FAIRMONT Building, planning and plotting, several Marion County students took it to the limit in last weekends 2017 VEX Robotics West Virginia Regional Tournament.

The Marion Comets team, which consists of seven members, is led by Fairmont Senior High School science teacher Ann Burns.

The Marion County robotics teams were made possible by the creation of West Side Robotics in 2009, a nonprofit organization that helps fund teams in the county and promotes an interest in the field.

We were finding that a lot of times with kids who were on LEGO Robotics teams, one of the things was, if you wanted to get sponsorship from other organizations or businesses, sometimes they wanted it to be tax-deductible, West Side Robotics President Cheryl Van Horn said. The reason we became a nonprofit was to provide a way to help fund and support the robotics teams.

The Comets were part of a 23-team field at the Robert H. Mollohan Research Center Feb. 4, all vying for a chance to go to the state tournament.

In VEX competitions, the teams are presented with an engineering challenge game, and they must build and develop robots to accomplish their goal. The teams usually compete directly with each other, trying to score as many points in a given game as possible.

During the regional tournament, two alliances, composed of two teams each, competed against each other to rack up points by scoring different items in each others zones and hanging robots from hanging bars.

Mobility is definitely important in this game, especially defensively, Marion Comets team member and FSHS student Sinead Tobin said. We talked with other teams a little bit. We were considering what would be the highest scoring elements in the game, and we built our robots around that. Originally, we had three groups that put together three robots and we had a small scrimmage. We just combined elements from each one.

The Marion Comets were split in half for the competition, with Team B led by Tobin.

Tobin said that VEX Robotics provides an outlet for middle school and high school students interested in science, technology, engineering and math to put their skills to the test in a fun and competitive way.

It really isnt that common, but theyre trying to bring more STEM activities to the youth because there is such a great need for those jobs, and there will be in the future, Tobin said. (My siblings and I) are all computer geeks, so it kind of runs in the family.

Indeed, promoting interest in STEM fields is a primary goal of the robotics competitions, according to NASA Program Manager Todd Ensign.

West Virginia faces an uncertain economic future if we do not adapt our business sector to focus more on high-technology industries, Ensign said in a previous interview. Our students are currently not adequately prepared to engage in the high-tech job sector and are leaving our state for opportunities elsewhere.

We need to empower our educators to provide the necessary career, STEM and 21st-century skill training to our students in order to counter these trends and entice businesses to our state. The No. 1 concern of employers considering locating or relocating in West Virginia, and in particular this area, is a labor-ready workforce.

While the Marion Comets didnt win the regional competition, theyll have another chance to go to the state competition during another qualifier on Feb. 25 in Charleston.

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Face off: Marion students compete in robotics competition - The Exponent Telegram (press release) (registration)

Lying in general is a bad idea, but lying to your would-be customers is an especially awful thing to do. Thats the lesson allegedly being learned by Lily Robotics, which, at the end of January, was raided by San Francisco police as part of a potential criminal investigation.

Lets back up. Why is the SFPD raiding the headquarters of a robotics company? Its been a long, strange road, but lets go back to the beginning.

In 2016, Lily Robotics took more than 60,000 preorders for an upcoming product preorders valued at more than $34 million. Naturally, these customers expected the product to be delivered within the specified time frame and to work as depicted in the companys promotional videos.

Lily Drone had generated a wave of positive press because it promised to be a no-nonsense, easy-to-use drone that required little experience with technology and not much effort to set up. The drone was also eagerly anticipated due to a unique feature known as auto-follow, which is exactly what it sounds like: You could simply send the drone into the air, and it would follow you autonomously, shooting footage as you go. A small handheld tracker would continue to draw the drone toward you as you went about your activities.

The company also promised rugged construction, even going so far as to claim the drone would be waterproof, which would further set it apart from other commercially available drones. Between the waterproofing claims, auto-follow, and throw-and-go, which would have allowed customers to simply throw Lily Drone into the air to activate it, it was shaping up to be an intriguing product, even in the burgeoning Wild West atmosphere of the drone market.

Unfortunately, with waiting customers growing restless, on Jan. 12, 2017 things finally came to a head. Authorities raided Lily Drones San Francisco headquarters in preparation for a criminal investigation, alleging the company had lied to customers, in addition to slipping past the promised delivery date.

The story of Lily Drone turns tragic on two fronts. The first was a lack of funding. Despite raising about $34 million by taking preorders, the company was eventually forced to email customers with a notice that their money would be refunded. Manufacturing and shipping a product this complex is expensive, and the company simply ran out of money to do so.

That would have been a familiar story weve all heard of failed startups and wildly successful crowdfunding campaigns that never get an actual product off the ground. However, the company is also accused of directly lying to customers about Lily Drones capabilities.

Allegedly, in the promotional video touting the drones unique capabilities, the company used footage shot not on Lily Drone prototypes, but on an existing product a much pricier, camera-equipped drone from an unaffiliated company. The suit brought against Lily Drone alleges the company deliberately misled their customers. Company founders Antoine Balaresque and Henry Bradlow are supposed to have been present at the filming themselves. The two met at UC Berkeley as engineering students.

Moreover, the two were found to have discussed the problem well before the video shoot even took place: Emails had been exchanged between CEO Balaresque and the third-party filmmaker theyd tapped to help make the promotional film. The emails leave little to the imagination. Wrote Balaresque: I am worried that a lens geek could study our images up close and detect the unique GoPro lens format I think we should be extremely careful it we decide to lie publicly.

When we hear about companies misleading their customers willingly and take your pick, because this has been a common refrain lately, from Energy Transfer Partners and Theranos to Wells Fargo and Volkswagen its a disappointing thing. Its slightly less common to hear this kind of story from smaller startups, but Lily Drones tale nonetheless is a reminder to always be on your guard, whether the company youre dealing with is large or small.

Had it come to market, Lily Drone would have carried a price tag of between $499 and $899, depending on the type of drone preordered. That might sound like a lot, but it was supposed to be packing some fairly impressive technology on board its compact design.

The implications for the concept were definitely interesting and could have impacted a number of industries far beyond consumer tech. The drone was to be largely autonomous and nearly effortless to pilot, unlike remote control vehicles (RCVs), which require a great deal of training to do something as simple as extend their arms and manipulate objects. But Lily Drone could have followed human counterparts into dangerous surroundings and provided a constant link back to safety, all without a pilot or expensive and time-consuming pilot training.

Eventually, somebody else will get there. Lily Drone may have squandered its chance at delivering this exciting new type of drone technology, but its only a matter of time before one of its would-be competitors releases an auto-follow drone of their own to fill this rather distinctive niche.

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What went seriously wrong with Lily Robotics - VentureBeat

WEISER On Friday, a team of freshmen from Caldwell High School earned the top prize in a regional robotics tournament and a chance to compete in the upcoming state championship.

The tournament, made up of 38 middle school and high school teams, tasked students with designing and building a robot that can compete against other teams in a game-based engineering challenge.

The Caldwell High School senior team won the excellence award for the best overall robot design and student achievement.

Story continues below video

Coach Dennis Zattiero, who teaches pre-engineering at Caldwell High School, said this years victory is in keeping with tradition. He said the school has competed in the world championships three of the last four years.

The thing I find most interesting, is that the teams dont get the pieces to build their robot until the beginning of the school year, Zattiero said.

When they do receive the parts, students often devote up to 200 hours into building the robot, essentially from scratch.

The most unique thing about the competition, Zattiero said, is that students must take the knowledge they have learned in school and apply it to building their robot. The games are what he calls discovery-based learning, which allows students the time they need to work through the issues they face in a real-world setting. The process is difficult, however, and teams are often unable to complete their robot or make it operational.

Once completed, the robot is used to compete in 10 rounds of one-on-one strategy-based tasks. There are three separate tasks teams must complete in the span of two minutes.

The first task teams complete in that time frame is programming their robot to autonomously pick up foam jacks and move them over a fixed wall. The next phase involves putting as many jacks over the wall as possible with an opponent defending the other side with their robot. For the final task, the robot must grab to a certain point on a wooden post and lift itself as high as it can. Many teams dont get to this point due to its difficulty, Zattiero said.

Two minutes doesnt seem like much time, he said. But once the match starts it seems like forever because they have so much to do.

Tournaments are held year-round at the regional, state, and national levels, with local champions going on to compete against the best in the world at VEX World championships in April. The competitions are sponsored by the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation, a Texas-based organization dedicated to inspiring science and technology learning.

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Freshman Caldwell team takes first place in Regional Robotics Tournament - Idaho Press-Tribune

The Eagletronics Robotics Team at Alice Shaw Elementary has been hard at work preparing to showcase their newest invention an alert to save wolves to the First Lego League.

Every year, the First Lego League determines a theme for the year that students have to design their competition projects around this year it's Animal Allies.

The yearly challenge has three facets: the robotic challenge, in which a team-built robot has to complete an obstacle course designed by the League; core values, which is how the students use teamwork and character traits like solution finding and respect while engaging in the robotic challenge; and a final project.

The Eagletronics team was meeting every Wednesday at lunch and after school on Fridays, as well as collaborating with a robotics team in New Mexico, to complete their project to save the wolves in and around Yellowstone National Park.

Our radio activated guard box has been modified with an infrared sensor for thermal detection of wolves, said Shaws robotics team adviser Valerie Trenev.

Trenev explained why the team decided to devote their project to helping wolves.

Wolves, unfortunately, are targeted as predators in the wild, Trenev said. They go to a ranchers property and eat their sheep or cattle. The wolves are a problem because theyre going in to the areas where the livestock and cattle are. The ranchers lose a lot of money when their livestock gets eaten, so they get really mad and shoot the wolves.

Were noticing a comeback of the wolves, she said. They were nearly exterminated in the early 1900s and now were seeing a huge comeback. Now, where they graze on federal land, were seeing a huge problem.

She explained that the presence of cattle drive away deer, which are typically what the wolves feed on. So, since they cant hunt deer, the wolves go after livestock on federal ranches, where there are typically no fences or boundaries for livestock.

The box is designed to sound alarms and strobe lights when it is activated by body heat as it crosses certain perimeters. Their hope is that by scaring the wolves, or other predators, they will be deterred from hunting livestock which will in turn save the wolves lives.

After competing in a regional competition through the FLL, the Eagletronics team came in the Top 25 out of 376 teams in Southern California. Although they didnt make the final cut, the team said they did a good job about spreading the word to other teams.

The project also won an award at the local competition the team entered.

After news spread about Eagletronics invention, FLL did a shout out blast about the team and their project that went to 25,000 teams around the world, leading a team out of New Mexico that is also working on a project about wolves, to reach out and offer help.

Eagletronics has been Facetiming the New Mexico team for development and technical ideas and support.

While Trenev said shes not sure when the project will actually be completed and showcased, they continue to work on it every chance they get, and experiment with different types of alarms.

Weve tried Metallica and radio talk show, she said, laughing, noting that theyve also recorded students yelling phrases to deter to the wolves.

A fifth-grader at Shaw and first-year robotics team member, Lillian Evans, said she has a lot of background knowledge on the project and that she finds it important to do this for wolves, cattle and ranchers.

Its mostly for the wolves, she said. Id be devastated if wolves died out.

Evans, who said she has been the team spirit throughout the project, works mostly with details related to the project, although she also creates props. Her latest props were wolf ears she made for the team to wear at competitions. She also wears a fur vest and carries a sign that says Save the Wolves.

Were very excited, she said.

Besides finishing their project, the Eagletronics Team will be attending a Spring Showcase in mid-May to compete beside other Southern California student robotics teams in the robotic challenge and core values arenas.

Krista Chandler covers education in Santa Maria for Lee Central Coast News. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @KristasBeat.

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Alice Shaw robotics team building invention to save wolves | Local ... - Lompoc Record

SAN FRANCISCO - Ford Motor (F) is spending $1 billion to take over a robotics startup to acquire more of the expertise needed to reach its ambitious goal of having a fully driverless vehicle on the road by 2021.

The big bet announced Friday comes just a few months after the Pittsburgh startup, Argo AI, was created by two alumni of Carnegie Mellon Universitys robotics program, Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander.

Salesky formerly worked on self-driving cars at a high-profile project within Google- now known as Waymo - and Rander did the same kind of engineering at ride-hailing service Uber before the two men teamed up to launch Argo late last year. Argo had been considering whether to raise money from venture capitalists, the conventional fundraising channel for startups, before opting to become an independent subsidiary of Ford instead.

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Ford is spreading its $1 billion investment over a five-year period.

The alliance between Argo and Ford aims to combine the spunk and dexterity of a technologically savvy startup with the financial muscle and manufacturing know-how of a major automaker.

The unusual deal marks the next step in Fords journey toward building a vehicle without a steering wheel or brake pad by 2021 - a vision that CEO Mark Fields laid out last summer.

The decision to turn to Argo for help is a tacit acknowledgement that Ford wouldnt be able to pull it off on its own.

This is likely a realization that Ford is behind relative to companies like GM, Audi, Volvo, Waymo and Uber, and is trying to catch up, said Raj Rajkumar, a Carnegie Mellon computer engineering professor who leads the schools autonomous vehicle research.

Ford is counting on Salesky and Rander to hire about 200 employees during the next year while working on the core technology of its autonomous vehicle - the virtual driver system.

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That will serve as cars brains, eyes, ears and senses, said Raj Nair, Fords chief technical officer who also leads the companys product development.

Competitors such as NVIDIA have developed artificial intelligence that learns about different situations as its tested on roads, something that is almost essential for an autonomous car to function in heavy traffic on city streets.

In return for its funding, Argo will design its driverless system exclusively for Ford and then have a chance to license the technology to other automakers in the future.

If Argos system turns out to be far ahead of anything else on the market, the subsidiary could eventually be worth substantially more than it is now. Argo employees, who will work from offices in Pittsburgh, Michigan and the Silicon Valley, will be given stock in the subsidiary as part of their compensation packages so they will be enriched if their Argos technology becomes a hot commodity.

Ford isnt the first company to spend huge sums to obtain more experience and skills in robotics. Uber bought autonomous trucking startup Otto for an estimated $680 million last summer primarily to get Ottos engineers on its team working on driverless vehicles. Otto co-founder Anthony Levandowski, another former Google engineer, is now overseeing Ubers testing of driverless cars in Pittsburgh and Arizona.

2017 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Ford invests $1B in robotics startup in driverless car quest - CBS News

By Bonnie Russell Telegram & Gazette Staff

A team of robotics students, faculty and staff from Worcester Polytechnic Institute is among 20 finalists in the NASA-sponsored Space Robotics Challenge, the agency announced recently. The only official team from a university, according to NASA, the WPI team will compete for $1 million in prize money.

To advance to the final, teams had to demonstrate how they could complete two simulated tasks with their virtual R5 robot. WPI completed a perception task by having the robot accurately report the position of lights in a simulated environment, and a mobility task by programming the robot to walk three meters, press a button to open a door and pass through the door without falling.

The use of so-called agile development, a software methodology that makes frequent significant improvements to the robots performance is the reason for the teams success to date, according to Michael Gennert, team lead and head of WPIs Robotics Engineering program.

The WPI team is now participating in the virtual competition, which will take place through June. The Virtual Competition, which is divided into two parts, begins with a period of open practice from now through June. The live competition is held June 13-16, during which teams will compete in software simulation to direct the R5 robot, commonly known as Valkyrie, to perform tasks in a virtual setting on Mars, Mr. Gennert said.

During the virtual competition, each teams R5 will be challenged with resolving the aftermath of a dust storm that has damaged a Martian habitat. Teams will be asked to complete three objectives: align a communications dish, repair a solar array and fix a habitat leak. The round has eight complex tasks, ranging from climbing to picking up tools, that simulate the challenges a robot might encounter on Mars, according to a press release.

Vinayak Jagtap, project manager for the WPI team and a doctoral candidate in robotics engineering, said the WPI team is composed of five cross-functional teams. Each includes members who are experienced in perception, control and motion planning. Rather than a single focus area for the whole group, the mini teams within the team have various skill sets, which make the overall team stronger.

Hopefully, this strategy will bring them into first place.

Clark prof awarded music commission

Clark University assistant professor of music John Aylward was awarded a 2017 commission by the Fromm Music Foundation. One of 12 composers chosen by the Harvard-based foundation, Mr. Aylwards commission offers him the chance to compose a new work and a subsidy to have his collaborating musicians bring that music to life.

Nichols talk focuses on starting business

Michael Covino, president and CEO of Niche Hospitality Group which operates Worcester restaurants Mezcal, The Fix, The Citizen and Bocado will speak at Nichols College at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in the colleges library at 123 Center Road, Dudley. Mr. Covino will share his experiences and advice on how to start and grow a business. In addition to his role at Niche, Mr. Covino is also co-owner of Peak Fitness in Worcester. This talk is part of the librarys Mind Your Own Business speaker series.

Suicide survivor will speak at WSU

Kevin Hines will speak about "Suicide Prevention - Prevention through Wellness and Hope" at 11:30 a.m. Feb. 15 at Worcester State University in the Student Center Blue Lounge.

Mr. Hines is one of the less than 1 percent of survivors of jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge, and he has made it his life's mission since that day to promote wellness by telling his story via a book, "Cracked, Not Broken: Surviving and Thriving After a Suicide Attempt," and public lectures across the country. He has received many honors for his efforts, including the Mental Health America signature award for efforts to improve the lives of those with mental illness.

RSVP is required by emailing daquafresca@worcester.edu.

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College Town: WPI Robotics team aims for $1M NASA prize - Worcester Telegram

MOSCOW - The atmosphere in Memorial Gym Saturday was pretty congenial, considering the 26 teams had spent months preparing for this robotics competition.

Rather than trying to intimidate opponents, the teens were mostly curious about the other robots in the room and eager to help their potential rivals figure out any last-minute glitches.

"The way this challenge is set up is brilliant," said Stephanie Goeckner, a coach for the Artificial Intelligence team from the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley. "Each team is randomly paired with another team to form an alliance, so they have to look at the other robots as a potential teammate, not as antagonists. It immediately creates a sense of community."

Hosted by the University of Idaho Extension 4-H, the FIRST Tech Challenge tournament drew participants from every corner of Idaho. The opening ceremony featured a few words of welcome from UI President Chuck Staben and a colorful crowd of kids excited to put their programming, engineering and robots to the test.

FIRST - For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology - is an intermediate robotics competition for high-school-aged kids who work alongside mentors, applying real-world math and science concepts to solve the annual challenge. Cooperation is key at the high-energy regional tournaments, which reward the effectiveness of each robot, the power of collaboration and the determination of students, said Robin Baumgartner, coordinator of 4-H science programs at UI.

"Not only is it really awesome that you have kids building amazing robots, these challenges teach them lifelong skills, such as how to be gracious, public speaking, budgeting and time management," Baumgartner said. "These teams also do a lot of community outreach and usually mentor younger Lego league groups."

The Artificial Intelligence team, led by Goeckner and RaeAnn Goodnow, was dressed in red and working on a robot named Hypercube 2.0. The seven members, ranging in age from 12 to 16, spent almost every day together in the two weeks leading up to Saturday's event. Over the past six months, they've been meeting regularly at Goodnow's house in Clarkston to build and program the robot and document the process through notes and photographs.

"These kids are dedicated and determined," Goodnow said. "They have learned to fix problems on the fly. We are just two moms who have kids who wanted to be on a tech team. We are not mechanical or experienced programmers, so the kids kind of have to figure it out themselves."

Her 14-year-old son, Derek Goodnow, was up until 3 a.m. working on the programming.

Each robot had to complete a series of tasks during the games, both autonomously and with "drivers" holding the controls. Using a combination of sensors, including infrared tracking, line following, magnet seeking, ultrasonic and touch, the students programmed their robots to operate both alone and with control modes.

Mallory Hardin, a 15-year-old Clarkston girl, was in charge of driving the robot for the Artificial Intelligence team. Hypercube 2.0 was ready to race around a playing field as family and fans cheered from the stands.

"It's really thrilling, nerve wracking and adrenaline-filled," Hardin said before the competition began.

Paulie Sanchirico, 14, of Lewiston, said the robotics program has been a valuable experience from both educational and social standpoints.

"I feel like I learned a lot about engineering and I get to hang out with my friends," Sanchirico said. "It's a good way to meet other teams and talk about how they designed their robots."

Eileen Rowan, who coaches the Clearwater Atomic Robotic Technician team based in Orofino, brought five kids to the challenge. Dressed in white lab coats and fedoras, the group was thrilled when their robot passed the mandatory inspection, prior to the actual games.

"Other teams have helped us here today and that's why we're able to compete," Rowan said.

Madison Colwell, a 15-year-old Peck resident, said she enjoys the camaraderie as much as the actual competition.

"I do a lot of 4-H projects and most of them are individual projects," Colwell said. "This one is team-based. We all get along and don't get along at times. We are like a family. We argue like siblings."

Baumgartner said the best way to get on a team is to start one. Anyone who is interested in learning more about the 4-H robotics program can contact her at (208) 364-4603.

"This is a challenging, technology-rich, exciting program that inspires kids to get into science, technology and engineering," she said. "They discover the rewarding and engaging process of innovation and how to compete with gracious professionalism."

Sandaine may be contacted at kerris@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2264. Follow her on Twitter @newsfromkerri.

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Robotics event offers lesson in teamwork - Lewiston Morning Tribune (subscription)

NEWARK, NJ The RoboRocks and the 3Engineers from the Livingston Robotics Club were recently honored by the Essex County Board of Chosen Freeholders for their hard work and tremendous accomplishments, especially as first time competitors in the FIRST LEGO League (FLL), Competition

Livingston Mayor Shawn Klein was also present during the presentation and shared remarks congratulating the team for their success and fantastic innovations. At-Large Freeholder and Livingston resident Patricia Sebold, who sponsored the commendations, praised both teams as she presented them with citations.

Both teams are from Livingston, and Livingston is my hometown, said Sebold. Ive lived in Livingston since 1962, and I am proud to honor the 3Engineers and Roborocks.

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The Livingston Robotics Club Team has been very busy during the 2016 season, capturing recognitions throughout the year, according to the board.

In December, the 3Engineers competed in the North Jersey FIRST LEGO League State Championship and won the Champions Award and the Judges Award. The team also won the 1st Place Robot Game Award at the 2016 FLL Sparta Qualifying Tournament.

The RoboRocks won the Core Values Award and the 1st Place Robot Game Award at the 2016 FIRST LEGO League Clifton Qualifying Tournament and also participated in the 2016 Northern New Jersey FLL State Championship Competition.

The RoboRocks and the 3Engineers competed in the FLL State Championship for the first time against 60 teams composed of children from ages 9 to 14 from Northern New Jersey. The teams were judged in three areas, including: project, robot design, and core values. The competition was composed of a three-round robot game.

This years theme was Animal Allies, focusing on challenging students to create an innovative solution to solve a real-world problem to improve the interactions between humans and animals. The teams designed, built and programmed an autonomous robot to compete in the Robot Game, which comprised many missions related to the Animal Allies theme.

The thams goal was to create an innovative tool to improve relationships between animals and humans, and the 3Engineers Team accomplished this by presenting a drone to provide tracking and communication to rangers to stop poachers from killing African rhinos. Equally as innovative, the RoboRocks Team presented a prototype, the Deer-Off Dog, which uses lights and sounds to scare deer away from the backyards.

The Livingston Robotics Club Team was founded in August 2007 and was formally named Livingston Robotics Club and became a 501(c)(3) in 2008. Its mission is to provide a community-based experience-sharing network to introduce Livingston area youth to robotics design and real-life science research, consistent with the vision of For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST).

Today, the club has grown to become a Kindergarten-to 12th-grade community-based science and robotics organization with more than 100 student members from Livingston and surrounding towns. The club is composed of 30 volunteer parents and mentors that lead the teams, and they encourage youth to actively partake in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education with hands-on project based learning.

Jay Slavin, Chandu Mulinti and Sachin Sawant coached the 3Engineers Team whose members are: Logan Slavin, Aarav Mulinti, and Kavin Sawant. Geoffrey Zheng and Jim Wang coached the RoboRocks Team whose members are: Kevin Zhang, Shining Wang, Isabelle Gao, Valentina Zheng, Hannah Shi, and Grant Zhou.

The coaches also shared remarks, thanking the board for thecommendations and recognition. The coaches stressed that the kids efforts were a combination of both STEM education and teamwork. The teams look forward to achieving more success in the future.

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Essex County Freeholders Honor Livingston Robotics Club Teams - TAPinto.net

Bipedal robots have been a tough ask for engineers. Creating a bot thats steady, self-balancing, and able to adapt to uneven terrain (one of the main advantages of going bipedal in the first place!) is a tough ask. But, as this newly unveiled bot from Agility Robotics proves, were getting good at it.

The bots name is Cassie, and, as reported by IEEE Spectrum, it comes from a fine lineage of bipedal robots. Agility Robotics is a spinoff company from Oregon State University, and the firms researchers previously created the ATRIAS robot. (You may remember ATRIAS from a video of it playing a slightly one-sided game of dodgeball.)

ATRIAS was the first machine to demonstrate human-like gait dynamics and implement spring-mass walking, but it was not a practical machine for any use other than science demonstration. Agility Robotics co-founder Jonathan Hurst told Spectrum. (Spring-mass walking basically uses the elasticity of springs to create a passive mechanism mimicking human muscles.)

As well as improving this mechanism, Cassie also adds a 3-degrees-of-freedom hip joint that allows it to be steered more easily, and powered ankles that mean it doesnt have to jig from foot to foot to stand still. (It can just... stand.) A possible final design for a consumer model of Cassie is mocked up below:

But what could such a bipedal bot be used for? Well, walking around on two feet may be complex in engineering terms compared to, say, a wheeled robot, but it means the bot can go pretty much anywhere humans can. Rocky ground? No problem! Stairs? Taking em one by one. Agility Robotics suggests their tech could be used to make search-and-rescue bots; to help improve prosthetic limbs or exoskeletons; and, presumably if the bots become cheap enough, delivering packages. They just need to remember to give it a telescoping stick so it can poke doorbells.

Oh, and because the video above shows a self-balancing robot, heres the traditional kick-to-the-abdomen all such bots seem to be subjected, too:

Just wait till it learns to kick back.

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This bipedal robot could deliver your packages one day - The Verge - The Verge

SINGAPORE:Much like how personal computers transformed the way people saw and used technology, Minister-in-charge of the Smart Nation Programme Office Dr Vivian Balakrishnan said the personal, general-purpose robots would revolutionise the way such technologies feature in people's lives.

He was speaking on Friday (Feb 10), at the opening panel discussion of this years Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Hacking Medicine a weekend-long hackathon aimed at finding solutions to improve healthcare and eldercare through the use of personal robotics.

"This revolution of the personal general-purpose robot - capable of sensing, processing and doing things, would be even bigger than the revolution that was brought about in the last 30 years by the personal computer, said Dr Balakrishnan, to an audience of around 160 participants including engineers, clinicians, designers, developers, researchers and business people.

We want Singapore to be one of these nodes where new ideas, crazy ideas, will change the world. Will liberate human beings from the burdens of age. Will help us remain masters of our lives and still retain our humanity, still retain our connections with other human beings and make life better.

Participants will develop software and hardware applications on Loomo a Segway robotic platform, in focus areas of mental health, rehabilitation and recovery, community care or long-term care. These would allow the robots to become robot assistants capable of understanding and engaging with elderly, as well as patients with conditions such as Alzheimer's and others. Participants may also define a suitable challenge statement based around the theme of Social Robotics for Eldercare.

Dr Balakrishnan reminded participants that such solutions had to address real human needs and remain safer than existing technology or treatments. They also had to be more cost effective and financially accessible to all, while remaining acceptable and resonate with human beings on a psychological and emotional level.

When youre dealing with physical devices capable of sensing and responding in a very sophisticated way, that whole usability and human-robot interface is going to be a very rich field for research and development, said Dr Balakrishnan.

Winners of the hackathon will be announced on Sunday, with a top prize of US$5,000. Their projects will also be featured on a panel at EmTech Asia on Feb 15, while selected teams will be supported by agencies such as government-owned private innovation entity SGInnovate to further refine and scale-up solutions.

At the end of that well put some money behind those with real potential, because wed also like to build not only for Singapore, but for other countries as well, said SGInnovates Founding CEO Steve Leonard.

Healthcare is a really big challenge for us. And we think about providing care for people in that age they need more help physically, they need more help mentally, and thats why we think this robotics platform allows us to find new ways to provide that care. Again, the key is how do we keep people living independently as long as we can.

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Personal robotics the next technological revolution: Dr Vivian Balakrishnan - Channel NewsAsia

Team members from left: Aaron Doull, Enapay Croy, Kaylie Prieur, Kaden Smith, Evan Smith, Markay Williams and mentor Arpad Depaszthory JOE PRIEUR | FISHY BUSINESS INC.

Ont Saturday, Feb. 4, the South Beach robotics team Fishy Business Inc. qualified for the FIRST Technology Challenge West Super Regional Championship set for March 9-12. That competition will pit the top 74 teams across 14 western states against one another in Tacoma. Top placers in that event will advance to the world championships in Houston in mid-April.

The local team took fourth place in qualifications at the state championships in Kent and won the Control Award for its documentation of robot control components. In the competition, teams composed of students and adult mentors build game-playing robots they operate in head-to-head challenges in an alliance format with other teams.

South Beach-area students involved were Ocosta High seniors Enapay Croy, Aaron Doull and Kaylie Prieur, junior Kaden Smith, freshmen Evan Smith, Samatha Starkey and Markay Williams, along with seventh-graderr Jayson Davidson, have put in thousands of hours as a team since the season began in September to design and build a robot that will perform prescribed tasks in the competition setting.

With their performances at their past four events, including first place at the interleague event, there is a high likelihood that they will also qualify for world championships, said mentor Joe Prieur.

The team has been meeting several evenings during the week and long days on weekends. Their hard work and determination is paying off, but they need help getting to the next competition. Up to this point, the team has relied primarily on grants received earlier in the season from Boeing, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and FIRST. Further progression requires funds to be raised to cover necessities like travel, lodging, meals, registration fees and replacement robot parts, he said.

GoFundMe

Toward that end, Fishy Business Inc. has established a GoFundMe account, with the goal of reaching $6,000 within a month to help defray expenses for air travel, overnight stays, meals, ground transportation and robot parts.

4H Ocosta Robotics is a registered non-profit under 4H. Donations may be tax-deductible and donors are advised to see a tax professional for further details.

You can follow the teams progress on Facebook at fb.me/FTC11121 or search Facebook for FTC11121.

Their Facebook page includes a link to the GoFundMe site.

If a local business is interested in sponsoring the team or having the students do a presentation to better understand the skills learned and developed by the team, they may be reached by email at: FRC3787@gmail.com

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South Beach robotics squad advances to super regionals - The Daily World

Ford Motor is spending $1 billion to take over a budding robotics startup to acquire more expertise needed to reach its ambitious goal of having a fully driverless vehicle on the road by 2021.

The big bet announced Friday comes just a few months after the Pittsburgh startup, Argo AI, was created by two alumni of Carnegie Mellon University's robotics program, Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander.

The alliance between Argo and Ford is the latest to combine the spunk and dexterity of a technologically savvy startup with the financial muscle and manufacturing knowhow of a major automaker in the race to develop autonomous vehicles. Last year rival General Motors paid $581 million to buy Cruise Automation, a 40-person software company that is testing vehicles in San Francisco.

The Argo deal marks the next step in Ford's journey toward building a vehicle without a steering wheel or brake pedal by 2021 a vision that CEO Mark Fields laid out last summer.

The big-ticket deal for the newly-minted company clearly was aimed at getting Salesky and Rande. Salesky formerly worked on self-driving cars at a high-profile project within Google now known as Waymo and Rander did the same kind of engineering at ride-hailing service Uber before the two men teamed to launch Argo late last year.

"When talent like that comes up, you don't ignore that ability," said Raj Nair, who doubles as Ford's chief technical officer and product development head.

The two will develop the core technology of Ford's autonomous vehicle the "virtual driver" system, which Nair described as the car's "brains, eyes, ears and senses."

The decision to turn to Argo for help is a tacit acknowledgement that Ford needed more talent to deliver on Fields' 2021 promise, said one expert familiar with Salesky and Rande.

"This is likely a realization that Ford is behind relative to companies like GM, Audi, Volvo, Waymo and Uber, and is trying to catch up," said Raj Rajkumar, a Carnegie Mellon computer engineering professor who leads the school's autonomous vehicle research.

Salesky said Argo expects to have 200 workers by the end of the year. Argo employees will be given stock in the subsidiary as part of their compensation packages so they will be enriched if Argo's technology becomes a hot commodity.

The equity should set Argo apart from other companies in recruiting scarce tech workers. "There's a war for talent out there," Fields said.

By joining with Ford, Argo gets strong capital backing and expertise on other components needed to run autonomous cars, as well as product development and manufacturing knowledge, Salesky said. In return for its funding, Argo will design its driverless system exclusively for Ford and then have a chance to license the technology to other automakers in the future.

Competitors such as NVIDIA have developed artificial intelligence that learns about different situations as it's tested on roads, something that is almost essential for an autonomous car to function in heavy traffic on city streets.

Ford isn't just racing General Motors and other automakers to gain robotics experience. Uber bought autonomous trucking startup Otto for an estimated $680 million last summer primarily to get Otto's engineers on its team working on driverless vehicles. Otto co-founder Anthony Levandowski, another former Google engineer, is now overseeing Uber's testing of driverless cars in Pittsburgh and Arizona.

AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this story.

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Ford Bets $1B on Startup Founded by Waymo, Uber Vets - ABC News

Drone strikes against terrorism suspects have become such a hallmark of US policy, it's easy to forget the technology is only a couple of decades old.

Also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, or remotely piloted aircraft, drones are part of a much bigger robotics revolution sweeping the globe and shaping the contours of conflict in this century.

There are "good guys like environment groups tracking down poachers, and bad guys like ISIS which, Singer says, conducted 60 different drone operations around the battle of Mosul in December 2016 and January 2017. A rebel group, a terrorist group operating a little miniature air force, thats not something we saw before,"Singer says.

Singer, author of Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century and Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War says all this proliferation poses constant new challenges.

Robotics are also in play in high tension zones like the Persian Gulf and the South China Sea, where China recently seized and later returned an American underwater drone. Singer also worries about unmanned aircraft jousting with each other in the skies, the way Chinese and Japanese drones have done recently.

What happens when one of these things crashes? Or what happens when one of these things accidentally bumps into a manned machine?, he asks. I have my own opinions on how the different laws of war apply, but the point is not everyone shares these understandings."

The technology continues to move ahead and our politics, our policies, our laws, they have a hard time keeping apace with it, he says. I like to describe it this way: technology moves at an exponential pace, whereas our laws move at a glacial pace, if that, and the disconnect becomes wider and wider.

Some critics believe the US executive branch now wields too much unchecked power to kill individual terrorism suspects overseas, without oversight from other branches of government. The use of targeted drone strikes thatstarted under President George W. Bush andsharply increased under President Barack Obama, is expected to continue under President Donald Trump.

Even within US borders, ethical issues have arisen over how and when to use robotics in law enforcement. Last summer we had this episode where the Dallas Police Department used a robot that had been originally designed for bomb disposal and instead they jury-rigged it with a bomb and used it to blow up a sniper, says Singer. So we had an ad hoc weaponized robotic system used in a lethal manner inside the United States.

Singer isnt necessarily saying yay or boo, on this, as he puts it. This is something new, and this question hasnt been figured out, he says. My personal take on it is Im not comfortable seeing each and every little local police department figure this out on their own.

It's too early to say how Trump will use drones and other robotics for law enforcement at home, anti-terrorism efforts and in conflict abroad. Ethical questions persist about Obama's use of drone strikes more than 500 strikes, or 10 times more than George W. Bush, but with a tiny fraction the number ofcivilian casualties caused by the US conventional warfare in Iraq.

Get more Whose Century Is It?

Want to learn more about the ideas, trends and twists shaping the 21st century? You'll learn that and more from Whose Century Is It from host Mary Kay Magistad and PRI's The World.

Beyond ethical concerns, Singer is also concerned about the new administrations dismissive attitude toward science, research and development, what he calls the "crown jewels" for America.

"And when you threaten those, either by defunding programs or restricting access to data, or kicking out or keeping out scientists, you jeopardize the crown jewels,this thing that's been so important to America. ...If were seeing a revolution in technology, in business, in war, the worst thing you can do is try and take away the assets that will allow you to succeed in that revolution.

The United States still has an edge, globally, in military robotics, Singer says, but China is gaining ground fast, and Japan and some European players have an edge in other areas. "If you think about this as a race, and you slow down to a walk and the other guy is running, even if they're behind you, at some point they'll catch up and pass you."

The rest is here:

How drones and robotics may shape the future of conflict under President Trump - PRI

FIRST LEGO League (FLL) robotics teams at Flat Rock Middle and J.C. Booth Middle had a very successful season, winning top honors at their Super-Regional competitions and scoring enough points to advance to the state championship.

The teams were among just 64 in Georgia that earned a spot in the state championship that was held at Georgia Gwinnett College on February 4. The season started out with 672 teams in competition. Turtle Troopers from J.C. Booth Middle won the Robot Programming Award at the Georgia State FIRST LEGO League Championship held at Georgia Gwinnett College.

Although the Mighty Robotic Eagles at Flat Rock Middle did not take home any awards at the state championship, they won the Champions Award at their Super-Regional event, meaning that they were one of the top two teams at the competition. Team members include Olivia Lohr, Vince Phan, Nathan Walding, Jonathan Glass, Javon Sullivan, Triston Torres, Richard Collier, Daniel Antoine, and Russell Phillips. Darryl Hutchinson coaches the team.

Two of the three teams from J.C. Booth Middle took home awards at the state championship. The Turtle Troopers won the Robot Programming Award. Team members are Mikela Zuniga, Jack Hemenway, Nicholas DellaTorre, Rylan Christen, Adeola Batiste, Max Roggermeier, Keelan Garcia, and Marc VanZyl. The coaches are Tony DellaTorre, Dennis Christen, and Gerrie VanZyl.

The HIVE won the Innovative Solution Award. Part of the robotics challenge is finding a solution to a problem identified by the team. This years theme was Animal Allies, each team had to identify a problem that occurs when people and animals interact. The HIVE researched using neem oil to replace pesticides, and save the honeybee population. This team also won the Champions Award at their Super-Regional competition. Team members are Dalton Toner, Chase Evans, Michael Johnson, Caleb Claiborne, Madeline Nolen, Andrei Gazinschi, and Jack Flynn. The coaches are Tim Toner and Chad Evans.

The BLT Warriors were the other team from J.C. Booth Middle that competed at the state championship. Team members are Daniel Scott, Ian Fisher, Julian Gevertz, Colin McKay, Georgie Harris, and Caelyn Grimes. The coaches are Amanda Scott and Stephanie Fisher.

Jason Bingel, STEM and engineering teacher, oversees the robotics program at J.C. Booth Middle.

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Robotics teams wins at state meet - The Citizen.com

Robots that walk like humans have been somewhat of a holy grail in the robotics industry for decades but what if, instead of mimicking their creators, they instead mimicked our prehistoric ancestors?

Agility Robotics, a business venture offshoot of the College of Engineering at Oregon State University (OSU), has just unveiled Cassie, the latest leap forward in bipedal robotics, complete with a gait that closely resembles an ostrich or a raptor.

We werent trying to duplicate the appearance of an animal, just the techniques it uses to be agile, efficient and robust in its movement, Jonathan Hurst, Co-founder and CTO of Agile Robotics and associate professor of robotics at OSU,told the University newspaper.

Using a 16-month, $1 million grant from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at the Department of Defense, the team at Agility Robotics successfully built Cassie from scratch in under a year, using custom components that met the stringent technical requirements for such a durable and flexible machine.

For instance, Cassie possesses a hip similar to a humans, allowing for forward and backward mobility as well as the ability to rotate, essential for traversing difficult terrain.

READ MORE:Ditch humans or cooperate? Googles DeepMind tests ultimate AI choice with game theory

Its legs feature powered ankles which greatly reduce the amount of shuffling required to stay upright, a rather unnerving trait displayed by so many of her robotic predecessors such as the ATRIAS series.

The ATRIAS prototypes were also developed by the team at OSU to better understand bipedal locomotion and further their understanding of what it would take for a machine to tackle rough terrain.

We learned a few key things with ATRIAS, Hurst explained, when speaking to Spectrum IEEE, ...the legs on ATRIAS are configured as a 4-bar linkage...however, the configuration results in one motor acting as a brake on the other, with a lot of power cycling internally between motors rather than doing work on the world.

This particular flaw was resolved in two ways: firstly, at the design stage, the distinctive avian articulation of the legs reduced the number of motors required.

Secondly, improvements in battery technology, specifically in lithium-ion batteries, have eliminated the need for a safety gantry (an eye sore and major limiting factor in previous walking robots) as well as allowing the majority of mobility processing to take place on board.

The robotics revolution will bring with it enormous changes, perhaps sooner than many people realize, Hurst said to the OSU newspaper, highlighting the speed with which the industry is advancing.

READ MORE:'Fukushima catastrophe ongoing: Leakage on a daily basis

While the team are one day looking to compete with Amazon in automated package delivery, one obvious application for a free-moving bipedal robot would be in disaster relief and emergency response.

Containment efforts in biohazardous or radioactive events, such as the Fukushima disaster in 2011, have often been frustrated by both human fragility and robotic underdevelopment.

Hurst sees Cassie as the next major leap towards a bipedal robotics revolution, If we really understood how to implement dynamically capable legs, there would be so many applications for them, including search-and-rescue, exoskeletons, powered prosthetic limbs, and package delivery.

Cassie is still undergoing testing before a full commercial launch later this year but the team at Agility Robotics have already set the short to medium term goals of adding arms, so that future Cassie prototypes can self-right, as well as incorporating VR elements into future models to allow for telepresence.

Their ultimate goal is to produce sub-$100k robots for a variety of industries.

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Raptor legs & human hips: Giant leap for walking robots - RT

Five students from Memphis Junior High School will represent their school at the Super-Regional Robotics Championship Tournament in Iowa next month.

These kids will compete against many high school teams, so were excited. They can advance from this to the world competition in St. Louis and there will be teams from China, Japan and Australia there, team mentor Dan Kiehler said.

Members of the FIRST Tech Challenge, or FTC, Robotics Team 8845 The Wild Bees, less formally known as the Wild Bees, initially advanced to the state championship and are one of 15 teams out of over 400 that will represent Michigan at the Super-Regional Championship. The event is a multi-day tournament hosted at the US Cellular Center/DoubleTree Convention Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

FIRST, which stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is a Manchester, New Hampshire-based nonprofit founded in 1989 to inspire young peoples interest and participation in science and technology.

Teams advance to one of the four Super-Regional Championship Tournaments through high achievement at a state or regional championship event, FIRSTs website states. Each Super-Regional Tournament will host 72 teams, for a total of 288 spots at the championships.

The Memphis team will compete in the North Super-Regional Championship. Winning teams will advance to the St. Louis World Championship.

The robotics team is an afterschool program currently in its third year under the direction of parent volunteers Kiehler and Glen Haack.

Weve been somewhat competitive every year and I think were going to do well at the super-regionals. We have a very good team, Kiehler said.

The six-member team picked up honors and trophies at competitions from September to December before earning an invitation to the national event.

Members of the robotics team work together to design, build and operate a robot.

The members must follow rules and regulations for building their robot for competitions. They must keep the unit to 18 by 18, make sure the tires are the correct size and install a set number of motors.

Once the basics are set, teams create activities for the robots such as picking up a ball, turning in place and using a controller to hit a light on the playing field.

The teams are divided up and each member has an assigned task. For example, two members compete as the operator and driver of the robot in front of the meet judges.

The Wild Bees includes team captain and robot driver Marie Melistas, 12, team captain and operator Tommy Wendling, 13, safety captain Tyler Rabine, 12, business manager Chloe Mills, 14, and community relations manager and mascot Clay Jones, 13. Sixth-grader Riley Roy was part of the team throughout the season but will not be making the trip to Iowa. He left the team at the end of the season due to a scheduling conflict.

Each has a role at the competitions. The team must answer questions from the judges and the duo operating the robot on the game floor has just two and a half minutes to show off their skills. As the mascot for the Wild Bees, Joness time is spent wearing the Memphis Bee costume and dancing to entertain the crowd while his team competes.

Having a lot of support at the various competitions throughout the season has been crucial to the Wild Bees success. Kiehler said in addition to Haack, his sons, Nick, Alex and Zack also serve as mentors to the team at every competition.

The Haacks have done so much the last few years. Without that family there wouldnt be a robotics team here, Kiehler said. And weve had phenomenal support from the team parents this year too.

The dedication of the students is also impressive to Kiehler. They are exposed to science, technology and math concepts throughout the process, he said.

Being committed to attending practices twice a week which turn into almost daily meetings when a major competition is on the calendar is a challenge, but one Melistas enjoys.

You have to have patience to be there trying things again and again. But everyone helps with building the robot and, yes, I would recommend the team to other students. she said.

The club can also be costly with robotic parts, tools and entry fees for competitions. Organizers rely on donations, fundraisers and the occasional grant to fund the team.

A returnable bottle drive and a bake sale have raised some funds for the team but the members of the Wild Bees are brainstorming more ways to earn money for their trip. They are hoping a local sponsor steps forward to pay their national competition entry fee, which could be as much as $1,000.

To find out more about the team, call Dan Kiehler at 810-531-4235 or visit facebook.com/team8845.

Barb Pert Templeton is a freelance reporter. She can be contacted at barbperttempleton.reporter@yahoo.com.

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Memphis robotics team headed to Super-Regionals - New Baltimore Voice Newspapers

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. Patriot Robotics VEX team, 405, and Kenwood Knights Sword, 98706K, of Clarksville, TN, along with partner, 97934V team Valiant, from Franklin Road Academy had a huge win at the White House competition on February 4.

These teams formed the 3rd seeded alliance and would surprise the competitors in the final matches.

Patriot Robotics consists of George Michael Huttick, a senior of Rossview High School, Matthew Riley, a freshman, and Adam Riley, a junior, both attend the STEM academy at Kenwood High School.

Team Valiant consists of David Chandler, Conor Ireland and James Munn, all seniors, and freshman Tennent Grace Smith from Franklin Road Academy.

The Kenwood Knights Sword consists of Chance Piefer, Adam Berenger, Jared Bauman and Connor Thomas, all juniors, and freshman Savannah Piefer from the Kenwood STEM academy. The team also includes senior Nathan Bailey.

The independent team Patriot Robotics seeded 3rd after four qualification matches and picked the 6th seeded team Valiant, Franklin Road Academy. They finished off alliance selection by choosing Kenwood Knights Sword to make an incredible alliance. From there the alliance had to fight to get to the finals. Facing the last seeded alliance was not a problem for the teams, however, semifinals proposed a bigger problem.

The semifinals match consisted of the alliance having to face three Brentwood Academy teams that work together on a regular basis. The Brentwood teams had beaten Franklin Road and their alliance at a previous tournament.

405 and its partners pulled off the win and moved onto the finals where they would have to face an alliance of two more Brentwood Academy teams. After not losing a match all day the 3rd seed alliance went in confident and won their last finals match drastically and didnt even let Brentwood Academy score, giving them the outstanding result of 48-0.

Patriot Robotics also pulled off another huge win by also winning the most coveted award in VEX robotics, the Excellence Award.

Now with all of the 3rd alliance teams qualified for state, much practice and work is needed to stay ahead of the reigning former state champions, Brentwood Academy. The state tournament will be held on March 4 at Brentwood Academy where the top 30 teams in the state will go head to head in the knowledge of their robots and how well teams can drive and program their robots.

They have a few weeks to prepare to win 5 of the TN state spots that will get to compete at VEX Worlds Championship in Louisville, KY in mid-April.

Patriot Robotics 405 is the only team representing Tennessee at the U. S. Open National Robotics Championship held in early April in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

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Patriot Robotics Alliance upsets Brentwood Academy Alliances - Clarksville Now

Image: Agility Robotics via YouTube Cassie is a dynamic bipedal robot developed by Agility Robotics, which says it could be used for research, disaster relief, and, long term, delivery of packages.

Today, Agility Robotics, a spin-off of Oregon State University, is officially announcing a shiny new bipedal robot named Cassie. Cassie is a dynamic walker, meaning that it walks much more like humans do than most of the carefully plodding bipedal robots were used to seeing. This makes it better at handling the kind of diverse and complex terrain that we walk over all the time without even thinking, a talent thats going to be mandatory for robots that want to tackle the different environments and situations that theyll need to master to be actually useful around people.

In addition to search-and-rescue and disaster relief, Agility Robotics has one particular environment and situation in mind: They want Cassie to be scampering up your steps to deliver packages to your front door.

Cassie is just three months old in this video, which, if you consider the typical pace for teaching a bipedal robot that you designed from the ground up from scratch to walk without constantly falling over, is quite frankly astonishing. As you can see in the video, theyre not being shy with what they ask Cassie to do: Its on dirt, its on grass, its balancing on a wobbly dock surrounded by an alarming amount of water, its even standing outside in the rain, which is an important feature for any robot that spends much time in Oregon.

And if Cassie looks a bit more like an ostrich than a human, it wasnt because Agility Robotics was specifically trying for an ostrich-like robot: They dont want to necessarily mimic the morphology of animals, although they do study animal behavior and dynamicsfor inspiration and insights. So while ground-running birds may have had the idea first, Agility Robotics intelligently designed Cassie to be agile, efficient, and robust, and this is the leg that they came up with.

Agility Robotics may be a new company, but its made up of the folks behind the ATRIAS robots, including MARLO at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. Cassie is the next-generation robot thats intended to take everything that was learned from the ATRIAS project and build it into a platform thats both more capableand more practical, as Agility Robotics co-founder (and OSU professor) Jonathan Hurst tells us:

There were many, many unknowns in the design of ATRIAS. ATRIAS was the first machine to demonstrate human-like gait dynamics and implement spring-mass walking [reproducingthe ground reaction forces and center-of-mass motion of human walking], but it wasnot a practical machine for any use other than science demonstration.

We learned a few key things with ATRIAS: First, the legs on ATRIAS are configured as a 4-bar linkage, in part to create minimum inertia for the spring-mass model embodiment. However, the configuration results in one motor acting as a brake on the other, with a lot of power cycling internally between motors rather than doing work on the world. After some analysis, we developed the specific leg configuration of Cassie. This allows the motors to be smaller, and the robot to be far more efficient than even ATRIAS was.

In addition to increased efficiency, Cassie has all kinds of other practical improvements over ATRIAS. It has a 3-degrees-of-freedom hip like humans do, allowing the robot to move its legs forward and backward, side to side, and also rotate them at the same time. This makes Cassie steerable in a way that ATRIAS wasnt. It also has powered ankles, which it uses to stand in place without having to constantly move its feet the way ATRIAS does, and it has enough battery power to run some beefy on-board computers, meaning that integrated perception is now an option.

University of Michigan engineering professorJessyGrizzle, who wrangles the ATRIAS robot named MARLO at the Dynamic Legged Locomotion Lab, is getting one of the first Cassie robots, and both he (and his students, who have the thankless job of making sure that MARLO doesnt faceplant during their outdoor tests) are particularly excited about how durable Cassie is. Cassie is tough, Grizzle tells us. Its designed for the rough and tumble life of an experimental robot. In principle, we should not have to use a safety gantry of any kind. This will allow us to take the robot into wild places.

Meanwhile, Agility Robotics is already looking beyond research towards commercial applications for Cassie, Hurst tells us:

If we really understood how to implement dynamically capable legs, there would be so many applications for them, including search-and-rescue, exoskeletons, powered prosthetic limbs, and package delivery.

I believe legged locomotion is going to be analogous to the automotive industry, in terms of size and how it transforms our society. We all want telepresence robots; we all want robots that can help us in our homes. We all want groceries and other goods delivered to our homes on a moments notice and for insignificant cost. We all want the cost of manufactured goods to be significantly reduced through more efficient logistics throughout the manufacturing process. Cassie is a step in this direction: it is a first product that will initially be sold to research institutions to support a community of researchers solving the problem of locomotion in the human environment, and Cassie will continue to improve and evolve, as Agility Robotics focuses on products and commercial customers.

Hurst tells us that arms and sensors are coming soon, which will enable Cassie to get up by itself after a fall, and theyre also working on VR-style telepresence. In terms of cost, Agility Robotics wouldnt disclose specific numbers, saying only that theirgoal is to end up with sub-$100k robots.

The company says the initial Cassie production run is already completely sold out, but if you want one to play with, more will be available later in the summer. As far as using Cassie to deliver packages, its a compelling idea, and we can see the benefits: In a world where so much of our spacesare designed around bipedal mobility, a bipedal robot could become the easiest and most reliable platform to do anything practical. Cassie has some work to do before its ready to be hauling groceries up stairs for you, but were very much looking forward to watching this robot taking more steps toward robust and dynamic legged locomotion.

[ Agility 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

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Agility Robotics Introduces Cassie, a Dynamic and Talented Robot Delivery Ostrich - IEEE Spectrum

LOS LUNAS Math and engineering concepts come alive students say, when they use them to build robots.

The Valencia County Home School Robotics Teams used simple engineering plans and equipment to build robots they will compete in the Kirtland Air Force Research Laboratory La Luz Academy Robotics Challenge on March 2.

The three home-school teams are the Transformers, Big Hero 3 and The Ohm Schoolers.

Ive had an amazing experience in robotics, said Amanda Sparks with the Transformers team. Ive made new friends and broadened my mind in many different subjects.

In final preparation for the robotics competition, each team gave a presentation and demonstrated their robots abilities last week at the Community Bible Church in Los Lunas.

The Transformers robot, Opie, a small, boxy BOE-Bot with whiskers, was programmed to change course when its antenna touches an obstacle.

When the whiskers are pushed, it sends a message to the servos (individual motor) that it needs to move back and turn a different way, explained Elizabeth Schatzinger.

It looks a lot easier than it is, but once youve figured out the basics, you can perform the other tasks, added teammate Amanda Sparks.

Sometimes what we program does not turn out how we want it to but using our math skills, we can figure out the problem and fix the program, she said.

Sparks learned a surprising number of new math skills she said, and teammate Max Kiehne said its about learning computer programming language.

In the beginning, I learned about binary, which before this class I thought was really hard to learn, but then I learned the basics and I found its a lot simpler than most people probably would think, Kiehne said.

Only the top scoring 30 teams out of 80 statewide will go on to the Robotics Challenge. Along with the home-schooled teams, there are seven teams from Valencia Middle School and 12 teams are being hosted at Peralta Elementary School.

The La Luz Academys science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, educational outreach program is available free to any New Mexico public, private or home-school grades 5-12.

The home-schooled seventh-and eighth-graders have been participating in a weekly robotics class since September 2016.

What I once thought to be random letters and numbers turns out to be an amazing and intricate method of communication between us and the robot, said Rebekah Sparks from the Big Hero 3 team, which also includes Allison Storch and Timothy Schatzinger.

Their robot, Baymax, knows when to move and when to turn on the obstacle course. To enable their robot, the team measured the course with a tape measure, used a calculator they created using Excel to convert inches or centimeters to counter, which is a measure that robots use, the students said. Different numbers equal different distances in counter.

Schatzinger said he wasnt crazy about robots when he started the program but now he is a lot smarter, especially in math where he learned binary. Binary uses only ones and zeroes to calculate the numbers for counter distances and other computer programming.

I dont think (robots) are going to rule the world anymore because they cant even learn how to go through a blue course until we program them, Schatzinger said inciting laughter from the audience.

Students stretch their minds to solve the engineering problems that arise in programming robot functions.

Hands-on experience helps a bunch, said Emma Kennington, of the Ohm team. Being able to test it, you know you have understood it when you can get your robot to work the way you want it to.

The objective of the AFRL La Luz Academy educational outreach program is to raise student interest in pursuing STEM related studies and career paths. The program also seeks to involve student participants from groups traditionally under-represented in STEM fields, including females and minorities.

The program is available free of charge. The only requirement is that a teacher come forward with a willingness to teach the classroom based programs, Mars Mission, Robotics Challenge, and STEM Challenge or agrees to coordinate student scheduling for the experiences held on KAFB. All teachers are provided with training and resources to carry out class assignments. There is no grant proposal or application. For more information, visit the website at afrlnewmexico.com/afrl-la-luz-academy or call 846-8042.

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The Edge FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) team members (from left) Eddie Noll, Matt Lesch, Joey Self, and Muffin Tanks team members Sam Bradin, coach Heinz Bourquin and Lucas Bourquin drive their robots to a first-place finish at the FTC State Championship held at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Feb. 4. The teams advanced to super-regional competition in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in March.(Photo: Submitted)

Four prequalified teams from the Hartland area competed at the 2017 Wisconsin State Championship for FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology)Tech Challenge (FTC) on Feb.4: The Edge, team 10294, The Knack, team 9956and rookie teams Muffin Tanks, team 11490, and Formal Emus, team 11353.

A total of 24 teams from around Wisconsin met at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to compete in the 2016-17 game Velocity Vortex.

The Velocity Vortex challenge started in September when teams around the world learned the rules of this year's game. Teams design, build and program a robot to complete challenges in the game, played on a 12-foot square field on a soft mat floor. The challenges are worth points during a three-minute match.Alliances of two teams face off in each match, which starts with an autonomous period where robots operate using only preprogrammed instructions, according to the FIRST website atfirstinspires.org.

Each match has two periods of play:the30 second autonomous period, followed by a two-minute driver-controlled period during which drivers attempt to score points by placing particles (small balls) andcap balls (exercise balls), triggering beacons for their alliance or parking the robot on specific parts of the field. The last 30 seconds of the game is the end game, which adds new scoring opportunities.

Students are also required to keep an engineering notebook detailing their design, building and programming process.

The Edge, along with Muffin Tanks won the 2017 FTC State Championship along with their alliance partner, the Supposable Thumbs, team 4106from New Berlin.The Edge will now advance to the North Super-Regionalin Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in March.

The Edge team members are Reagan Zimmerman, Ryan Tabor, Joey Self, Matthew Lesch, Nick Noll, Eddie Noll, Alex Noll and Paul Schlager. They are coached by Kent Tabor, Kirk Noll, Louisa Self, Kevin Self and Debbie Rypkema.

Four Hartland area FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) teams competed at the 2017 Wisconsin State Championship on Feb. 4 at the Universwity of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. FTC rookie team 22490 Muffin Tanks (left), FTC team 10294 The Edge (middle), and FTC team 9956 The Knack (right) are pictured at the state competition. FTC team 11353 Formal Emus also competed.(Photo: Submitted)

The Muffin Tanks team includes Lucas Bourquin, Sam Bradin, Jacob Johnson, Erik Giess, Saniya Saluja, who are coached by Heinz Bourquin and Chris Mehling.

Hartland area students in grades seventhrough 12 interested in robotics can join this program sponsored by FIRST, who also supports FIRST Lego League (FLL) at grade schools and FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) at high schools. FTC teams usually have sixto 12 students coached by parents and community volunteers who have an interest in teaching students about technology.

To learn more about FIRST robotics programs visitfirstinspires.org.

FIRST Tech Competition (FTC) team The Edge members (from left) Eddie Noll, Matt Lesch and Joey Self drive their robot and place an exercise ball (cap ball) onto the goal in the final seconds of a game at the FTC State Championship at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Feb. 4. Capping the goal counts for 40 points in the game.(Photo: Submitted)

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Hartland robotics teams take on the FIRST Tech challenge at state competition - LC Sussex Sun