Don’t know why, but this reminds me of the moon-landing. Something to do with frustration I think.
Fairly cool… “Avatar”, they call it – which is (heaven forfend) what it is. It’s a robot being controlled remotely via kinnect.
All the elements are in place, they’re just not terribly streamlined right now… but think on… imagine the possibilities of this process being very very streamlined… you wouldn’t have to be human for example. You wouldn’t have to be “there”. True, really, really big might be useful (in a slash and burn sort of way) but really, really small is probably where its headed. Personally I’m looking forward to back-yard safaris, where you get to fight spiders bigger than you are. Not that I’ve got anything against spiders mind. I’m just terrified of them.
Anyway, the cat seems compliant enough – probably quite heavily sedated etc… but the way its tail goes “flip, flip” generally means trouble. My cat wouldn’t put up with this. He’d go mental.
Looks like a thing that you can plug into pretty much any device that is controlled with IR (or a serial port), which allows you to control it with a computer or smartphone… which means it can be programmed. It also has movement and light sensors built in.
Unfortunately, it uses Java as a programming language, so it’s not going to catch on… well, not until someone writes an API layer onto it which allows it to understand languages that people actually use – probably JS, Python or PHP.
The first one is the learning round, the 2nd is the “learned” round. When it knows what to do. It goes like the clappers. I especially like the way it does a fancy little 1/2 spin when it’s finished.
I think these mouse-races are vaguely interesting – because they demonstrate something… that as usual, I can’t quite put my finger on… something to do with the difference between bits and atoms.
I’m drifting (or at least attempting to drift) from programming to micro-industry. From bits to atoms… and one of the things that is really striking is the shift in headspace required. With bits, once you learn something it’s done. “To Name Something Is To Have Done With It”. Once you learn something, you can abstract it away… “It Is Known” – which means you never have to think about it again.
Don’t work so well with atoms. You can nearly do it… with the CNC end of things – which is (in case you were wondering) to do with the purity and uniformity and “unnaturalness” of the materials that are used… but I’ve been making those golden mean calipers for 2.5 years now, and I’m still learning techniques etc. One of the revolutionary tectonic undercurrents of the current age is the drive to turn hardware problems into software problems. That is what CNC (in it’s myriad forms) does. Software is easier than hardware – in part because of the abstraction thing. Once something is learned, it is known, and can be given a name and “invoked” but never thought of again. Software has a bias towards single-iteration learning.
I think there might also be some relevance to AI – as in machine intelligence that learns as it goes – from feedback that it gets from somewhere. My new Niece is a type of AI… a couple of months old… and it’ll take years of full-time training to get her to work properly. There’s a slightly older model – a couple of years… which is a vast improvement on the new one, but which still has soooo many years before she becomes fully-functional, that it’s bewildering. It’s a process of massive multi-iteration learning. A huge programming job.
So anyway, that new mouse is learning how to do something that requires a single iteration. Normal reality is not so accommodating – and is so complicated and unreliable that it will probably take an AI to negotiate it… or a mix of hard-coding and AI (which is what we meat-bots tend to have). The the alternative is controlling then environment (the art of politics) – which is what lego is, and laser-cut perspex is and what this maze is and so on. Existing industrial robots.
Maybe that’s another huge tectonic undercurrent of the robotics revolution – creating systems with reduced needs for controlled environments. Until that becomes the norm, then the creation of controlled environments/inputs is probably going to be at least as big as the creation of the machines that will operate within them.
Ok – most of these aren’t really robots in the C3PO sense of the word… in fact one isn’t a robot at all – more of a draw-zorb… but they’re all kindof connected by… threads.
… which is also from Holland… in fact there are people who say that Laurens Janszoom Coster invented the printing press, rather than Gutenberg… so… you know… fair enough.
A significant, space-race like milestone will have been reached when a Lego CNC machine capable of printing its own blocks is created. It’ll happen, I guarantee it.
Mind you, what gets called “robot” these days is getting broader and broader. The only reason a washing-machine isn’t called “robot” is that it was born too early.
I think he’s alright Marilyn actually. Not really into his music, but whenever he opens his mouth to say anything, he’s usually pretty sharp. Bit of a thinker.
The thing about high-tech weapons, is that once you get the vitamin parts out of the way, they’re not actually that high-tech.
Weaponry
DIY drones showing up in real combat scenarios is absolutely inevitable… and (as is always the case) it’s an economic battle as much as anything. It’s only a matter of time before a DIY drones start destroying “Official” drones – Predators and the like. You cannot deploy new weapons without creating an arms-race. People catch on fast.
Ok, this is a scattered collection of stuff kindof loosely involved with… DIY.
There’s a point to all this somewhere, but I don’t know what it is… so I guess it’s just a snapshot of various things I’ve tangled with recently.
1) Ironbuds.
I used to spend about $20 on earphones a month because they’re made out of the flimsiest shit in the world… then I tried the $50 because I thought they might be stronger… they weren’t but sounded so much better than my monthly earphone bill is now $50.
Why? Because the manufacturers operate as a cartel, not competing on robustness… inbuilt obsolescence. Now, we all know how these things should be designed – they should be modular so if one bit breaks, you only replace one bit, not the whole thing. But they don’t do it… because they’re about leaching maximum $ while providing minimum value, because that’s what corporations do.
Enter Kickstarter… and Ironbuds. Stupid “splash” photo, great, necessary and cartel-busting idea. Investing in this costs less than buying a new set of earbuds. Bargain.
I’m starting to use kickstarter technology as a bit of a shopping-outlet… because I really like the idea of product design optimised for people actually using the product… rather than optimised for extracting money.
And it’s got a Sarrus Linkage for the up/down bit… which is cool. Looks a bit like the terrible stuff they sell in $2 shops, but the vitamin parts are slowly dwindling. Incremental (decremental) innovation… but I’m a quantum kind of guy. As I keep saying, I’m still looking for real-time-sensory calibration… and something that looks a bit like this…
Little desk-top 6-axis robot, that is controlled using grown-up robot software. Needs to be a bit more robust and non-wobbly than this version, but I think this is what CNC/repraps should look like.
4) There are a couple of DIY CNC devices on Kickstarter actually…
MY DIY CNC : Little machine that costs about $600… holds a dremel, does CNC with it. Can also hold a laser… there’s a video with it using a little 1kw one… etching only. I don’t need etching, I need something that will cut steel.
Cool though… getting there.
Another variant, also on kickstarter, also massively successful in terms of funding.
5) I’ve started playing with online shops and the one I wound up with is this:
Has the easiest to use CAD software I’ve ever seen – which isn’t saying much, because they are ALL incredibly hard to use. I’ve started playing with Autodesk 123D – which is a free-download thing… which looks reasonably comprehensive (and by that I mean 1.5GB)… but like all CAD software, is really hard and unintuitive to use. You’ll spend hours just trying to select faces or objects. You want to copy and paste an object? It’ll take an hour, and in the end you’ll give up. We know how graphics software is supposed to work… it’s like photoshop or gimp or fireworks… CAD software is just wrong.
Anyway, eMachineShop is the easiest I’ve seen…. and it checks the integrity for you… you can choose the materials, and the finish… the process, and it will give you a quote directly from the download. This is the future. Make a design, choose your materials… get a quote and off it goes. What Ponoko does I guess… but a lot more comprehensive in terms of different manufacturing techniques.
And if you want to make a thumb-tack, it’ll cost you over a hundred dollars a go.
Fuck me this shit is expensive…
I tried that TinkerCad – online, in-a-browser software the other day…
… which is CAD software that has been so cut-down that getting anything done becomes a baffling intellectual exercise. After about 4 hours, I managed to make this
10 cm wide – costs about $50 on Shapeways… I guess because it’s solid… I thought that was extortionate. $50 for a piece of plastic with some holes drilled in it? I need it to be solid. I found this other 3d-print-on-demand place in Aus… and they were charging $200.
I don’t know… maybe I’m new here, but everything here seems to cost a LOT more than it should.
I think the 3D DIY design->execution thing has quite a long way to go. This stuff is still too expensive to experiment with… well, for me anyway. I guess people are doing it – but it’s not like lego where people can really play without it costing $50-$100 every time they want to try something.
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I’m not sure about “The Maker Movement” actually… I have a feeling that it isn’t really to do with hardware at all… but is actually about blogging… and the fact that people need something to write about, and “people actually doing something” is more interesting that people who don’t… and the idea that “I could to that too” is inherently interesting to people.
I kindof think that that is what it might be about, rather than something that’s addressing any particular need. It’s still about “meta”. Information. Memetics.
What’s interesting about this is that it’s controlled with… a graphics program. Blender.
Blender uses python as a scripting language, and python is able to escape from the box so to speak.
If I’ve got this right, blender can produce 3D output for CNC machines… and if it can control the robot as well, then theoretically, you could do the whole thing, from design to physical execution, within blender. All you need for CNC software is a blender plugin.
