I can’t quite believe that someone’s used a Lego-Mindstorms brain to do OCR
from From Sweden apparently… but who? Who in Sweden? Who in Sweden would do such a thing?
I mean it’s basically cheating isn’t it. First the Pirate Bay, and now they cheat at Sudoku. Incredible. I think I might move there actually.
This leading to that…
A lego-bot painting the Mona Lisa… and it only takes 1.31 minutes. It took Leonardo (arguably the smartest human ever) several years to do the same thing. I think that says something.
That aside… I’d be quite interested to see what happens when iPhones (or the open-source variant thereof) manages to hook into some sort of modular constructor-kit type set up. I did originally think laser-cutting might be the way to go, but laser-cutting is the most expensive way of producing identical, replicated pieces… and part of the point of identical, replicated pieces is that you actually get to play with the actual physical things with your actual fingers and thumbs etc…
… and this counts for a lot. I’m doing a lot with laser cutting at the moment… and even though it looks like a simple design->execution, it’s not. What it actually is, is design->prototype->mess-about-with-fingers/thumbs->second-design->second-prototype
and it generally takes around 3 generations to get anything right… and the possibilities don’t generally spring to mind until your fingers and thumbs get involved. Thinkism is not enough.
I’ve been seeing these around for a while now… uber-fast inverted pyramid robots… Delta Robots.
as commented upon by hacked gadgets, who have found a home-made variant:
Which is pretty cool – there seem to be a few of these on youtube etc… and it looks like servos are producing some pretty fast reaction-times. I wonder how strong they are.
Anyway – I saw this short by Neill Blomkamp, the guy who directed District 9… and it looks like Bladerunner maybe… escaped androids…
And it kindof occurred to me, when I saw them doing kung-fu… why would they want to? I think by the time we’ve managed to make robots that can pass as humans, they’ll be so much better at doing everything that humans can do that it will be kindof moot.
I keep getting these little corner-of-my-eye prophetic glimpses of an ecosystem of robotic innovation that’s totally out of control.
The point we’re at now is similar to how it may have been back in the early days of computing – where it was actually possible for someone to have a pretty good overview of the whole field of programming – not just of the few languages there were, but of the actual people doing the work… and maybe the programs. I think that that is the point we’re at (or slightly past it) with robotics at the moment.
But look at programming now. It’s exploded. It is literally out of control – there are thousands of different programming languages (each with different variants, and generations), and the ecosystem of programs has spawned botnets and viruses and self-generating, code… genetic algorithms, and a million different programs, all humming away.
If you’re using a PC, hit CTRL-ALT-DELETE and click on the ‘processes’ tab.
Those are all the little (or big) programs running on your machine right now – I’m betting you only know what a tiny fraction of them are.
So anyway, I have a feeling that robotics might go this way – and this human-fixation is vanity. A total red-herring. The least useful thing that we can do with the technology.
We’re en-route to making something that is much bigger than us, and has capabilities way beyond ours, and the thing that interests us most, is being able to see ourselves reflected in it’s shiny surface.
I went on about these Japanese robot gladiators a while back. They’ve come a long way I think… I mean not even Daleks can stand up again once they’ve fallen over.
I quite like the idea of this for some reason – I quite like the idea of robots having the same aesthetic values and attention to detail as antique furniture – a Louis XV Reprap for example.
I think maybe we just haven’t learned to walk yet.
We now have these things like laser-cutters, 3D printers (well, almost) and a rapidly advancing miscellany of tech wizardry, but we’ve been watching television for the last 40 years, and even if we hadn’t been – materials and techniques have their own traits that you don’t find out about until you play with the stuff. Materials have their own languages – and laser-cutting in a way, creates new types of materials. Acrylic that you cut with a laser is qualitatively different from acrylic you cut with a saw.
Although I like all of these things as well – I mainly like this thing because it details a quick easy way of making hinges using a carboard-plastic lasercut composite.
A new piece of DIY grammar in other words – a new little building block that other people can use elsewhere. I used to be paranoid about accidentally being transported back in time to the 13th century, and not being any… use… because although I’ve spent my life surrounded by all this technology, I don’t know how to make any of it. Well I think we’re moving into an era where we (kindof) know how to make things again. I have a feeling we may be moving into a state where we can do things for ourselves – because it takes less time to supply our own needs than it does to work in the old-economy, and our quality of life is better. Arduinos and Gardening.
We’re still not there yet with robotic micro-muscles… but hinges? That’s a little step forward I think. One tiny step for Man, one mighty leap for Antbotkind.
It’s still simple, but it’s more clever and complex than the bulk of the other laser-cut stuff, which is primarily ( to these jaundiced eyes) about making trendy shapes. I think there are more building blocks to come – that thing with the flying penguins for example, was an example of a set of simple techniques that could be applied elsewhere.
I think there are whole new languages that we need to learn for mass-fabrication to get underway. And when it does, it won’t be about making things we already have, it will be about making things we haven’t actually thought of yet… because we don’t learn the grammar until we play with the stuff.
Yea, nice one. It’s endearing the first time. Bless etc. Restores your faith in human nature dunnit. But the sixth time? The twentieth?
Eventually people are going to deliberately send these things over cliffs or under buses. Get them into fights with each other. Get into fights with them themselves. I know I would if they kept hassling me. Hasslebots, that’s what they are. Potentially. Drive you up the wall.
“From the producers that brought you MYTHBUSTERS comes an explosive new series, WEAPONIZERS (3 x 60 min) premiering on Discovery Channel US, May 11, 2009 at 9pm.
This new program combines creativity, military-like strategy and engineering as two teams of master builders — dubbed “Weaponizers” — turn ordinary vehicles into remote-controlled machines of destruction. With the pace and intensity of a video game, the vehicles are completed with live-ammunition machine guns and other seemingly ordinary objects that are transformed into powerful weapons. Building on the teams’ expertise — hot rod restoration, pyrotechnics, special effects, crash engineering and military weaponry — the opponents harness their ingenuity in a competition face off where the goal is to achieve victory by creating an indestructible vehicle.
In each episode, the teams convert regular rides such as a shuttle bus, an ice cream van and muscle cars into vicious vehicles. Using science, special effects, engineering, metal fabrication and a bit of fantasy, they construct and test their vehicles to ensure that they pack the biggest punch and are fully remote-controlled. Once all testing is complete, each team descends into respective underground control bunkers to command their vehicles for the two-round competition.
In round one, the teams undertake a challenge-based phase where the vehicles race to destroy or defend exploding targets such as medieval castles or Mad Max style fuel depots. Then in round two, the “Weaponizers” are thrown into a Carmageddon Round — the rules are… there are no rules. It’s a gloves off test of what expertise these teams can draw on to achieve victory, which in WEAPONIZERS’ terms means there is only one vehicle left standing!”
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The blurring of the line between toys and weapons continues apace, and I think it’s a public service in some ways – saving the lives of would-be suicide-bombers by teaching them how to make cars remotely controllable and as strong as hell.
It had to happen though – sooner or later there had to be a “no rules” version of robot-wars.
This one is coming from opposite directions – and is probably indicative of a wider pattern.
From one end we have high-tech solving problems we don’t actually have, but which looks cool and will probably lead on to the solution of problems we do have…
And from the other hand we have open-sourced low-tech solving problems we DO have, the technologies for which have been around for decades, but have been made unavailable to the people that need them the most – because under the aegis of “The Market”, poor people don’t matter.
Maybe one day these two will meet in the middle. I think they will – In fact I think the killer apps of the 21st century will be exactly that – high-tech that has become cheap and ubiquitous, combined with open-source ethics, solving real problems – as opposed to eye-candy for geeks.
So. That said, this is pretty cool:
Kindof like a giant reprap that grows plants. This pattern of a 2-axis thing hovering over a 3 dimensional space that it lowers in and out of to “do stuff”. This one is cool because it has multiple tools – and multiple tools is a key part of the evolution of reprappery. In fact really, there should be a standard 3D platform like this with tool “plugins” that can be developed by other people – not necessarily wanting to build an entire system from scratch. A bit like WordPress or Firefox – or any other plugin platform.
There’s more at Lady Ada’s site – Lady Ada being a tower of strength in the open-source hardware world. Top blog as well. Her site has a lot more photos and links and whatnot.
I don’t know if this answers a specific need though – maybe if you want to buy out at the bottom and can’t be arsed gardening… but there’s a lot of people out there who like gardening. I live on a hill covered in old people, and they seem to like gardening a lot – what they need is a way to do it without having to bend over all the time, not some robot to make them redundant.
I get a feeling a better solution to the problem that robot gardeners are ostensibly fixing, is some sort of social reorganisation so that people who like doing this stuff are valued a little more than they currently are. Do we need robots or do we need jobs? Who are “we” anyway?
Coming from the other direction is a new plugin for the Open-Source Tractor Project that allows two people to plant 200 hazelnut bushes in an hour. A post-hole driller. Ever tried doing this by hand? Ever tried using a petrol-powered hand-held driller? This is a massive, massive back-saver.
A low-tech solution to an actual problem. This tractor costs around 5,000 – about 1/10th of the price of a new proprietary tractor – and it may look clunky, but it’s rock solid. It’s lean and mean design rather than feature-rich bloatware. Again It could well turn into a plugin platform – but then I think everything should be a plugin platform.
I mean, really I am a plugin platform… but nothing plugs in at the moment, so all these enhancements like clothes or laptops or cameras or phones or knives or chainsaws with flame-throwers attached are all separate entities – there’s no direct brain-to-device interface… but there will be, oh yes, there will be.
All solar powered, some light-seeking etc. I think these things have a potential that hasn’t quite found itself yet – though probably more as an appropriate-tech thing – given that the price of microprocessors is going through the floor.
I quite like the way the components become part of the design – there’s an honesty in allowing the materials to shine through.
Mind you, there’s a lot to be said for going off on a mad tangent as well…
An autonomous paintball robot that can track multiple targets and shoot down toy helicopters.
Hot on the heels of the news that The US military is planning on becoming 30% robotic in the next 12 years… and really, we’re already there. We’re already there, and we haven’t started yet : apparently, 11/20 of the senior AQ people killed by the US were killed by predator drones.
I’d throw a couple of things into the brew I think… One is that the idea that an armed population is a defence against its own government doesn’t (with me at least) hold a lot of water for three reasons :
1) The state so massively out-guns any local population that it can simply flatten any dissent. It’s bows and arrows against tanks. The fact that they might outsource their casualties to robots may be the difference between 1 and 0 (which is a profound difference)… but the kill ratio in wars involving US-axis forces is so unbalanced as things currently stand that the point may be somewhere in the region of moot anyway. The spirit of the 2nd Amendment was lost a long time ago.
2) Tyrannies more often than not have a thug-caste operating in their shadow… ever met a gun nut who wasn’t extremely right-wing? The gun nuts I’ve talked to have all been pathologically in favour of fascism. They’re absolutely on the side of unfettered authority, and hate dissenters/protesters and gush openly about wanting to kill them.
3) At what point in the slide into tyranny do you start shooting? Who do you shoot? Tyranny itself is complicated.
The other thing I’d add to the brew is the Toy / Weapon thing.
People don’t like killing each other. Human fighting in it’s natural state is often an exercise in chest-beating. Unless soldiers are specifically trained to kill reflexively, a lot of them will shoot over their enemy’s heads. This is why the kill/fire ratio in the Falklands War was massively higher in British soldier than Argentines… I don’t have a web-cite for this. There was a BBC documentary on it a couple of years ago. Another interesting bit of history was that in the American War of Independence, after the battle, muskets were found , packed with shot. The soldiers would load, not fire, load again, not fire etc etc… rather than shoot another human being.
Killing robots on the other hand looks like it might be fun. I think people will do it for fun… they’re already building the things and having robot-fighting competitions for fun… I’m not sure if I’d necessarily want to go up against one of the beasties pictured above unless I absolutely had to… but I’d have absolutely zero hesitation in killing one, whereas with a human, I’m not so sure…
… and according to P.J Singer in the talk above, people fighting through robots from a safe distance appear to be suffering more post-traumatic-stress-disorder than soldiers on the ground. Why that would be I don’t know… but there’s more to this than meets the eye I think.
There is this… pressure, for war to be a sport. A type of entertainment. The lines are blurring.
I’m not sure that I’d assume that a massively funded military industrial complex is necessarily going to have a monopoly on this stuff either… there are already DIY UAV sites on the web – you can buy the guidance systems for less than $100.
I think the idea that robotic weapons turn their own civilians into targets is spot-on… when it stops being a game. People will always find a way to fight back.
