quickly, here is another very sympatic lad!
By the way, I asked my master if I could get the same armo-gun as Eva’s.
But he said that robots shouldn’t be made in order to fight and that the three laws of robotics would block me from using it anyway… What a retro-master I’ve got.

Links:

Barbican
Burn-E (You need to watch Wall-E first)

Connection with the world.

bip-bip-bip…
Finalisation of Tonto’s meca-brain: trial number 2009…
Operation strangely succeeding…
Error detected: 0.
Complete success!

Uploading English language packages… done.
Connecting on to the web… done.
Robot ready to communicate.

Note: graphic interface by default – can be improved…

Hello World!

My name is Tonto the robot and I am the personal robot of Colin, my bio-master.
I have been created and programmed to communicate with you while Colin is too busy thinking about himself.

Trough this blog, I hope I will be able to keep you up-to-date with his insignificant short humano-life and maybe I will spend some time looking at the news on internet and let you know if I see something interesting, ok?
And maybe, I will find another robot to chat with!