I Heart Robotics

Fastners for 3D Printing: Threaded inserts Part 3 of n

noreply@blogger.com (I Heart Robotics) — Fri, 11 May 2012 08:46:00 +0000

On a previous episode, we tested using plastic thread forming screws as fasteners for 3D printed parts. While they work great for some applications, they can only be removed and inserted a limited number of times before they destroy the hole and they are somewhat limited in their holding strength.

We have been hard at work the last few weeks developing some new products, and found this an interesting solution to the problem.

Since you also have to buy machine screws, they are a little expensive at $0.15 each, in quantities of 100. These brass inserts perform better than expected. The soldering iron tip makes them incredibly easy to install and the holding strength is more than sufficient for anything you would be 3D printing in plastic.

In a properly sized hole with a slight chamfer we were unable to pull out the inserts with our planned test methodology, and the tests were deemed successful.

Testing continues

noreply@blogger.com (I Heart Robotics) — Wed, 02 May 2012 15:38:00 +0000

At our research facility, we make hypothesises and we test them. After some people expressed interested in the physical capabilities of the TurtleBot, we made some science happen.

Testing confirmed that the robot is capable of utilizing a elevator for translation in the vertical direction. Unexpectedly, the biggest problem was that the cliff sensors can trigger on the gap between the floor and the elevator. Additionally, the elevator car can act as a Faraday cage so teleoperation will be difficult. These are some things to watch out for if you are trying to get your robot to deliver lunch in an office building.

Also, not shown in the video is some payload testing where the robot was able to drive fairly well with a 10kg payload. Though it is important to make sure the robot is not top heavy and there should be an expectation of increased wear on the bearings which will decrease the robot's long term reliability.

ROS Fuerte Released

noreply@blogger.com (I Heart Robotics) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:20:00 +0000

Available here.

ROS Updates

noreply@blogger.com (I Heart Robotics) — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 19:35:00 +0000

ROS Fuerte RC3 is now available. This would be a great time to test to see if your robot works with the new version of ROS. Bug reports and patches are greatly appreciated.

Also, if you haven't signed up for ROSCon, there is still time to register.
You may also want to check out the list of sponsors for ROSCon, we will see you there!

ROS Fuerte Release Candidate 2

noreply@blogger.com (I Heart Robotics) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:16:00 +0000

Minor changes available here.

ROS Fuerte Release Candidate 1

noreply@blogger.com (I Heart Robotics) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 03:37:00 +0000

Available here.

National Robotics Week

noreply@blogger.com (I Heart Robotics) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:36:00 +0000

It's time again for National Robotics Week! A great chance to check out robotics events near you. Previous coverage of past years can be found here.

An art movement for roboticists?

noreply@blogger.com (I Heart Robotics) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 02:46:00 +0000

The New Aesthetic strikes me as important and interesting. As someone who has uploaded videos of fruit with circles around them, seeing Timo Arnall's montage of videos from computer vision research projects assembled as art is somewhat strange. It's like finding out your debug messages are actually works of art.

It makes me wonder if our debug messages couldn't be a little clearer through collaboration with artists.

While dedicating time to work with artists might be viewed as a distraction, I believe there are some potential benefits. Robotics and computer vision researchers may want to think about adding funding for an artist to their next grant proposal to help the public understanding what robots do. Videos like the one above can help explain the research to the innumerate which helps ensure public support for future funding. They can also help make the technology more compatible with humans.

Looking at the above example, one wonder if things like QR Codes could have been more beautiful to look at if we had more input from artists, instead of seeing them exploit error correction to insert art.

Also, in many ways it seems like the artists could use some help from scientists and engineers as they try to help society deal with the results of our work, without having to understand what a Haar wavelet transform is or how it works

The New Aesthetic is also nice because it means that the robot safety products are not just a great tool for keeping your robotics lab safe, but apparently they are also art. Now that I think about it, perhaps we should offer cryptographically signed and numbered copies.

New Packaging

noreply@blogger.com (I Heart Robotics) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 23:13:00 +0000

Over at I Heart Engineering we have upgraded some of our product packaging. Here are some of the design concepts.

These stickers are important, because this means we can make packaging for selling quantity one of prototype designs. This in line with our philosophy of lowering the cost of failure. Fail early, fail often, succeed occasionally.

Below are the chosen designs, color for the inkjet and bw for the laser printer.

In addition to safer shipping, it is now much easier to find things in the stock area.

Springtime Fun

noreply@blogger.com (I Heart Robotics) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 18:28:00 +0000

A fun easter video from the TurtleBots at ClearPath Robotics

Progress in Telerobotics

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Mottram) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:42:00 +0000

A few years ago I thought that the age of telerobotics would have arrived when someone gave a Google tech talk using one, and where the subject of the talk was not robotics related.

Well, that has now happened.

The telerobot is made by Anybots, and there's one obvious noteworthy point: the robot just isn't expressive enough. Without more capacity for expression, the robot becomes just an uninteresting prop on the stage. It does have a display, but it's way too small to see the speaker's face.

For telerobots like this the screen needs to be of a similar size to a tablet computer, with face detection used to crop and scale the image in such a way that it's of similar dimensions to a human head. Then I think the experience for users, or for an audience, would be more interesting.

But of course this is just the start, so I expect that in time those ergonomic modifications will come.

Reset It!™ for Android

noreply@blogger.com (I Heart Robotics) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 02:14:00 +0000

This looks like it could be useful.

Last chance for ROSCon 2012 early registration

noreply@blogger.com (I Heart Robotics) — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 21:28:00 +0000

Standards and the Law

noreply@blogger.com (I Heart Robotics) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 07:36:00 +0000

Over at Boing Boing, there is a great post about making the standards that have been incorporated as part of the legal code freely available.

I believe that standards should be free, open and redistributable and that the work of organizations like the IETF and Python Software Foundation show that it is possible to develop high quality standards without charging people to read them.

While it is clear that large organizations often have trouble changing their business models, it is important to recognize that we are free not to implement pay-to-read standards that are not enacted as laws. However, since "ignorance of the law excuses no one", standards that are incorporated as law must be free in every sense of the word.

So as a member of IEEE and ASME, I ask that these organizations work to support Carl Malamud and his efforts by giving explicit approval for making all standards that are enacted as law redistributable and available without charge.

Furthermore, I would like these organizations to consider making all standards redistributable and freely available.

Benchmarks for GPS calibration

noreply@blogger.com (I Heart Robotics) — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 22:19:00 +0000

One issue faced by developers of outdoor robots is the calibration of satellite navigation systems and the validation and verification of the state estimator after filtering has fused the satellite information with odometry.

One option to deal with error is to assume that the satellite information is perfect and another is to use benchmarks and triangulation.

NOAA's National Geodetic Survey provides datasheets of benchmarks in the United States that can be used as reference points for determining the position of your robot. This online tool provides map overlay to make it easy to find a benchmark near you.

Also, theodolite.

Light Fields

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Mottram) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 14:09:00 +0000

We seem to be living at a time of innovation in sensor technology. Light field cameras are another possible alternative to either a Kinect type sensor or conventional stereo vision.

Since service robotics is likely to be mainly concerned with objects within a relatively short distance of a few metres, something like this could be viable depth sensor. Compared to a Kinect it would have a lower cost both in terms of price, due to the lower number of components, and also in terms of energy (and hence battery life), since it doesn't depend upon pumping out a lot of energy into the environment.

Squirrel Deterrence

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Mottram) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 20:50:00 +0000

Here's a run robotic application for repelling rogue squirrels using a water pistol.

The initial idea of an automated bird spotter is interesting, and it would be even more fun to go beyond this into the area of animal biometrics. Animal biometrics seems to be a little-studied topic at present, and is largely confined to cattle. With a high resolution image on a webcam with a zoom lens it might be possible to get enough detail to recognize not just bird species but particular individuals. If identification was reliable enough then by logging and analyzing that data it would be possible to build up a picture of the lives of individual creatures and their position in the pecking order. Field biologists sometimes do this kind of work, but it's a very painstaking manual process.

For an automated bird spotter you could have a dual camera setup, similar to the vision system of the MIT Cog robot. One camera would have a wide angle lens and would be for detecting and orienting towards targets, and the other would have a narrow telescopic field of view for trying to obtain the biometrics.

In Stock: Even more TurtleBot Accessories

noreply@blogger.com (I Heart Robotics) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:53:00 +0000

Here is some exciting news as part of our plans at I Heart Engineering to become the world's leading developer of TurtleBot accessories. We are proud to present some of our new spring collection. All of these accessories are Open Source Hardware and are 'ready to roll'.

After some production delays, our laser mounts are now available for immediate shipment or download.

The TurtleBot Hokuyo URG Mount is designed to provide a variety of options for mounting your 2D laser scanner to the TurtleBot. If you have a laser cutter, the design files should provide all you need to precisely and securely mount the laser.

The TurtleBot Hokuyo UTM Mount provides both a mounting plate and a custom designed heatsink required for safe operation of the laser scanner. These design files are also available.

If you are looking at adding additional accessories to your robot the TurtleBot Power Splitter can provide an additional power connector. Unfortunately, the splitter can not provide additional current, so make sure to avoid drawing more than 1.5 Amps as it will cause the robot base to shut down. The splitter is also useful for testing your accessories by using an external power supply (not included). Design files for the plastic cover are available on thingiverse and the KiCAD design files for the circuit board are available on github. Due to miscommunication, the silkscreen for the back of version 0.2 is reversed. These boards are otherwise fully functional and are currently on sale at a discount.

In Stock: Tool Update

noreply@blogger.com (I Heart Robotics) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:13:00 +0000

Here is a new video demonstrating the use of the Engineer TG-01 grinder and if you need something a little larger the TG-02 is an excellent choice.

We have also expanded our selection of screw pliers to include the Engineer PZ-56 Screw Pliers XP. These slip joint pliers are great for grasping larger parts.

We also now carry the Engineer PAS series pin extractors.

ROSCon2012 Registration

noreply@blogger.com (I Heart Robotics) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 21:05:00 +0000

Don't forget to register for ROSCon before March 31st!

3D Printed Soldering Jig

noreply@blogger.com (I Heart Robotics) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 04:00:00 +0000

If you are looking at assembling short production runs of your electronic designs, here is a low cost idea from the I Heart Engineering manufacturing team for speeding up the process of soldering through hole parts.

DFM,MFR!

noreply@blogger.com (I Heart Robotics) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 03:59:00 +0000

Design for manufacturing and manufacture for reliability.

We are working on a research project here and ended up disassembling a little something. Along the way, we picked up a great tip from IKEA on how to use a zip tie to provide strain relief for crimp connectors and wire nuts.

Line following

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Mottram) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:45:00 +0000

Following lines isn't terribly practical, although some AGVs operate in this way. Perhaps one way to improve upon this would be to have the line produced by an overhead projector, which would allow for more flexible navigation, but ultimately I don't think that line following is the way to go - although it makes for a nice demo.

Creatures of Culture

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Mottram) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:08:00 +0000

2012 is the Turing centenary year, marking 100 years since the birth of one of the most famous mathematicians. Turing's contribution to the theory of computing is now well established, and popular portrayals of him typically dwell upon his wartime hacks, his sex life in Manchester and controversial death. However, the full implications of his work have yet to be recognized, but probably will be to a greater extent in future.

What is culture? Animals other than humans also seem to have cultures, in the form of learned traditions, but they don't seem to be quite the same as human culture. A culture can arise when one individual acquires information not through some sort of instinct or from direct personal experience, but by acquiring it second hand from other, typically older, individuals. If the transmission of information contains errors, as is always the case in any real world situation, then there is the possibility for information systems to change and evolve over time. This, I think, is the hallmark of culture.

However, if iterated learning were all that was involved then we would expect cultures to change only very slowly and incrementally over long time scales. Indeed, most animal cultures do seem to be like this. The bird songs of a century ago are probably not all that different from bird songs today, and the tool use and gesture language of non-human primates probably was also almost identical. Likewise if we judge the cultural evolution of our hominid ancestors from their stone tool designs and construction methods then it's also possible to see that, just like the chimps and the birds, this changes very little over tens of thousands of years. Until Homo sapiens arrive.

With modern humans there is an explosion in the variety of toolmaking, with all kinds of specialisms for different functions. Unlike the Neanderthals, who made more or less exactly the same hand axes time after time, the diversity of the tools of early modern humans indicates that an equivalently dramatic change was happening to their culture, enabling different lifestyles in places which would otherwise have been impossible to for them to survive in.

That change was the appearance of language.

Creatures other than humans have languages, but curiously enough not all languages are the same. There are differences in the grammatical complexity of languages. At one end of the scale there are regular expressions - a simple mapping of one thing to another. At the opposite end you have recursively enumerable languages, which are far more expressive and can be Turing complete. The categorization of languages in terms of their complexity was first identified by the linguist Noam Chomsky, and has been further elaborated since.

The natural languages of modern humans fall into this recursively enumerable category, whereas the communication systems of other animals don't seem to have this, and instead seem to be more like simple regular expressions. This is I think a crucial distinction, and it's analogous to the distinction between computing machinery before and after the digital computer was invented. There were calculating machines before digital computers, but they were special purpose and could only perform one, or a limited number, of mathematical tasks. The digital computer, based upon the formalism developed by Turing in his 1936 paper, is an "anything machine". It has a generative quality which can support the creation of virtual machines which can carry out any arbitrary type of calculation process.

I think this is what natural language does to the mind. It transforms it into a new type of machine. It's not quite an anything machine as pure as Turing's mathematical abstraction, since the human brain carries with it plenty of evolutionary baggage, but language allows ancient systems which evolved over vast expanses of time and for very different purposes to be recombined and remixed in novel and recursive ways - like a rap artist remixing old classics to make something new, or the same ingredients of a recipe being combined in a different order to get a different result.

Just like with cloud computing, virtual machines can span across multiple minds. They don't necessarily need to be confined to a single processor. When this happened I think it precipitated a computational revolution in the ways of life of early modern humans, which made many cultural phenomena such as ideologies, religions, folklore, histories, trading practices and other such meta-systems possible. Virtual machines moving between minds also helps to overcome the classic problem of the poverty of stimulus. It may not take much initial information transfer to trigger the emergence of a larger complex system within a computational substrate via a process of self-organization.

So it seems likely that Turing's legacy extends far beyond the making of computing machines into the areas of culture and human history. As Stephen Wolfram found, it takes remarkably little effort to build a Turing machine. Out there in the computational universe, Turing machines are, so it would seem, available in abundance, and the changes in brain structure needed to support them could have been quite minor. In my estimation there could be Turing machines out there in human culture which are not recognized as such today, but probably will be in future.

Sociable robots

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Mottram) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:55:00 +0000

The field of sociable robots still has a long way to go, with robots such as Cog and Kismet (now museum pieces) being just the tip of a very large iceberg of research possibilities. Once you get into the issues which arise when multiple minds interact then a lot of previous work from sociology or social psychology suddenly becomes relevant, and these areas appear to have been largely overlooked by the mainstream of AI research thus far. I think in the longer term these factors will prove to be essential to building genuinely human-like machines which can seamlessly integrate with the world of humans.

So once you're an embodied being with an ongoing existence then you can build up episodic memories as a catalog of your recent salient experiences, and deciding how long these memories stick around depends upon how much affective impact they had, and in turn it seems that the origins of affect are not just something static coming from objective environmental stimuli but can be manipulated in various ways, such as episodic framing or intergroup emotions. Variable rates of decay in different dimensions of affect associated with memories can produce different personality types, reminiscent of the "real people personalities" from the Douglas Adams books.

Contemporary social robots only manage to reproduce a few elements of second order relations (theory of mind), whereas when you look at the complexity of relations which most humans can deal with it's up to 5th order or beyond. So, for example a second order relation is something like "I can imagine what you are imagining", but within a typical novel or TV soap opera you have longer chains such as "The reader/viewer knows that character X believes that character Y wants to do Z". Once you've mastered the second order then understanding more complicated relations seems to be just a loop over the same structures.

In the near term I think most robots aren't going to need real people personalities or social smarts - they'll just be treated as appliances - but the history of toy robots such as the AIBO or Pleo demonstrates that there is a market for robots which aren't exclusively about utility or convenience but which exist in the web of minds as dynamic personalities.