The Future of Robotics is Self-Assembling

The global success of  apps for smartphones has cross-fertilized many Cyber-Physical System (CPS) ideas and concepts including Internet of Things, Internet for Robots and Ambient Intelligence. The next big hype might be apps for self-configuring modular robots - iMoBots. It could work like this: connect to a robot app store, download an app to a modular robot swarm and watch how the robot modules configure into the object of your choice i.e. a watch dog, a music box or a chair. In the future we might only need a "Buck of Stuff" with small, low-cost robot modules, that can connect to each other in a variety of shapes according to design needs and design instructions downloaded from the Internet.

Credit: Modular Robotics

The first commercially availabe robot modules are called Cubelets, developed by Modular Robotics, a  spin-off from Carnegie Mellon University Computational Design lab.
Cubelets are smart modular cube robots that can be snapped together to make an endless variety of robots with no programming and no wires. The cubelets standard kit comes with 20 magnetic blocks in a variety of sensor, logic and actuator blocks, allowing to create simple reconfigurable cube robots that can drive around on a tabletop, respond to light, sound, and temperature, and have surprisingly lifelike behaviors. The Standard Cubelet pack with 20 cubes is available for $300 direct from Modular Robotics. The basic kit includes 20 Cubelets: Action Blocks: 2 Drive, 1 Rotate, 1 Speaker, 1 Flashlight, 1 Bar Graph, Sense Blocks: 1 Knob, 1 Brightness, 2 Distance, 1 Temperature, Think/Utility Blocks: 2 Inverse, 1 Minimum, 1 Maximum, 1 Battery, 2 Passive, 2 Blocker.
iMobot
The iMobot is a reconfigurable modular robot, developed at the Integration Engineering Lab, at University of California by Prof. Harry H. Cheng, has four controllable degrees of freedom. iMobot is designed for search and rescue operations as well as research and teaching.  iMobot has versatile locomotion including a unique feature of driving as though with wheels and lifting itself into a camera platform.


Credit: UCLA/IE Lab
Roombots
Researchers at the Biorobotics Lab, EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, are featuring the modular robotics platform Roombots designed to self-assemble into changing, active every-day environment elements, e.g. pieces of furniture. As they have multi-purpose features they can be used to assemble legged robots, like quadruped robots. Modular robot furniture can assemble itself, can change shape over time, move using actuated joints to different locations depending on the users needs. See: IKEA's nightmare

Construction with Quadrotor Teams
The last example is from the the GRASP Lab, University of Pennsylvania, where a team of quadrotors autonomously build tower-like cubic structures from laid out modular parts.

Credit: GRASP Lab

Chiara Robot Plays Chess

For his MS thesis research, Jonathan Coens programmed a Chiara robot to play chess on a real chessboard. The robot competed in the AAAI-10 Small Scale Manipulation Challenge, July 13-14, 2010 in Atlanta.
The Chiara is a new, open source educational robot, developed at Carnegie Mellon University'sTekkotsu lab, that will be manufactured and sold by RoPro Design, Inc.

New CMU Robotic Systems Development Master´s Program

Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute is offering a new master's degree program in robotic systems development that will provide beginning and early-entry practicing professionals with the multidisciplinary skills and know-how needed to succeed in industry. Graduates of this program will be capable of operating at a higher technical/managerial level within a company, making them extremely desirable job candidates.
Hagen Schempf, a principal systems scientist in the Robotics Institute, is director of the new master's degree program. According to Schempf the master's degree in robotic systems development (MRSD) will be useful for anyone who seeks to be a high-tech manager, regardless of whether that position is in the robotics or automation fields.


The degree program, which will begin in fall 2011, includes two full-time semesters on campus followed by a seven-month internship with an affiliated industrial partner active in robotics or automation markets. The curriculum includes instruction in the broad array of robotic sciences and technologies, hands-on project courses and seminar-style business and management courses. 


For further details on the program, please visit http://www.ri.cmu.edu/MRSD.  

US $7 Million for Robotics Education

Carnegie Mellon University, CMU, has launched a four-year robotics education project called Fostering Innovation through Robotics Exploration (FIRE), sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and designed to reverse a significant national decline in the number of college students majoring in computer science, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (CS-STEM).

FIRE will develop new tools that enable middle and high school students to expand upon their interest in robots, leading them from one CS-STEM activity to the next. Examples are programming tools that create game-like virtual worlds where robot programs can be tested, as well as computerized tutors that teach mathematics and computer science in the context of robotics.

The initiative will target robotic competitions such as FIRST, VEX and Robofest that already are popular among secondary school students, but also will create new competitions for autonomous, multi-robot teams and for computer animations that will attract a broader array of students and offer new challenges.

Social Robot Research

Neighborhood Networks is a long-term research project that combines community arts, participatory design, informal learning, and engineering to articulate and discover how communities use emerging technologies, specifically robotics. Through interviews, participant observation, generative workshops, and participatory design, the Neighborhood Networks project focuses on working with neighborhood groups that are organized for local representation and collective action. Our interest is how these neighborhood groups use or might use emerging technologies as a means to publicly address their concerns.

The Neighborhood Networks project is directed by Carl DiSalvo at The Georgia Institute of Technology and Illah Nourbakhsh at Carnegie Mellon University.

The University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out of School Environments (UPCLOSE) is partner in the Neighborhood Networks program, providing guidance and support in the community outreach, program development, and evaluation. The project is funded by a generous grant from Intel Research.

CMU Startups make Robot Toys

Bossa Nova Concept

Two new robotics toy startups, both Carnegie Mellon University spinouts, are tooling away in Pittsburgh on the next generation of high-tech toys. Interbots and Bossa Nova Concepts are developing family-friendly, emotive robots that they hope to unveil commercially within two years.

Internships through CMU offer students practical experience and help to channel potential new hires Bossa Nova’s way. Pittsburgh seed funding has been really critical in putting in place all the pieces of the business. Bossa Nova got its start in 2005 and has completed development of a fascinating, funny toy with lifelike movements and self-balancing motion. BN is presently developing a manufacturing plan with the help of a post-doctorate fellow at The Robotics Institute.

Interbots spun out of academic research conducted at Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center The ETC is a 2-year Master's Degree Program that brings students from artistic and technical backgrounds together to work on innovative projects.

The main component of the Interbots Platform is a performance robot, a custom-built animatronic figure with a wide degree of physical expression through body language and internal color-changing lighting.

USA preparing next generation for the "Robotics Age"

The Robotics Academy at Carnegie Mellon University has published a short video that shows the exponential change that those of us over 40 have experienced in our professional lives, as we've moved to personal computers, the Internet and now to robots, in the span of less than thirty years. Robots are here to stay! Are we ready? Watch the video here.

Three final candidates for the Robotdalen Scientific Award

The three final candidates of the Robotdalen Scientific Award have been elected and will all attend the prize ceremony at Robotdalen Day in Örebro September 5, where the winner will be officially presented. The final candidates are:
* Bram Vanderborght from Virje Universiteit Brussel in Belgium,
* Eric Demeester from Katholieke Universiteit in Belgium,
* Mike Stilman from Carnegie Mellon University in the USA.

Swedish Robotdalen has founded The Robotdalen Scientific Award, an international competition for young scientists, with EUR 20 000 in prize money. The purpose is to encourage young, innovative people all over the world in the field of robotics and automation, to find new and untried approaches for the future.