Today at the inauguralUdacity Intersect conference, the online education startup announced new robotics and digital marketing variants of its popular Nanodegrees an effort to expand its corpus of 21st century skills-based courses. In addition to the new degrees, Udacity is adding 21 new hiring partners spanning the automotive, defense, tech, hardware and telecommunicationsindustries. And, lastly, the company is partnering withDidi Chuxing for a new $100,000 competitionto build safety features for self-drivingcars.

More than 20,000 students have been a part of Udacity Nanodegree programs. Spanning topics like deep learning and VR development, the programs offer students studies that aremore rigorous than a certificate and less intensive than a full degree. The new Nanodegreesannounced today expand the reach of Udacity into marketing and robotics.

This is a blueprint for anyone in higher education, said Sebastian Thrun, co-founder and chairman of Udacity.

Udacitys addition of the Deep Learning Nanodegree might have been a tip-off that the startup would be looking to cater to robotics enthusiasts. The first of two new Nanodegrees will be for robotics. Automation is a hot topic and any future involving machine intelligence will involve software-enabled hardware to increase efficiency. Students interested in this program will need a background ofcalculus, linear algebra, stats, basic physics, Python and computer algorithms.

It is easy to think that Udacity is reaching into uncharted territory with its new Digital Marketing Nanodegree program, but as marketing becomes more reliant on digital channels, new approaches are needed to prepare students for the rapidly changing career. And unlike the Robotics Nanodegree, the Digital Marketing Nanodegree will not require any prerequisite knowledge.

Each program will take three months to complete. Applications for the Robotics and Digital Marketing Nanodegree will open on March 8th and remain open until April 17th. Each term will cost $1,200.

The team also provided an update on Udacitys self-driving car efforts.Udacitys relationship with Didi is going beyond traditional partners. The two are launchinga new competitionto build anAutomated Safety and Awareness Processing Stack (ASAPS) for autonomous vehicles. And, of course, another partner,Velodyne, will be providing the necessary data to fuel the efforts. The competition will have two rounds and begin on March 22nd, with the winners getting $100,000 and the right to implement their code in Udacitys actual self-driving vehicle.

Udacity has made an effort to brand itself as a solution for the education asymmetries that plague the economy. This meant working in tandem with more than 50 hiring partners to both tailor curriculum toemployers needs and match students to prospective jobs.

Students end up at thesecompanies and open up doors to us, added Thrun. Its working, its kind of amazing.

The new partners added today fit the trend of connecting availableNanodegrees directly to open jobs. iRobot and Megabots are both in need of students with an understanding ofmechatronics. But beyond just robotics, Udacity has added companies, large and small, with a global reach.

The startupplans to continue adding new hiring partners and including them in discussions about futurecurriculum. But Thruninsists that there is more thatneeds to be done.

The single thingthat works best is instilling confidence and helping students prep for interviews and get theirCV into shape, insisted Thrun. Youd be shocked at how many people lack the confidence to ace their interview.

To get there, Udacity has been building itscommunity of graduates and putting them to use helpingnew students. Some graduates, like Omar Albeik, a Syrian refugee studying in Istanbul, are hired to develop websites and other side projects, sometimes for Udacity and sometimes for other companies. Other former studentsevaluate project submissionsand offer mentorship.

Albeik, who contributed back to Udacity as part of its Blitz team, didnt sign up for Udacity because of its pitch to help with securinga job. Instead, it was about the ability to try to experiment with something without being forced to commit to it.

When I started learning, I was learning for the sake of learning, said Albeik. I wanted to choose what area to go into and Nanodegrees helped me discover.

But for when the time comes, the corporate relationships certainly dont detract. Thefull list of new hiring partners is below:

X

Megabots

iRobot

Fiat Chrysler

Lockheed Martin

Kuka

Delphi

Innovation Works

Ross Intelligence

Renovo

Velodyne

Paytm

1mg

Zomato

ZEISS

SAP

CI&T

IBM Brazil

Telefonica Vivo Brazil

Zalando

Rakuten

Read more here:

Udacity adds robotics and digital marketing Nanodegree programs, 21 new hiring partners - TechCrunch

The idea for remote-controlled robots that drive trucks came to Stefan Seltz-Axmacher on a camping trip in Northern California.

I was talking to my friend about cool robots we can build, and I just pitched the idea, he said.

Now the 27-year-old co-founder of Starsky Robotics is heading one of a handful of startups looking at upending the long-haul trucking industry.

The 15-employee company already has raised $3.75 million, but unlike other startups such as the Uber-owned Otto that seek to eschew truck drivers completely, San Francisco-based Starsky Robotics wants humans steering big rigs, just not from behind the wheel.

Starsky outfits trucks with an add-on system that uses computers, radar and software to allow the vehicle to run autonomously on the highway, where there is much more predictability than on the streets. Then, once the big rig exits on to city streets, the remotely controlled robots take over.

Theres a very essential role for truckers to play in the economy, he said. What we are doing now is greatly increasing their productivity, so they can drive more trucks.

A shortage of drivers has plagued the industry, with one 2015 study from the American Trucking Associations estimating the shortage could grow to 175,000 by 2024.

With Seltz-Axmachers system, truckers wont be sitting inside a truck, but near a screen.

The core problem we are solving is that it is hard to get human beings to spend a month at a time in the truck, he said.

Last month, the company equipped a Freightliner and hauled 5,000 pounds of freight from Orlando to Fort Lauderdale. For 120 miles the truck ran humanless and then an additional 20 miles via remote control.

We are using people for what people are really good at, and that is complex tasks, high-level understanding and dealing with new variables, he said. And we are using artificial intelligence for what it is best at: boring repetitive tasks, staying in the lane and managing speed relative to other vehicles.

Continue reading here:

Human-less trucks are here, courtesy of Bay Area robotics firm - Long Beach Press Telegram

Roboraiders launch 2016 FIRST robotics season in Hillsborough, N.J. viewing video of the new game, FIRST Stronghold. iPad video by Pam MacKenzie. Pamela MacKenzie

Two students at North Brunswick High School working on a robot for their school's team "Raider Robotix".(Photo: ~Courtesy of Karen Ramsden-Zahler)

The robots are back in town.

Several Central Jersey high schools will have robotics teams building and competing in the 2017For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Robotics Competition.

The high schools involved withFIRST Mid-Atlantic Robots include Hillsborough High School, Watchung Hills Regional High School, Bound Brook High School, Plainfield High School, Somerville High School, Bridgewater-Raritan High School, Rahway High School, Union County Vo-Tech, Immaculata High School in Somerville, Montgomery High School, Hunterdon Central Regional High School, the Pingry School in Basking Ridge, Gill St. Bernards in Gladstone and the Central School in Somerset.

Other schools involved includeNorth Brunswick High School, Piscataway High School, Middlesex Borough High School, St. Joseph's High School in Metuchen, West Windsor-Plainsboro north and south high schools, J.P. Stevens High School in Edison, JFK Memorial High School in Iselin, South River High School and South Plainfield High School.

There will be seven events held in New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania.

Two of the seven events will be conductedin Central Jersey. From March 17 to 19, Bridgewater-Raritan Regional High School will host 38 teams and from March 31 to April 2 at Montgomery High School will also host 38 teams. The events are open to the public and are free and typically run from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The only difference between science fiction and science is timing, said Dean Kamen, FIRST founder and president of DEKA Research & Development. We want kids, through their FIRST experience, to realize that whatever is in their imaginations could become reality if they develop the tools science, technology, engineering and apply those tools into innovations to turn todays science fiction into tomorrows science.

READ:Central Jersey robotics teams score at FIRST regional meet

The competition is dubbed STEAMWORKS and will allow, for the first time,human players on the field to interact with the robots during the game. In the steam-powered challenge, the objective is to prepare an airship for flight by building steam pressure, starting rotorsand climbing aboard.

Long-distance steamship races will include alliances comprised of threeteams having to collect fuel for the boiler to build pressure while the ships' pilots collect and install missing gears to engage the ships' rotors. Last year,ParallelUniversefrom the Union County Vo-Tech in Scotch Plains was a member of the winningalliance, which included two other teams.

Somerville High School's Team 102 Gearheads' electrical team, made up of Emilio Santana, Tim Vogel, and Matt Emmons, preparing the components to control the robot while the programming team in the background continues coding the control commands.(Photo: ~Courtesy of John Giardina)

Towardsthe end of the game, the robot can climb a rope on the airship for liftoff. Based on points earned when launch time reaches zero, the team best prepared for flight wins. The competition this yearhas asteampunk theme.

The competition hasstrict rules, limited resources and time limits. Teams of students are challenged to raise funds, design a team brand, hone teamwork skills, and build and program robots to perform prescribed tasks against a field of competitors.

READ:FIRST Robotics and Mid-Atlantic Robotics honor Donald Bowers

FIRST has three other programs Jr. FIRST LEGO League ages for six to eight, FIRST LEGO League for ages eightto 14, and FIRST Tech Challenge for ages 14 to 18). In 2017, FIRST Robotics Competition will reach 85,000 high school students representing approximately 3,400 teams. Teams come from nearly every state in the US, as well as many other countries. FIRST Robotics Competition teams will participate in 55 Regional Competitions, 80 District Competitions, and 10 District Championships.

In addition, approximately 800 teams will qualify to go to one of the two FIRST Championships at the end of April.

For more information on FIRST, visit http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc.There are 120 teams in the district that covers New Jersey, Delaware and Eastern Pennsylvania. For more on FIRST Mid-Atlantic Robots go to http://www.midatlanticrobotics.com.

Staff Writer Nick Muscavage: 908-243-6615; ngmuscavage@gannettnj.com

Read or Share this story: http://mycj.co/2m6t1Kd

Go here to see the original:

Beeping and buzzing robotics competition comes to Central Jersey - MyCentralJersey.com

The Chancellor Philip Hammond said the funds would keep the UK at the forefront of disruptive technologies. However, the funding was criticised as inadequate by some in the industry, who pointed out that it can cost hundreds of millions of pounds to develop one technology alone.

While of course any investment in our technology industry is welcome, a leading world economy like the UK should be more decisive in its efforts to boost the development of disruptive technologies, said Adolfo Hernandez, the chief executive of language software firm SDL.

A 270m pot to cover everything from artificial intelligence, robotics, driverless cars and new biotech isnt big when you put it into context. The US spent more than $1bn (820m) on R&D in AI-related technologies alone in 2015. For the UK to be a true global leader in these areas, we must be prepared to provide adequate funding and support.

View post:

Budget 2017: Funding for robotics and batteries dismissed as ... - Telegraph.co.uk

Warehouse fulfillment centers for online (and, previously, catalog) sales of fashion and beauty products essentially have remained the same for the past 30 years: Workers load up shelved products moved by conveyors onto bakers racks before taking them to a shipping station for packing and later loading onto carriers such as United Parcel Service, the U.S. Postal Service or FedEx.

Shoppers who ordered from a Sears, J.C. Penney, Lillian Vernon or Service Merchandise catalog got the goods weeks later. Even as online sites emerged in the market, delivery wasnt that much faster, although the ordering process was quicker.

Then came Amazon, which changed everything.

Consumers now expect ultrafast and often free shipping. They want the best price, too. But retailers and brands are fending off Amazon by offering consumers more personalized services, which include customizable products (such as Nikes Nike ID shoes and accessories) and subscriptions and membership commerce (such as what TechStyle Fashion Group offers with its Fabletics and JustFab brands).

Click here to read about a recent Zebra Technologies executive survey on planned technology investments.

Quiet Logistics, based in Devens, Mass., which is west of Boston and located at a former U.S. Army base turned business development park, specializes in these services. They offer fulfillment of online orders that match a brands aesthetic in regard to package design, packing materials, logos and marketing collateral (including handwritten notes). Clients include Bonobos, Zara, Bluefly, Milly, Glossier, Gilt and Bombfell, among others. The company primarily serves the fashion, beauty and accessories markets.

Bruce Welty, founder and chairman, and Rick Faulk, chief executive officer, said the growth of online sales is quickly transforming all of retail. And what makes it all happen is a warehouse, which is the core of how e-commerce is powered, Welty said.

But Faulk and Welty said its a labor-intensive process. And as a result of the Amazon effect, the demand for warehouse labor has increased while labor availability has decreased. Technology has helped. In 2003, Kiva Systems was founded and offered automated pick, pack and ship systems. It wasnt long before companies such as The Gap, Staples, Saks Fifth Avenue and Gilt Groupe used Kiva robots for fulfillment, which involves automatically taking freestanding racks of products to a human packer. This replaces the traditional conveyer belt/bakers rack system. Still, Welty said 97 percent of the market still uses non-robotic systems.

Amazon acquired Kiva in 2012 for $775 million, and renamed it Amazon Robotics LLC. While Quiet Logistics still uses Kiva robots today, the founders wanted to take the next step in automated fulfillment. The urge to evolve is because Kiva robots follow tracks on the warehouse floor, and tend to bunch up in traffic jams behind one another until human packerscan unload the products.

So Welty and his team scoured the globe looking for a next generation robot that could see and maneuver around the warehouse. After a fruitless search, they decided to just build the machines themselves and launched Locus Robotics in 2015.

The companys LocusBots function collaboratively with warehouse staff. Working in zones, each robot takes empty bins to a product location on the warehouse aisle where a human then checks and scans the item. Each bin is one online order.

Brian Lemerise, president of the company, said the process is more efficient and productivity is improved as each robot knows which human helper loaded an item. One Locus robot may work with four or five humans on the floor. Once the bins are complete with orders, the robots head to the packing station where the personalization and customization occur. Worker throughput is more than five times better with the new robots versus conventional, non-robotic fulfillment, the company said.

The robot weighs about 80 pounds unloaded, and has a payload of 40 to 150 pounds. It takes 30 to 60 minutes to charge, and will operate for about 10 hours on a single charge. The company did not disclose the cost of the robots.The robots are managed with LocusServer, which is the software brain of the fleet. The company said the system is scalable to spikes in demand even during peak periods.

Welty said the new robotics solution addresses all the challenges that keep warehouse operators up at night scalability, redundancy, portability, flexibility, adaptability and manageability while dramatically improving throughput and quality. Its the culmination of many, many years of doing, thinking, building and testing within the four walls of the warehouse.

Lemerise said the end goal with the LocusBots is to continue to deliver a better brand experience to the online shopper. Lemerise said increased efficiency in the warehouse coupled with building brand equity though the right packaging is geared to delight the shopper.

The president said the 275-thousand-square-footwarehouse at Devens manages the inventory for 34 separate brands. Fulfillment includes shipping as well as handling returns. Regarding the growth of online commerce, Lemerise, who worked in fulfillment for J.C. Penney, acknowledged the impact on traditional retailing. Stores are closing at a fast pace, but for his part, Lemerise said many of the sales associate level jobs can be transferred to e-commerce fulfillment, which can pay $2 more an hour due to current market rates and there are no cranky customers to deal with.

In fact, we dont advertise these positions as warehouse jobs, he said. We look for employees with merchandising skills. That means following Zaras exact instructions for folding a dress or shirt. Or carefully packing apparel or accessories in tissue, and handwriting a thank you note.

The company said this past holiday shopping season was the busiest its seen. The firm added 600 seasonal workers to handle the bump in volume. According to government data, online holiday sales this past year in the U.S. had a 14.3 percent year-over-year gain. And for 2016, online sales climbed 15.1 percent compared to 2015.

Regarding the use of robots, theres a lot of political noise in the market that robots are stealing jobs from people. The executives at Quiet Logistics and Locus Robotics disagree, and note that jobs are simply shifting or being transformed. Last week, freshly minted Commerce SecretaryWilbur Rosssaid on CNBC that automation is inevitable. He said that the U.S. needs technological [advancements]. And if we dont employ robots, the Chinese will, the Vietnamese will, the Europeans will, the Japanese will. Everyone will.

Earlier this month, analysts at the Economic Policy Institute also cautioned against the notion that automation steals jobs. In an economic snapshot report, the nonprofit said that robots and automation allow us to increase efficiency by making more things for less money.

When goods and services are cheaper, consumers can afford to buy more robot-made stuff, or have money left over to spend on other things, the authors of the report noted. When consumers spend their leftover cash on additional goods and services, it creates jobs. These new jobs help compensate for the jobs lost to automation.

However, in a recent blog post by the Bank of England, economists at the firm said automation, machine learning, driverless cars and artificial intelligence could displace more workers than analysts and other economists think. Over the next 20 years, they expect two million retail jobs in the U.K. to disappear. Or maybe more.

Read more here:

Rethinking Warehouse Fulfillment With Robots - WWD

An Australian team will do battle next week against 24 other outfits in pursuit of $US5 million ($6.6 million) prizemoney at the Abu Dhabi Formula One circuit.

But they won't be racing cars. Instead, the University of NSW engineers will compete using drones and a ground-based robot in a search and disaster response simulation.

Play Video Don't Play

Play Video Don't Play

Previous slide Next slide

The only Australian team to compete in the $6.6 million Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Competition leaves this weekend for Abu Dhabi to do battle against 25 teams from 11 countries.

Play Video Don't Play

From transport to astronomy to medicine, the many uses of quantum computing could make it a game-changer.

Play Video Don't Play

A team of scientists at University College London claim to have found the remnants of structures made by micro-organisms that could be the oldest fossils on Earth. Vision courtesy Nature.

Play Video Don't Play

This scene of never-before-seen mating rituals of snow leopards has shocked some viewers.

Play Video Don't Play

Thousands of giant spider crabs have begun their migration to the shallow waters of Port Phillip Bay early this year.

Play Video Don't Play

Seven Earth-sized planets have been observed by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope around a tiny, nearby, ultra-cool dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1. Video courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

Play Video Don't Play

Atmospheric rivers are often thousands of kilometres long and can carry as much water than the Amazon River.

The only Australian team to compete in the $6.6 million Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Competition leaves this weekend for Abu Dhabi to do battle against 25 teams from 11 countries.

It is the richest robotics competition in the world and is named after the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohamed Bin Zayed.

"The focus of the competition is disaster response," said Mark Whitty, lead researcher for the engineering team.

"Take the Fukushima disaster, when the Japanese reactor went into meltdown. The robots they tried to place were unable to do things like walk up stairs, unscrew nuts and bolts basically incapable of doing anything useful."

Dr Whitty said that while the competitions are fun, the end goal is for the deployment of search-and-respond robotics that are safe, co-operative and autonomous.

"A big challenge in using robotics during disasters is communication," he said. "From 9/11 on, there have been problems. We need systems that don't rely on cables or uncertain WiFi and other systems."

The UNSW team must use drones they have designed to locate and land on moving vehicles. Those four hexacopter drones Flippy, Floppy, Flappy and Fally were developed by seven students and three UNSW researchers.

One drone will land on a truck, pick up a target object and deliver it to a final destination.

But that's just the first of their heroic labours they also have to use an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) to approach a mock disaster site.

The UGV, called Pepper, has a top speed of three metres a second - about 11 kilometres an hour. The drones can fly at 60km/h, but the competition speed limit is 30km/h.

"Our UGV has to drive to a location, identify and pick up a certain size spanner, then grip it and use it to turn a valve stem," said project leader Dr Stanley Lam.

In total there are four challenges:

The UNSW team has entered all four challenges and Dr Whitty rates their chances.

"Of the 25 teams selected we are ranked second of those that are funded independently," Dr Whitty said.

"We are taking a crack team of students. It's the same group that won best technical performance and blitzed the course record at the Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition in 2015," he said.

The team's name, Saving Robert, "came out of our lab's theme of saving vegetables", says team member John Lam, who now works at Microsoft in Seattle.

"We had a pet onion plant in the lab called Allen and it died," Mr Lam said. "We've now moved on to a carrot, called Robert, but we haven't planted it yet."

What will they do with the prizemoney if they win?

"I imagine the students will want to continue to support the development of robotics at UNSW," Dr Whitty said.

This could be in the form of preparing for other events, buying equipment and supporting younger students, including high-school kids, he said.

In total, 143 teams from 35 countries applied to enter the competition. But only 25 made the final cut.

Other teams that are through include some of the best robotics outfits in the world from Carnegie Mellon University (USA), ETH Zurich, University of Tokyo and Imperial College London.

Three of the 10 team members are UNSW graduates: Stephanie McArthur is now at Google Waymo, working on self-driving car technology; John Lam is at Microsoft in Seattle; and Samuel Marden is at Uber in Pittsburgh.

Other team members are Chris Lu, William Andrew, Daniel Castillo, Harry Dudley-Bestow and Dominik Daners.

Read the original post:

UNSW team chase $6.6 million prizemoney at Abu Dhabi robotics competition - The Sydney Morning Herald

If anyone wants to know what STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education is about, David Moeller, CEO of the Northwest Georgia College and Career Academy, said the Georgia FIRST Robotics competition is the place to find out.

"This is where students put theory to practice," he said. "This is where the rubber hits the road."

The 2017 FIRST District Qualifier is Friday and Saturday at the Dalton Convention Center. The event is free and open to the public. FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

During a robotics competition team members are challenged to design, build and program industrial-sized robots to compete against other robots. Teams compete in two events to determine if they qualify for the district championship.

About 40 teams from Georgia will compete to qualify for the district championship next month in Athens. Among them are The Mountaineers, a rookie team from North Murray High School.

Moeller said he's excited to see another team from the area competing. The Career Blazers Fighting Mongooses, out of the Career Academy, is the other team.

"I think it's great," Moeller said. "The more teams we can get to spring up in this region, the better."

Kevin Henry and James Rowlenson, both North Murray teachers, sponsor the 15-member Mountaineers team. Rowlenson said after watching last year's competition at the convetion center the team was motivated to prepare for qualifiers.

"They saw what was going on and really started working on getting ready," Rowlenson said.

Moeller's team met The Mountaineers last weekend at the Peachtree Regional in Gainesville.

"They did really well as a rookie team," Moeller said.

Rowlenson said he's looking forward to his team "being successful."

"We learned a lot about how the game is conducted and different things about the challenge," he said of regionals. "We're going take all the lessons and apply them this week."

Moeller said it's going to be an exciting time.

"Northwest Georgia is a manufacturing community and the whole industry is based on STEM education," Moeller said. "The fact that we're helping other teams is fantastic."

The Career Blazers will also return to the area competition. The team has doubled in size to 24 compared to last year.

"This is only our second year," he said. "Were still learning but they're doing well."

The team competed in the regional last weekend and won a team spirit award. Last year the team won the All-Star Rookie competition at the FIRST Robotics state championship in Athens and competed in the World FIRST Robotics Championship in St. Louis, Mo.

Moeller said this week's qualifier is a time for students to put what they learned into action.

"It's great when the teams can actually read about something and work with their hands to make it happen," Moeller said. "It just reinforces everything."

If you go

Friday

Opening ceremonies: 10:30 to 11 a.m.

Qualification matches: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 to 7 p.m.

Saturday

Opening ceremonies: 9 to 9:30 a.m

Qualification matches: 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Alliance selections: 12:30 to 1 p.m.

Final rounds: 2 to 5 p.m.

Awards ceremony: 5 to 6:30 p.m.

All events are at the Dalton Convention Center and are free and open to the public.

See the original post here:

Dalton to host robotics district qualifier this weekend - The Daily Citizen

Spongebobs days as a fry cook will soon be over. Somewhat. But while Spongebob is a fictional character, the robot that will be flipping burgers and putting them on buns definitely isnt. Its called Flippy and its nothing but a smaller and more dexterous version of a stereotypical robotic arm. But unlike those industrial machines designed more for power, Miso Robotics designed Flippy to be fast, precise, and smart. All for the purpose of having it flip burgers and then, when properly fried, place them on buns.

Before you knock Flippy as just some mindless sponge-hating machine, do think about what it takes to cook burgers. You have to place the patties on the frier, lay out the buns, put the other ingredients on the bun, check if one side of the patty is cooked, flip it, wait for that other side to cook, place it on the bun, and then place the other half of the bun on top. These are the steps that human cooks will have taken for granted after days of repetition. Almost ironically, a robot would actually require a bit more brains to do even just a fraction of that.

Flippy isnt just an arm but actually a more complex system. It has sensors, particularly cameras, that can sees the location of the patty and the bun. It can check when a patty is cooked and flips it over. And once done, it picks it up and places it on an empty bun. It can even get out of the way of the human who still has to place the patties on the grill. And, yes, it uses artificial intelligence for all of those.

Luckily for human employees, Miso Robotics cant yet replace them with robots. Flippy can flip burgers and place them on buns, and thats pretty much it. Humans still have to place the patties on the grill, lay out the buns for Flippy to fill, and cover said buns. Flippy simply saves them from the greasy, and sometimes dangerous, task of actually cooking the burgers.

Flippy is just one of Miso Robotics kitchen assistants. It envisions that more such smart robots will eventually perform more rote and risky tasks in the future. But rather than be a reason for unemployment, such robots could help free up human workers, particular cooks and chefs, to do what no robot can do: socialize with customers.

SOURCE: Miso Robotics

Read more:

Miso Robotics' Flippy flips burgers, loves its job - SlashGear

MARIANNA, Fla. - Three Marianna High School students now have bragging rights after competing against students statewide for a robotics competition.

High school seniors Erika Pereda, Joshua Peacock, and Daniel Tillman won first place for animatronics during this year's Technology Student Association Conference in Orlando.

Animatronics is making robotic devices come to life.

Some examples include the robots at Chuck E. Cheese's, Universal Studios, and Walt Disney World.

The group chose to create an animatronic alligator.

"The goal is to actually present it into a children's museum, and our goal is to educate children through science and technology," said Pereda.

Some parts of the gator were real, including the head and the claws.

The robotic gator is running on six motors and a hydraulic system.

Key features include movement, and an IPhone connected to a Bluetooth controlled speaker for audio.

"The hardest thing we had to do was the talking of the mouth, the talking with the alligator moving its jaws up and down.. synchronize that to the sound to the alligator...But Josh did an awesome job with doing that," said Daniel Tillman.

Joshua Peacock also helped program the gator's eyes to change color.

"You give it like a number value for a color, so it's like 0 to 255, like a red, a green, and a blue value," said Peacock.

Project Lead the Way Pre-Engineering teacher Vicki Garrett is proud of her students.

"It's amazing what they can do with that, and it's such a big thing especially for entertainment purposes. The movie industry uses animatronics all the time," said Garrett.

The group will move on to compete nationally in Orlando this June.

The students will share the robot with elementary school students some time next week.

Read the rest here:

Marianna High School Students Win State Robotics Competition - My Panhandle

Stevens County made its mark in the FIRST (for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics world last weekend. Both Kettle Falls and Northport high schools have teams in the program.

Thirty teams from Oregon and Washington competed last Friday and Saturday in a game that involved robots collecting and shooting whiffle balls, collecting and placing gears, and climbing a rope.

Each match was played with competing three-team alliances, but the alliances changed from match to match in the qualification rounds. Strategies changed constantly based on each teams capabilities. Each team played in 12 of 60 qualification matches. Permanent alliance selections were made at the start of the quarterfinals, allowing the trio to work together through the higher levels of elimination.

Northport is in its second year of the FIRST program. NHS was in Saturdays winning alliance with teams from Spokane and Palouse. Being on a winning alliance automatically qualified the three robots to compete at the next level.

FIRST Robotics gives students and opportunity to learn and emulate real world career skills in a challenging and exciting way, pointed out Dave Glanville, lead coach for Northport. Every year I am amazed and surprised anew by the growth and development that my team members show.

Veteran Kettle Falls was paired with two teams from Spokane Valley. KFHS made it as far as the quarterfinals. Perhaps even better, though, was being recognized with the Engineering and Inspiration Award.

To be considered for this award, a team must show outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a teams school and community.

Winning this merit-based award makes the Kettle Falls team eligible to compete against other teams in the District championship level Engineering Inspiration Award at Eastern Washington University. Their robot, however, still has to qualify based on points from two competitions.

Our team is on the young side, said KFHS Lead coach Naomi Edwards. But they are doing so much and learning how to take on leadership roles in this complex competition this year. I couldnt be more impressed with their growth this season.

Every FIRST team spends six weeks designing and building a robot to meet specifications and goals. Each of the 155 teams in the Pacific Northwest District compete at two of seven two-day District events. Eligibility for a teams robot to compete at the District Championships (At EWU April 6-8) is based on ranking points earned at their two competitions or being on a winning alliance.

The first of the seven weekends saw 70 teams competing within the District. Northports team is currently ranked 11th and Kettle Falls is 29th. Both teams will compete March 17-18 at Central Washington University (Ellensburg).

Original post:

Stevens County robotics team's excel in competition - Eastern Washington Statesmen Examiner

Flipping burgers is a hot and greasy job. Slips, trips, burns and cuts are common hazards associated with the work. But global demand for burgers is tremendous. Top burger chains racked up more than $75.5 billion in annual sales in 2016.To help keep human cooks out of harms way while fulfilling our collective appetite for burgers, Pasadena-basedMiso Robotics is rolling out a new robotic kitchen assistant called Flippy.

Miso Robotics CEO and co-founder David Zito said, We focus on using AI and automation to solve the high pain points in restaurants and food prep. Thats the dull, dirty and dangerous work around the grill, the fryer, and other prep worklike chopping onions. The idea is to help restaurants improve food quality and safety without requiring amajorkitchen redesign.

Miso Robotics was funded in part by the quick service restaurant, CaliBurger, which makes and sells California style burgers, and operates in 12 countries today. Canyon Creek Capital and individual angel investors have also contributed funding to help Miso Robotics get started.

All of Miso Robotics employees went to work in CaliBurger kitchens as grill cooks before and while working on the original design of Flippy.Getting behind the grill and cooking with and without Flippy is a regular part of Zitos job, the CEO said. Now, CaliBurger has committed to using Flippy in50 of its restaurants, at least, over the next two years. It has already been testing Flippy in a Pasadena restaurant, the companies said.

The Flippy robot takes the form of a relatively small, wheeled cart equipped with a 6-axis robotic arm and what Miso Robotics calls a sensor bar. It can be installed in front of or next to any standard grill or fryer. It takes in data from thermal sensors, 3D sensors and different cameras onboard to perceive its environment.Digital systems that send tickets from the counter back to the kitchen give Flippy its orders.

A robots view of the grill.

Among other functions, Flippy grabs unwrapped burger patties, moves them into position on a hot grill, keeps track of each burgers cook-time and temperature, then alerts human cooks when its time to apply cheese or other toppings. Flippy plates burgers but doesnt wrap them or add finishing touches like lettuce, tomatoes, avocado or a restaurants signature sauce.

Unlike other burger-making robots, including those made by Momentum Machines, Flippy is controlled by Miso Robotics AIsoftware. AI and machine learningenable the robotic cook to learn to make new foods,adapting to a restaurants seasonal menu changes.

A range of different tools, like detachable grippers, tongs and scrapers, help Flippy to cook burgers made to order, and keep a grill operating smoothly. A pneumatic pump allows the robot to swap out its own tools. Combined with Miso Robotics AI, this range of toolswill allowFlippy to make more than burgers over time, including chicken, bacon, grilled onions and other items that tend to be served in burger restaurants.

A burger-grilling robot called Flippy works alongside a human cook.

So, are cooks in commercial kitchens flat out of a job? If yes, that would affectsome 2.3 million cooks employed, and too often underpaid, in the industry in the U.S. today.Zito acknowledges that commercial service robots like Flippy are handling more and more complex tasks than ever before, and seem poised to replace people who perform the most repetitive tasks at work.

But at the same time, the CEO said: Tasting food and creating recipes will always be the purview of a chef. And restaurants are gathering places where we go to interact with each other. Humans will always play a very critical role in the hospitality side of the business given the social aspects of food. We just dont know what the new roles will be yet in the industry.

See the article here:

Meet Flippy, a burger-grilling robot from Miso Robotics and ... - TechCrunch

Photo: PAL Robotics TALOS humanoid robot from PAL Robotics.

If you are a roboticist and you want to work with humanoids but you dont want to build a robot from scratch, PAL Robotics would be happy to sell you one. The Spanish robot makeris introducing a new option that improves on its REEM humanoids: TALOS isa 32-degrees-of-freedom, 1.75-meter-tall, 100-kilogramrobotdesigned for dynamic walking, heavy lifting, and (eventually) assisting humans with all of those tasks that we really dont want to be doing.

PAL Robotics designed TALOS with the intention of having the robot work on physically demanding and accurate tasks performed under hostile or uncomfortable industrial settings, according to PAL CEO Francesco Ferro. This means that the robot is not justa research platformits going to start out in research, as many robots do, but PAL hopes it cantransition into doing useful tasks in the real world, a thing that humanoid robots in general arent known for.

Right out of the box (and we assume its a pretty big box), TALOS can walk at 3 km/h, it can handle traveling over irregular surfaces, and its battery can keep it running forup to 3 hours (depending on what the robot is doing). The robot is powered byROS (hooray!), and full EtherCAT communications allow its internal networks to run control loops in the kilohertz range. It has 7-DoF arms, each of which can lift an impressive 6 kilograms at full extension. Its modular and upgradeable in both hardware and software.

The first TALOS (named Pyrne) is already hard at work at the Laboratory for Analysis and Architecture Systems (LAAS-CNRS) in Toulouse, France:

Full-size humanoid robots are a tricky business, so we asked PAL Robotics what the story is behind TALOS:

We believe that our environment is tailored to us, humans, and as such, in the long term, we will need a robot that is able to adapt to our human environments. TALOS has been on our roadmap for a while and we are glad that we were able to work with LAAS-CNRS to have this first unit available and working already for research purposes. It has really proven to be a huge engineering challenge for us and we are very satisfied with the end result.

PAL Robotics hopes that within the next five years, TALOS will be working side by side with humans doing manipulation in industrial applications. Longer term, theres potential for working in search and rescue, or in other areas where its too dangerous to send humans. Its this kind of thing that TALOS is ideal for, and thats reflected in the costat something around 1 million, the best place for a robot like this is where a robot like this is the only safe option.

[ PAL Robotics ]

IEEE Spectrum's award-winning robotics blog, featuring news, articles, and videos on robots, humanoids, drones, automation, artificial intelligence, and more. Contact us:e.guizzo@ieee.org

Sign up for the Automaton newsletter and get biweekly updates about robotics, automation, and AI, all delivered directly to your inbox.

Want to pick stuff up and move it around in a research environment? This could be the robot for you 4Feb2015

Handle is a humanoid robot on wheels, and it's amazing 27Feb

The European Parliaments draft recommendations for governing the creation and use of robots and artificial intelligence includes rights for smartrobots 22Feb

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 17Feb

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 10Feb

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 3Feb

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 27Jan

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 20Jan

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 6Jan

Exclusive photos take you through the first mission of Stanford's diving robot 21Dec2016

A robot built like an ironing board is surprisingly good at walking without falling over 21Nov2016

A hybrid between a blimp and a humanoid robot can do amazing things 16Nov2016

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 11Nov2016

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 21Oct2016

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 15Oct2016

A robot that uses artificial sweat can cool its motors without bulky radiators 13Oct2016

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 7Oct2016

Jumping robots, walking robots, flying robots, and much more at IROS 2016 4Oct2016

During practice, the MVP robot can stand in for American football players and take the tackles 29Sep2016

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 23Sep2016

Visit link:

TALOS Humanoid Now Available from PAL Robotics - IEEE Spectrum

North Marion hosted latest event Feb. 25 and will send students to state competition in coming weeks

The Presidents Day weekend was a busy one for the North Marion Voltmasters.

Three new robotics teams, along with their robots, joined the North Marion High School roster: Teams C (The Claw), D (DumDum), and E (The Beast), along with Team B (Scorpion), attended the rookies-only tournament on Feb. 18 at Dallas High School.

Though the varsity squad didn't enter its robot, Juggernaut, some of the team members traveled to Dallas to support the younger teams.

The Scorpions made their way through the qualifying rounds and when it all over, Samantha Patton was the last member standing, alone in first place.

And with that finish, Patton had the first choices in selecting other teams to join her alliance heading into the quarterfinals. Her alliance would make it to the finals before falling, earning a second place.

Teams C, with members Daniel Gonzalez, Brice Ferrell and Grace Bramel, finished in seventh place, while Team D's Hunter Wierstra and Beau Wilson managed to take 10th.

But the newbie tourney wasn't the end of the robotics weekend.

All North Marion robots attended the rescheduled Sandy tournament on Feb. 20 "and most performed respectably against far more experienced teams," said adviser Sherie Moran. "For some members that had been unable to attend the rookie tournament, it was a bit overwhelming, but they still put in a solid showing."

Teams C and E were able to select their own alliances going into the quarterfinals and although none of the teams made it to the semifinals, "a lot was learned about engineering, robotics and computer science," said Moran.

She added that, thanks to the Presidents Day weekend events, everyone better understood the challenges and were prepared for hosting the Feb. 25 tournament.

"Running a tournament is way different than just watching or participating in one," Moran said. "This is my second year being involved in the VEX robotics tournament circuit and you look at things differently as a host than you do as a coach or spectator, because if it goes well, no one notices, but if it goes badly everyone does!"

But after the event, Moran said all the feedback she's heard said that North Marion ran a professional event that went smoothly and efficiently. Attendees, participants and volunteers had a great time.

Even with their coach busy with hosting duties, the young teams did well and ended up in the middle of the pack at the end of the qualification matches, with the lowest of the five teams beating at least 10 teams and the top team, led by the Scorpion (Team B) ranked at seventh place against some stiff competition. The teams from Molalla, West Salem, Silverton and Sandy took the other top positions and got to be Alliance captains heading into the quarterfinals.

Three of the other North Marion teams were also lucky enough to make it to the quarterfinals and are excited to try again at state tournament, which will be held at Chemeketa Community College on March 10 and 11.

Without missing a beat, the Voltmasters returned to the classroom to make further modifications to their robots, programs and strategies, more determined than ever to improve their standing and chances for a favorable alliance.

"If nothing else, our little club doesn't quit," Moran said, "and we look forward to growing more and doing better at each and every event."

Anyone who would like to learn more about what is getting students excited to enter the field of robotics is invited to volunteer or sponsor a team.

North Marion is looking for volunteers to fill in as judges, referees, field setters, greeters and other helping hands to set up, manage and tear down. Anyone interested can email Moran at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Read more from the original source:

Robotics team makes impressive strides - Pamplin Media Group

For their first competition in school history, the A.L. Brown robotics team hit the high seas and took top honors.

Six students teamed together to create a daring nautical map for their pirate ship robot to navigate, braving turbulent waters, escaping a whirl pool and battling enemies along the way.

Though the project took weeks of preparationand a six-hour cram session the Saturday beforethe effort paid off in a first-place victory at the statewide N.C. Beta Club Robotics Team competition with the opportunity now to compete at nationals.

This is the very first year Beta Club has had this competition at convention, Robotics Club advisor and A.L. Brown science and engineering teacher Jason Stegall said. This will be a were learning as we go. We had a small taste at the state level, and the national level will be same rules, same guidelines, but obviously the competition gets a lot stiffer. So well have to have a better understanding of what our true goals are for moving, shaking, creatingwhich is so wide open.

N.C. Beta Club holds a statewide convention each year with a host of competitions, and this year the group added a robotics component. Eight schools, including A.L. Brown, signed up. And this particular contest took a bit of a different approach.

In a lot of competitions, it is a scoring of how many balls you can put in the hoop, how quickly can you move this to there, Stegall said. This one was purely a theme. Make a robot that is autonomous, which means theres no remote controlit is sensor driven, that can demonstrate moving, shaking, creating. That was the entire competition that you were trying to fulfill.

Teams earned points for how well they worked together, whether the robot was truly autonomous, and how it demonstrated the moving and shaking and creating aspects.

And, of course, each team had to devise a theme.

The Wonders in the end settled on pirates, though it was not the first idea the team tried.

We got started, and we had to just scrap it and start again, which again is one of the reasons you do these things, Stegall said. You realize that not all things worth doing are as simple as we do it this way and it all works. We let them know, yeah, a lot of times you fail at your first attempts, or you realize you need to make drastic changes and move on. They learned that quite well.

As part of the competition, each team could bring a floor for their robot, since the devices tend to behave differently on different surfaces. The A.L. Brown groupself-dubbed The Seven Seasran with the pirate theme and decided to create a giant nautical map, complete with a compass, sea monsters, islands, coastlines and an enemy fort.

The robot, a pirate ship, was programmed to follow a line, so the map created a path for it to follow through rough waterswith raised patches to simulate rockingand into a whirl pool, where a different sensor told the ship to twirl.

When it came upon another ship, the robot knew to fire, or play recorded sounds of cannons, and when it came upon a fort, it turned to aim at the structure.

It would continue on the path and would come onto a fort, and again it would fire on the fortification, but for that it had to make a different turn, so we could represent when it sees this, a different sensor, Stegall said. So instead of following a line and seeing whats on the floor, this sensor can read distance to objects in front, so it read that the fort was in front and would stop and turn and fire. So it gave us another way to demonstrate our robot as autonomous and using its sensors.

And all of the work, the teacher said, came in the weeks and months leading up to the competition, fine tuning the project and working together to get things done.

Getting the students to work as a big group, having them diligently and efficiently work, work as a team, that is what is actually all of the effort and all of the reason that you do these things, he said. Theyre learning things about robotics, but theyre also learning team and collaboration and being responsible. When someone says Im going to bring this tomorrow, and then they dont, that peer pressure makes them realize, oh, I do have to keep up with this.

The students themselves recognized the importance of this having gone through it once and said they were eager to apply at the next level.

I learned, I think, teamwork is a really excellent skill to have, Jesse Peterson said. I think it really helped us win states.

Communication is also crucial, the students said, and something they need to improve next time around.

I would say learn from your mistakes because it didnt go 100 percent the first time, and now we know how to fix everything and make it better, Jackson Holsclaw said. Im looking forward to working on it and doing a whole new project again and a new robot, change it up.

The Seven Seas have decided to brainstorm a different theme for the national competition, which will feature the top three winners from each state Beta Club conventionthat can make the tripand takes place June 29 at Disney World in Orlando, Fla. Stegall said if the school can raise the money, the team intends to go, and go to win.

We have every intent to place, so were not just going to Disney, he said. Were going to compete because it takes too much time. Theres no reason to take this much time and then not have the students focus on it.

The team has already begun, going back to the drawing board and trying to up the ante for what they anticipate to be a much more rigorous field.

Looking at what we did and thinking that the national competition will be much more competitive, I believe were going to do an entire overhaul of how were going about the competition, Stegall said. What we realized is once the students get to the point of its working, we have most of the props made, we have everything fully operational, there is still lots of time necessary to make it right. That is where we learned where time is truly valuable.

So we need to be at that point where everything is mostly working, we need to have time to finesse and fix, and that takes weeks. We need more time since were trying to do more for nationals.

See more here:

Wonders robotics takes 1st at state - Independent Tribune

Real Human Tissue

With all the advances being made in robotics in terms of capabilities, it was only a matter of time before researchers took it one step further, making robots look more human.Thats what a pair of biomedical researchers at the University of Oxford are hoping to do, anyway.

In a report published in Science Robotics,Pierre-Alexis Mouthuyand Andrew Carr assert that the time has come to beginbuilding robots with real human tissue. Not just for looks, either: using humanoid robots would be ideal for advancing our understanding of muscle and tendon grafts, and refining the technologyused to develop them.

To engineer tissue, scientists use bioreactors filled with nutrients and chemicals that can grow sheets of cells. Cells in muscles and tendons, however, require the ability to be stretched and moved by the skeleton a mechanical component that bioreactors are unable to mimic.

Because humanoid robots are capable of mimicking human movement, they would prove an excellent tool. They can essentially serve as a humanoid-bioreactor system, and the tissuecould develop with a little structural help from the robots, more or less the same way it would on a human skeleton.

The ability of humanoids to freely interact with their environment and real objects could be an advantage compared with desktop bioreactors. This may provide more realistic stresses to tissue constructs and eventually achieve grafts with better functionality or with tailored properties, Mouthuy and Carr explain in Science Robotics.

In theory, a humanoid-bioreactor system can be built on top of the humanoid robot using muscles made with electroactive polymers. The developing muscles can essentially piggyback on the robot skeletons movement so the tissues get exercised.The robot skeleton wouldneed to be covered in soft, stretchable sensors so that it can closely monitor the development of the tissues.

In their research, Mouthuy and Carradd that [] in aging populations, musculoskeletal tissue disorders and injuries are a growing health, social, and economic burden. Pain and lack of mobility are common problems due to failure of tissues, such as tendon, ligament, bone, and cartilage. A promising repair strategy is to engineer tissue grafts.

This will lead to the creation of more clinically relevant musculoskeletal tissue grafts and, in particular, allow for personalized tissue graft development by matching the robots morphology and mechanics to the patients needs.

Following this method, its likely we will likely end up with a robot that looks like the Kenshiro robot developed in Tokyo, where its actuators closely copy human movements. In other words, a Terminator-like humanoid robot where a metal skeleton would be covered in human muscles, tendons, and skin.

The researchers assert that not only do we have the technology to make this happen, but that it likely will. Given that it would bescientifically relevant,and has numerous applications in regenerative medicine and other fields, it looks like we could be mingling with robot lookalikes sooner rather than later.

Read the original here:

Scientists Are Building Humanoid Robots Using Skin Grafts - Futurism - Futurism

LINN Victory for Reek Schools Robotics Club depends on whether its robot can pickup an egg off the ground, carry it and empty its yoke into a container, without getting any of the shell inside.

The club will compete in Gateway Technical Colleges robotics challenge for middle and high school students on May 11, and two Reek students feel good about their chances to bring home the gold.

Were working really hard, and our idea, this idea, seems to work pretty well, said seventh-grader Taylor Oltrogge.

Recently, the club built a prototype robot, which uses a claw to hold and crack the egg.

What we figured out is we need (the claw) to kind of bend, said sixth-grader Ryan Cunningham.

This is Cunninghams second year in robotics club, and Oltrogges first.

Reek librarian/reading specialist Cari Ruhl created the club, which had six members last year.

Now, there are 14 enough for two teams.

One of Reeks teams is creating a robot for a sumo wrestling-styled portion of the competition, which is held in Sturtevant. Meanwhile, Oltrogge and Cunninghams team is preparing to compete in a timed task competition.

Each year, its a different task, said Ruhl.

Last year, the club had to design a robot capable of picking up six ping-pong balls and placing them in a bin.

Cunningham recalled the design process.

He said that they decided picking up each ball, one by one, wasnt efficient, so they designed a cup-shaped funnel, with a lattice of straws tied across the wider end.

The robot placed the bucket over the ping-pong balls, squeezing them through the lattice.

With the balls inside the bucket, the robot backed up to the bin, and dumped the balls out the narrower end.

It actually works pretty well, Cunningham said.

Ruhl said they were one of the teams which actually picked up all the balls and placed them into the bin in one try.

Outsider robotics

Why did Ruhl who confessed shes not a tech person, nor someone who knows much about robotics or engineering start a robotics club at Reek?

She wanted to see children have an after-school opportunity that went beyond the usual offerings related to sports, music and art.

Its a little bit outside of my normal duties, said Ruhl. Just having the kids being able to work together and build something, thats what interests me, seeing them work together.

And its all of them, she said.

Ruhl orders kits for the students, who learn how to build the robots by following the directions and she learns with them.

Some, like Oltrogge and Cunningham, have experience in some of the skills that apply to robotics.

Cunningham said he was 7 when he took apart his first computer and hes collected electronic cords since he was little.

Oltrogge said her dad got her into electronics at an early age.

When I was little he let me help him build his computers, she said. He doesnt like to buy them because he likes to make them.

Cunningham and Oltrogge said the most fun part of robotics club is figuring out the design challenges, building the robot and working together.

And theyre eager to contend for first place in the challenge.

But if they dont win?

Theres always next year, said Oltrogge. We can just keep trying until we do.

You get the satisfaction of just being in it, said Cunningham.

More:

Robotics club gearing up for Gateway competition - Lake Geneva Regional News

Both the George Washington and Tunstall high school robotics teams pushed through a challenging contest to earn high rankings during the first qualifying meet of the season, team coaches and players said.

I think we did great, much better than we originally thought we were going to do, said Tunstall build and drive captain Mindy Duenas.

Tunstall and GW both participated in the FIRST For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology Chesapeake districts Southwest Virginia event Saturday and Sunday in Blacksburg, competing against dozens of teams from Virginia, Washington and Maryland. The Tunstall Trojans finished the qualifying round ranked second and GWs Team Talon finished 14th.

Both teams also competed in the tournament phase. GW bowed out in the quarterfinals while Tunstall was able to advance to the semifinals, eventually losing to the No. 1 seed in a close match.

During each match, alliances made up of three teams use their robots to complete several objectives. This year the objectives are steampunk-themed, so the robots load fuel balls into a boiler and carry plastic gears up a rope system with the goal of powering a steam vehicle.

Team Talon coach Daniel Waters said he was very proud of his teams first performance of the season.

It was good, Waters said. We kept it really close.

During qualifying, GW also was part of the alliance that set the event high score of 360 points.

Tunstall coach Edward Sherlock whose team is competing in its second year said the robot excelled at the gear placing objective.

It was a strong climber, and thats worth 50 points at the end, Sherlock said.

Team Talon also scored points by winning the Gracious Professionalism Award, which is given to the team that displays qualities like teamwork, effective collaboration and positive attitudes. The award is determined by judges conversations with fellow alliance teams and event personnel.

That award shows you are willing to work together. Waters said. Thats kind of the ethos of FIRST.

The Trojans and Team Talon next will head to the second qualifying event on March 24-26 in Glen Allen. If the teams qualify, they will be able to attend the championship event on April 5-8 at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Waters said about 60 teams will qualify for the championship, based on a rankings system which takes into account awards, wins and losses, tournament placement and other factors. Currently, Team Talon is ranked 14th and the Trojans are ranked 18th.

See more here:

Dan River Region robotics teams take to the field - GoDanRiver.com

Philip Hammond will put money into areas including electric cars and artificial intelligence to boost the growing sector

PHILIP Hammond is toset aside 500m for technology, innovation and robotics to help Britain compete after Brexit.

The Chancellor will use Wednesdays budget to give more money to fund research and development of electric vehicles, robotics and artificial intelligence.

PA:Press Association

He will use the cash to help British scientists and developers to compete with the rest of the world as the UK prepares to leave the European Union.

Ministers hope it will help to bring new jobs to the UK and attract foreign investment.

The money will include 270m for research and development for British business and universities.

Getty Images

And 90m will be to fund 1,000 PhD places in science, technology and engineering.

200m will go towards fellowships for researchers, and 50m for programmes to attract global talent to Britain.

The Chancellor is also set to announce more investment in broadband including a hub to test 5G technology. The Government could offer incentives for super-fast broadband too to help local businesses take up new networks and upgrades.

Mr Hammond is also set to use Wednesdays budget to announce he will put away money to help protect the economy from any turbulence as a result of Brexit.

He told Andrew Marr on Sunday he wanted to make sure Britain has enough gas in the tank as the UK prepared to start Brexit talks later this month.

He went on: My job as chancellor is making sure our economy is resilient as we embark on the journey well be taking over the next couple of years confident that we have enough gas in the tank to see us through.

PA:Press Association

But he is also under pressure to give money to businesses to help offset the cliff edge of new business rates.

And campaigners are calling for more money to go into the struggling NHS and social care systems.

EPA

View original post here:

Budget 2017: Chancellor to set aside 500million for technology, innovation and robotics to help Britain compete as ... - The Sun

With limited resources and being the only Caribbean country among a number of other nations, members of the Jamaica College robotics team performed exceptionally well at the United States First Robotics Competition, held in New York in February

The JC boys walked away with a number of sectional prizes, including the Inspire Award and the Motivator Award, among others.

Dimario Campbell, president and captain of the team, said despite the many sacrifices, they were overjoyed at for the opportunity to represent the Caribbean.

"It wasn't really much of a surprise because we put in a lot of work. None of this would be possible without our coaches' help, sponsors and the whole team working together. It is a really good feeling and we are proud that we have not only represented Jamaica College but Jamaica and the Caribbean," he told The Gleaner.

"As high-school students, we had to manage both schoolwork and robotics. It was very challenging, but the team made it work. Sometimes we are here from as early as 6:30 in the morning and the first place we head to is the robotics lab to get work done. We leave sometimes at 10/11 o'clock in the night, so it was a lot of sleepless nights."

Principal of JC, Wayne Robinson, expressed gratitude for the fact that despite some resource constraints, the team persisted and made Jamaica proud.

"It's a competition which gives opportunities for students, usually for high school. We were the only Caribbean school there competing with other areas of the world. We won a number of awards for our performances. As a matter of fact, we had to merge the two teams into one, because even though both teams moved on to the second round, we couldn't afford to carry both teams to the next round because we didn't have the resources to fix one of the robots," said Robinson.

He said he is hoping that they will be able to qualify for the World Championships in a month's time.

Read this article:

Jamaica College robotics team shines on international stage - Jamaica Gleaner

Is there a future for him in Croatia?

As part of the Croatian team, Petar Slaviek (17) from Hvar last week became European champion in robotics. The same team has already won a bronze medal in a competition with the best teams in the world. However, the greatest challenge still awaits him the World Championships in Japan, reports Slobodna Dalmacija on March 7, 2017.

The story of the third grade student of the high school in Jelsa is even more interesting if you know that he did not have computer sciences as an elective course in his school, because in his generation there was not enough interest to form a group. He therefore had to learn computer programming on his own, and when he became good enough he joined the Croatian Robotics Society. His passion has forced him to spend his weekends on the road. Almost every weekend, he has to travel from Jelsa to Zagreb and back a two-way trip 14 hours long, plus waiting time between transfers.

When I have classes in the morning, my professors allow me to leave the school after fourth class. My mum takes me with her car to the port in Stari Grad, where I get on the ferry to Split at 11:30. It take me two hours, and when I get to Split I buy a bus ticket to Zagreb, which is another five hours. Although I do not like to study in the bus, I often do not have a choice, says Petar, who finds time during his weekend adventures to do what he likes, which is to develop and program a variety of games and experiments.

Although he is thinking about going abroad to study, the most likely option is the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing in Zagreb. Still, when thinking about somewhat more distant future, he is still not sure what he would like to do, but is certain that it will have something to do with software development.

I have always been fascinated by the idea of artificial intelligence because it seems to me that the so-called machine learning is one of the most elegant solutions for majority of complex problems. I doubt that I will stay after university in Croatia for long, because here I cannot find what I am looking for. Only if something changes in the meantime, says Petar, who likes living on an island, since it offers him peace to clear the head.

Even when he was a small child, he would use a screwdriver to open and examine all of his toys. He noticed early that he was interested in computer programming, and he started learning computer languages C and C ++ via the internet and books. His interest for robotics developed a little bit later, when his father bought him his first Arduino board, which is a link between programming code and visible results.

I studied all the available online materials, and internet immediately showed me the enormous potential of such a small board, which was enough for me to become almost addicted to it. It opened the doors to the world of microcontrollers. Interest in assembling robots based on the Arduino board developed when, upon the invitation from my former mentor, professor Katija Barbi, our school was visited by Ivica Kolari, the current manager of our robotics team and the Croatian representative at the World RoboCup. My current mentor Zoran Pribievi invited me to join his team, because at the time I was one of only a few people my age who were able to use C++, says Petar, who believes that Croatian education system puts too much focus on useless information, without providing support for more talented students.

We definitely learn too much irrelevant material. It all comes down to memorizing information in order to obtain best possible marks. We then forget everything because we have to learn for our next exam. This educational system kills ability to think logically. Of course, it is good to have some basic foundation in all areas, but instead of learning about the composition of some algae, it would be better for a future mathematician or programmer to learn something that will benefit them, says Petar.

Competitions in the soccer category look the same as you would expect a football competition to look like. We have a miniature soccer field, each team has two robots, and the winner is the one which scores the most goals. The ball is a special device that emits infrared light at a certain frequency. For this reason, our robot has 13 infrared sensors to detect the ball, in addition to four ultrasonic sensors, eight reflective IR sensors and the so-called IMU, which measures the movements and rotation of the robot. We use four very fast engines with multidirectional wheels which allow the robot to move in all directions. In global competitions, one halftime lasts for 10 minutes. The competition is organized in a league system, which means that there is no knock-out competition, but you instead collect points, explains Petar.

Interestingly, Petar does not support the recent initiative to crowdfund money to buy robots for Croatian schools. The idea of STEM revolution definitely makes sense since it attempts to motivate today's youth, but I think that the approach is wrong. We can start a revolution if we develop passion for learning about the technology, but that cannot be achieved by supplying schools with various devices because they will, which I can hear from my colleagues at various Croatian schools is already happening, just stay on the shelves if there is no real initiative. In order to motivate a child, you need only one computer and a motivated educator, and not 300,000 dollars worth of equipment. The money should instead be invested in people willing to lead the next generation of computer scientists, says Petar.

On Sundays afternoon, shortly before 3 pm, Petar is at the Zagreb bus station waiting for a bus to Split. Upon arrival, he rushes to catch a ferry to Stari Grad, and comes home around 11 pm.

And what did you do last weekend?

Read this article:

17-Year-Old from Hvar Wins European Robotics Championship - Total Croatia News