At the robotics tournament in Axtell last month, Trey Bahler, far right, was runner-up with the Aurora team, who Bahler picked to be in an alliance with. Bahler has qualified for further state and national competition for his design work. (Courtesy photo)

Brady Gittlein and Cade Francis, center, compete in the first match of the day Saturday in Lincoln. (Courtesy photo)

Thu, 02/09/2017 - 9:17am Imperial1

Four Chase County Schools (CCS) students competed in a robotics tournament at Lincoln Northstar on Saturday, where they faced 31 other teams from across the state. The team of Brady Gittlein, Cade Francis, Rebeca Subia and Oyuky Perez-Gamboa represented CCS, and finished in the top half in the qualifying rounds. In the finals, they finished fifth, after winning their quarterfinal round match. In the semi-finals, CCS fell to the team that ended up tournament champions. It was a great learning day. Too bad this team doesnt have another tournament to go to. I feel theyd do much better, said Coach Kim Wilson. Other teams in Lincoln last weekend were Cross County, Lincoln Public Schools, Millard West, Battle Creek, Hershey, Ogallala, Waverly, Weeping Water, Grand Island, Crete and Omaha North Magnet.

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Robotics teams at CCS stay busy at tournaments - Imperial Republican

Baxter and Sawyer will now operate with Intera 5. (Image: Rethink Robotics.)

Today's industrial robots can be programmed to do complicated tasks involving multiple steps. The only problem is that most warehouse employees don't know how to program robots, and roboticists are awfully expensive. Rethink Robotics has announced a new software release that should make it much easier to put robots to work.

The Boston-based firm is already known for making "easy" robots; Sawyer and its predecessor Baxter are collaborative robots that can learn by demonstration. Existing employees can train a robot by simply grabbing its arm and showing it what to do. This technique has worked well for simple tasks, but more complicated jobs have required specialized programming.

Now, the robots will run on Intera 5, a software platform that the Rethink Robotics team says will allow manufacturers to integrate robots into factories in just a few hours. This kind of fast and easy deployment will be a key factor in the widespread adoption of industrial robots . Despite the obvious benefits of automation -- consistently high throughput with minimal labor -- the idea of adding a fleet of robots to a traditional warehouse can be overwhelming.

In an announcement about the software release Rethink Robotics President and CEO Scott Eckert said:

We wouldn't usually make such a fuss over a simple software upgrade, but Intera 5 is a complete overhaul. IEEE Spectrum reports that the new version is based on ROS (Robot Operating System) and it is the result of 30 people working on the new code for the last two years. The software platform has a behavior tree that is presented as a visual diagram. Operators can still grab the robot's arm to show it what to do, but now they can also zoom in on the behavior tree to program complex tasks based on a string of specific actions.

If industrial robots can truly be integrated in just a few hours, it will make them more appealing on several levels. First, it eliminates the fear that they are complicated machines that require robotics expertise. Second, the quick setup also helps avoid interrupting normal operations, which reduces the initial cost. Additionally, the robots are now flexible enough for applications that experience frequent unpredictable fluctuations in demand, such as making clothes for the fashion industry.

Video: Trump may bring jobs back to the US, but robots will get them

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Rethink Robotics rethinks its software | ZDNet - ZDNet

Caltech

With articulated wings covered in a stretchy silicone, a 93-gram autonomous robot can mimic several of the complex aerial manoeuvres of bats.

Bat wings contain more than 40 joints that allow for a variety of intricate moves through the air. Earlier bat-inspired robots have been unable to get off the ground, and flying robots have been modelled on birds and insects. Bat Bot (pictured), built by Soon-Jo Chung at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and his colleagues, can fly straight, dive and do banked turns. The team identified and included the nine most important wing joints needed for the robot to make these moves, and covered the robot's skeleton with a thin silicone membrane that allowed the wings to fold and extend. Each wing can move independently, as can the leading and trailing sections of each wing.

The robot could be used to further study the mechanics of bat flight, the authors say.

Sci. Robot. 2, eaal2505 (2017)

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Robotics: A robot that flies like a bat : Nature : Nature Research - Nature.com

For many seniors and stroke victims, a trip to Disneyland with the little ones is physically out of reach.But Thomas Sugar, an ASU mechanical engineer who specializes in wearable technology, predicts that in the next five years, older people and others with mobility problems will be able to rent robotic exoskeletons that make dream vacations as well as mundane tasks a possibility.

Were on the cusp of making these technologies available and affordable for the general public, Sugar said Tuesday. His ASU spin-out company, SpringActive Inc., aims to have a robotic prosthetic ankle in production for the general population within the next year.

Sugar and more than 300 other rehab robotics researchers, clinicians and industry leaders gathered this week at ASU for the fifth annual Rehabilitation Robotics Conference.

There has been increased interest in the rehab robotics driven by an aging population dealing with the aftermath of debilitating health problems based on the promise of restored physical movement and control. Most rehab robotic therapies originated to help military veterans, but the next generation will seek to serve the general public.

The field covers a range of assistive therapies and devices, including exoskeletons that support walking and lifting, treadmill-like robots that help stroke survivors use their arms and legs, and prosthetics that allow users to sense space and dimension.

The conference provides our junior investigators with an unprecedented opportunity to hear about three decades of research from the people who created the field, said Marco Santello, a neurophysiologist and director of the School of Biological Health Sciences. We have collected research on neuroplasticity, locomotion dynamics and a myriad of other body-machine interfaces. The next phase will bring a new generation of rehabilitative technologies.

Widespread clinical acceptance of rehabilitation robotics is the most significant change well see in the next decade, said Neville Hogan, a mechanical engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who spoke at the conference.

Tech-savvy therapists recognize the value of assistive robotics and see the standardized data collection they afford as a major benefit, Hogan said.

Its far less subjective than the clipboard methods of the past, and enhances our ability to tailor therapy to individual patients, he said.

Dario Farina, chair of neurorehabilitation engineering at the Imperial College of Londons Department of Bioengineering, also presented at the workshop.

His research has enabled the simultaneous processing of hundreds of motor neurons the signals the brain sends to muscles without invasive procedures. The breakthrough has challenged classic views on the neural activity that drives steadiness in the performance of precise tasks and is expected to result in prosthetic devices that give patients unprecedented levels of fine motor control.

In the near future, it will be possible to fully decode the neural information sent from the spinal cord and build man-machine interfaces for the natural and dexterous control of bionic limbs,Farina said, explaining that patients will be able to control prosthetic devices with the same, automatic mental commands used to control their natural hands.

Because health problems affect patients differently, fine-tuning rehab therapies is the next focus for Panagiotis Artemiadis, an ASU mechanical engineer whose research includes mechatronics and human-robot interaction.

In the next five years, he said, well be able to adjust robotics to be patient specific.

Link:

Rehab robotics field promises to return control, mobility to aging population - ScienceBlog.com (blog)

Photo: Rethink Robotics Rodney Brookss startup Rethink Robotics is releasing software to make its collaborative robot Sawyer more versatile and easier to program.

Rethink Robotics is taking the wraps off a massive project that the company has been working on for two years. Its been a big part of our development that the world hasnt seen, says Rethink founder and CTO Rodney Brooks. Ive been so excited about this because I know what it can do.

A little over a year ago, Rethink started shipping Sawyer, a collaborative robot designed to be faster, stronger, and more precise than the companys first cobot, Baxter, which didnt sell like hotcakes, as Brooks had expected. But developing a brand-new robot was just part of Rethinks post-Baxter plans: Another goal was completely rebuilding its software platform, called Intera, which is responsible for controlling all of Sawyers functions as well as allowing users to program the robot.

Intera 5, which the company is announcing today, is a big jump from previous versions and will make Sawyer more versatile and easier to program, Brooks tells IEEE Spectrum. Itscompletely new, he says, adding that 30 people worked on the software platform, which is based on ROS.None of my code anymore. My code is gone.

At the heart of the new system is what Brooks calls a behavior engine that lets users program complex tasks based on simpler ones. While in previous Intera releases large sequences of tasks were difficult to modify, now all tasks are graphically arranged as abehavior tree, making it easierto visualize, understand, and adjust what the robot is doing at every step.

The new software is critical for Rethinks bid to gain more traction in the rapidly growing collaborative robots market. The Boston-based startup, which was founded in 2008 and has raised $131.5 million in VC funding, hasnt disclosed sales numbers, but it says Sawyer is selling much better than Baxter, helping the company triple its revenue last year.

Other robot makers, including startups like Franka Emika, which plans to launch a cobot this year, are also devoting a lot of attention to their user interfaces and software features. Analysts credit an easy-to-use interface as a major factor in helping Danish firm Universal Robots dominate the cobot market, with thousands of robots shipped per year.

Rod Brooks says Rethinks experience with Baxter showed that software is just as important as hardware when it comes to convincing manufacturers to embrace automation. With earlier versions of Intera, it was easy to get the robot to do most simple tasks, especially by using its teach-by-demonstration feature. But what Rethink found out is that many customers actually want to do much more complex tasks, and while Sawyer was in principle capable of carrying them out, programming the robot was the biggest hurdle.

We were concentrating on teach by demonstration, and it was producing an internal representation which wasnt visible to the user, Brooks explains. And the more sophisticated you were, the more frustrating the opaqueness of what was happening inside was.

Intera 5s behavior trees aim to solve this problem. The new interface provides an explicit visual diagram of the sequence of tasks the robot will run through. Every node of a behavior tree, you can click down and get every possible parameter, every possible detail [of the robot], Brooks says. Theres nothing hidden.

Brooks hopes the new system will help users master Sawyers advanced vision and force-sensing capabilities to tackle complex automation jobs, especially in the electronics manufacturing sector. To illustrate the point, Brooks likes to show off videos of Sawyer performing challenging tasks. In one, the robot uses its Cognex camera and force sensingto inspect switches, bolts, and wires on a water pump:

In another video, Sawyeris seen inserting a DIMM memory module on a motherboard. First, the robot positions the module on the socket by feeling its corners; it then gently pushes the DIMM down, measuring the force to detect whether it clicked or not. We exposed a lot of the force control, Brooks says. So you can say, Press down with 2 Newtons, but no more than 2 centimeters downwards, and be compliant in x and y, but rigid in rotation about the vertical z-axis.

Another challenge Rethink wants to solve with Intera 5 involves coordinating Sawyer and all the other assembly line componentsconveyor belts, equipment to feed and sort parts, machines like drills and CNCs. Factories typically connect things using programmable logic controllers, or PLCs. And PLCs suck, Brooks says. You can quote me on that. A company would buy a Sawyer and put it to run right away, he says, but getting the PLCs and all the rest connected could take weeks and months. Nowin typical Internet of Things, or IoT, fashionusers will be able to plug a variety of assembly-line equipment directly to Sawyer and then control that with the same behavior tree that controls the robot on Intera.

Ultimately Brooks wants to focus on automating ever more complex tasks, disregarding the relatively simple applications that other cobot companies are currently pursuing, a market he believes will soon be taken over by cheaper robots from China. I want to go somewhere different, thats a much more interesting place to be, and which I think is the bigger market.

At the same time he explains that making robots easier to use is much more than a business strategy for him. Its something thats been with me since Day 1, he says, noting that our consumer goods require no training and the same should apply to robots. How many people need to be trained to use this? he says, waving his iPhone. It trains the person.

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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Rethink's Robots Get Massive Software Upgrade, Rodney Brooks So Excited - IEEE Spectrum

Image: Mime Industries

Think it's tricky to build and program a robot arm? Think again.

Powered by the Raspberry Pi, the MeArm Pi is a robot arm designed to be simple enough that kids aged 11+ can build and program it.

The lightweight plastic arm, which can pick up small objects such as Lego bricks, comes as a kit that keeps the number of screws to a minimum and is relatively straightforward to assemble using the included hex keys. It can be controlled via the Pi, either using joysticks attached to the included Pi HAT add-on board or by programming it from the Pi.

Programming the arm is possible using drag and drop programming tools like Scratch or Blockly, or for more experienced users, using the Python or JavaScript programming languages. Ultimately any programming language that can be used to interact with the pins on the Pi should be able to be used. For those unfamiliar with the command line, the MeARM can be programmed via a web app in the browser.

SEE: Raspberry Pi in 2017: New boards, new OSes and more

There's also a Node.js app that performs various functions, including allowing users to control the servos in the arm via the Pi's General-Purpose Input Output (GPIO) pins and even to control the arm remotely via a web browser.

The MeARM's add-on board is compatible with the Raspberry Pi Model B+ form factor, and should work with the Pi Zero but won't fit in the case.

The company behind MeARM also makes Mirobot, a build-it-yourself WiFi drawing robot that teaches children about technology, programming and mathematics.

The MeARM is available in orange or blue has already passed its 10,000 funding goal on Kickstarter, raising 14,770 with 28 days to go. The standard kit costs 60 ($75).

Read more from the original source:

Raspberry Pi-powered arm: This kit aims to make robotics simple enough for kids - TechRepublic

WPI News

WPI Robotics Team Has a Mission with Mars | News | WPI WPI News A team of robotics students and faculty and staff from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) is among 20 finalists in the NASA-sponsored Space Robotics ... and more »

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WPI Robotics Team Has a Mission with Mars | News | WPI - WPI News

More than 20 sixth through eighth graders come to school early Thursday mornings for Derby Middle Schools Robotics Club.

The club started in November and had its first competition on Jan. 21 at Hesston High School.

For being the first middle school to compete in a high school competition, the team came home with a Sportsmanship Award.

Dave Brown, Project Lead the Way instructor at the middle school, saw the interest his students had in his automation and robotics class.

We didnt finish first, but we didnt finish last, Brown said.

They competed against 28 high school teams and had little time to prepare. They won two out of their seven matches and placed 25th overall.

Mentors for the club are professional engineers.

Kenya McConico from The Pando Initiative reached out to Spirit AeroSystems to see if its employees would be interested in mentoring students in the club.

Jeremy James, stress engineer at Spirit, is one of the four volunteers that come to the school every Thursday morning.

James received an email about the club at work, and he saw it as an opportunity to give back to the community.

I like helping the kids out and seeing their interest, James said.

As far as Brown knows, this is the only middle school robotics team in the area. Students dont pay anything to participate in the club, but the biggest challenge for Brown is raising money so it can stay that way. As of now, the club is borrowing a robotics field from Derby North Middle School, but DNMS plans to start a team next year.

Brown said he envisions the middle school team as a training ground for Derby High Schools team.

Their first meet behind them, students have their eyes set on the state robotics competition on March 4.

Seventh grader Laci Simon said that the first meet was overwhelming because they had 25 people in one team and most teams had three people per team.

We were rushed a lot, Simon said.

The club will have two teams of 12 compete at state, but Brown said he does not have enough equipment to make the teams any smaller. He would prefer having six students per team, but he would need enough materials to make four robots.

Now that there are two smaller teams, seventh grader Alexis Silva said it is easier for her to participate.

At first, I didnt touch the robot because there were all the guys around it, and they were arguing a lot so I was stuck making posters and signs, Silva said.

Now, Silva is in charge of building the scissor lift.

When they grow up, Silva and Simon both want to have jobs where they use science and math to build things.

Brown said the teams are taking baby steps and continue to do their best with what they have.

Simon said her goal for state is to win at least half of the matches.

Although students learn a lot from competing against high school teams, they wish they could level the playing field.

We want other middle school teams to have robotics clubs so we can go against people our same age, Silva said.

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Derby Middle School robotics club competes at high school competition - The Derby Informer

By Erin Hawkins

Olympic Peninsula News Group

SEQUIM Just before the Sequim High School Robotics Club started gearing up for the FIRST Robotics Competition 2017, it received a $10,000 grant from Praxair Inc.

Brad Moore, Sequim High School teacher and Robotics Club faculty adviser, applied for the grant last fall.

The Sequim High School Robotics Club has been designing, programming and building robots to compete against high school students across the Northwest for seven years since the clubs first inception.

Moore applied for the grant through Praxairs Global Giving Program in 2015, a program that contributed millions of dollars to provide scholarships to community colleges and technical schools for critical skills that are needed in local workforces.

The grant money will be used to cover costs associated with robotic competition. The students are allowed to spend up to $4,000 on a robot for this years competition, Moore said, starting March 17-19 in Mount Vernon, March 31-April 2 in Auburn and then to Cheney if the students qualify for the championships from April 5-8.

Its a very expensive venture to run, Moore said. He explained that just to get the club started seven years ago, it cost $10,000.

The club has received a couple of grants from Praxair in previous years, but the amount it received this year has been the most the club has been awarded with so far.

It also has received grants from other organizations over the years such as Boeing, Pacific Northwest FIRST, OSPI and the Sequim Education Foundation in order to maintain club costs. The robotics club also raised money this year from fundraisers such as the luau and silent auction the club hosted.

Thirteen students are involved in the Robotics Club 10 boys and three girls. Moore said last year, the team had a lot of senior students, but this year he is working with several freshmen.

Last year, we were super senior-heavy, and this year were very young, he said.

Moore tries to encourage his younger students to jump in on the designing, programming and building process, which is what the club is all about.

I want [students] to not be afraid to make a mistake; thats part of life, he said.

The club also consists of several volunteer mentors, such as Sequim High School teacher Stuart Marcy, retired Boeing engineer Martin Cahoon, retired software engineer Pat Volk, retired programmers Mike Becker and Jerome Bileck, retired Navy physician Gary Henriksen, contractor/inventor Brad Griffith and teacher and Moores spouse, Kathy.

Every year, the FIRST Robotics Competition is different. The students and mentors have six weeks to build and construct a robot that must be able to perform a variety of tasks within certain time restrictions for robotic competition.

The kids have to design and work with problems, Moore said of the designing, programming and building process.

This year, the competition will feature a steampunk theme, and students must come up with not only a design for the robot but all the engineering and electronics needed to meet competition guidelines, such as building a robot that must fit into two different volumes at all times, some that are horizontal while others are more vertical.

Moore said on day one, the students decide on a strategy and will build a robot to meet that strategy.

For me personally, the kids get to go through a real engineering process, Moore said. You go from nothing to a completed robot and system that can play the game.

He explained that from start to finish, designing, programming and building the robot is a very time-consuming process.

Were here till 8 oclock every night. Some of these kids put in five hours every day, Moore said.

Riley Chase, Sequim High School senior and president of the Robotics Club, said he has put in an estimated 80 hours so far.

The big goal for the team is not just to get to the FIRST Robotics Competition championships but to get to the world championships in Houston. Last year, Moore said they were three teams away from making the world championships.

The Robotics Club officers include Chase, Vice President Riley Scott, Safety Officer Max Koonz, Treasurer Bailey Rux, Secretary Brenton Barnes, Public Relations Xavier Conway and Parliamentarian Nick Charters.

________

Erin Hawkins is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach her at ehawkins@sequimgazette.com.

Volunteer mentor Martin Cahoon, center, shares a schematic on the laptop in the school shop with Robotics students Max Koonz, Nick Charters and Josh King, from left. (Patsene Dashiell)

Sequim High School teacher and Robotics Club faculty adviser Brad Moore shows components of one of the robots the club constructed for last years FIRST Robotics Competition. (Erin Hawkins/Olympic Peninsula News Group)

Sequim High School senior and Robotics Club President Riley Chase works on the electronics board for this years robot that will compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition 2017. (Erin Hawkins/Olympic Peninsula News Group)

Sequim High School senior and Robotics Club President Riley Chase works on the electronics board for this years robot that will compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition 2017. (Erin Hawkins/Olympic Peninsula News Group)

One of the robots the Sequim High School Robotics Club constructed last year to compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition. (Erin Hawkins/Olympic Peninsula News Group)

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Donation will cover costs for Sequim robotic competition - Peninsula Daily News

Robots are invaluable tools in the workplace, but they often still require a specialist to train in anything more than elementary tasks. Rethink Robotics is helping improve that situation with a powerful and intuitive new platform for its Sawyer robots called Intera 5.

Many robots already allow anyone to train them by, say, moving the arm along the path it should take and programming actions at the end. But building more complex behaviors can be tricky.

These cascading choices multiply quickly and few robot systems are equipped to have new ones put in on a regular basis or if they are, its dedicated roboticists or coders who do it. This limits the ability of, say, a small factory to switch between jobs or reconfigure if demand increases.

Intera 5 is a way for on-the-floor workers to change or add behaviors easily, with hardly any training let alone an engineering degree.

Its a relatively simple behavior tree system with a bright, straightforward GUI and instructions. If this, then that: scan, move, pick up, put down, softly, quickly. And because the robot uses computer vision, you dont have to make sure every part or bucket is where it needs to be with millimeter precision. It also can be programmed from the desktop with a similarly visual UI.

Being able to automate easily and respond quickly to changes in the workflow or new orders makes a robot a much more attractive prospect for small businesses that might have gotten by until now with temps and minimal automation.

Existing Sawyer robots should be able to get the Intera 5 update soon, and new robots will have it installed by default.

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Rethink Robotics makes its workplace bots easier to train and redeploy - TechCrunch

LONDON Inspired by his belief that human beings are essentially terrified of robots, Ben Russell set about charting the evolution of automatons for an exhibition he hopes will force people to think about how androids and other robotic forms can enhance their lives.

Robots, says Russell, have been with us for centuries as Robots, his exhibit opening Wednesday at Londons Science Museum, shows.

From a 15th century Spanish clockwork monk who kisses his rosary and beats his breast in contrition, to a Japanese childoid newsreader, created in 2014 with lifelike facial expressions, the exhibition tracks the development of robotics and mankinds obsession with replicating itself.

Arnold Schwarzeneggers unstoppable Terminator cyborg is there, as is Robby the Robot, star of the 1956 film Forbidden Planet, representing the horror and the fantasy of robots with minds of their own.

There are also examples of factory production-line machines blamed for taking peoples jobs in recent decades; a telenoid communications android for hugging during long-distance phone calls to ease loneliness; and Kaspar, a minimally expressive social robot built like a small boy and designed to help ease social interactions for children with autism.

When you take a long view, as we have done with 500 years of robots, robots havent been these terrifying things, theyve been magical, fascinating, useful, and they generally tend to do what we want them to do, said Russell, who works at the science museum and was the lead curator of the exhibition.

And while its human nature to be worried in the face of change, Russell said, the exhibit should help people think about what we are as humans and realize that if robots are going to come along, youve got a stake in how they develop.

A total of 100 robots are set in five different historic periods in a show that explores how religion, industrialization, pop culture and visions of the future have shaped society.

For Rich Walker, managing director of Shadow Robot Company in London, robotics is about what these increasingly sophisticated machines can do for humans to make life easier, particularly for the elderly or the impaired.

Im naturally lazy and got involved so that I could get robots to do things for me, Walker said. His company has developed a robotic hand that can replicate 24 of the 27 natural movements of the human hand.

As humans have a 1 percent failure rate at repetitive tasks, committing errors about once every two hours, the hand could replace humans on production lines, he said.

Walker concedes further erosion of certain types of jobs if inventions such as his are successful, but says having repetitive tasks performed by automatons would free up people to adopt value-added roles.

The issue is to rebuild the economy so that it has a holistic approach to employment, he said.

This in turn leads to questions, raised at the exhibition as well as by the European Union, of whether or not robots should pay taxes on the value of their output as part of the new industrial revolution.

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Our obsession with robots keeps getting creepier - New York Post

Fort Worth Star Telegram

Keller students Starstruck on robotics Fort Worth Star Telegram Gautam Vachasputi of Keller Middle School Team 1 makes some repairs and adjustments to his team's robot before they enter the arena in the next round of the Keller ISD Robotics Contest at Hillwood Middle School in Keller Saturday, Jan. 28, 2017.

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Keller students Starstruck on robotics - Fort Worth Star Telegram

BBC News

Shopping robots on the march in Ocado BBC News There is growing concern about the impact of automation on employment - or in crude terms - the threat that robots will eat our jobs. But if you want to see how important robotics and artificial intelligence can be to a business Ocado is a good place ... and more »

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Shopping robots on the march in Ocado - BBC News

Certainly one of the more entertaining talks of the 33rd Chaos Communications Congress was [Kari Love]s talk on her experiments in mixing food with function. In [Kari]s talk at the 2016 Hackaday Supercon, she talked extensively about working on soft robotic for NASA. At the 33C3, her focus was twofold: on a fun side project to make mobile robots out of stuff that you can eat, and to examine the process of creative engineering through the lens of a project like this.

If you look up edible robotics, you get a lot of medical literature about endoscopes that you can swallow, or devices that take samples while theyre inside you. Thats not what [Kari]s after at all. Shes after a robot thats made of candy, a yummy machine. And while this is still a work in progress, she demonstrated a video of an all-licorice cable-based actuator.

But more than that, she demonstrated all of the materials shes looked at so far, and the research shes done. To some extent, the process is the substance of this project, but theres nothing wrong with some tasty revelations along the way.

This talk was a potpourri of helpful tips and novel facts. For instance, if youre working in candy robotics, dont eat your mistakes. That stomach ache that your mom always said youd get? You will. Did you know that the gummi in gummibears is re-heatable and re-moldable? In addition, of the gels that she made, it was the most delicious. And finally, Pop Rocks dont have enough CO2 in them to drive pneumatics. Who knew? [Kari] knows. And now you do too.

Continue reading here:

33C3: Edible Soft Robotics - Hackaday

There are seven key megatrends driving the future of enterprise IT. You can remember them all with the helpful mnemonic acronym CAMBRIC, which stands forCloud Computing,Artificial Intelligence,Mobility,Big Data,Robotics,Internet of Things,CyberSecurity.

In this post we dive deeper into the trend of Robotics.

Operating along a spectrum of human controlled to semi-autonomous to totally independent, robots are already operating in our world. They save lives in hospitals, are taking the place of humans in dangerous jobs, improve our oil exploration and farming, endure the hazards of outer space and now fight our wars. Soon they will make driving safe. Like AI, Robotics hold great potential to displace large portions of the global workforce. Robotic factories are already causing a large shift of manufacturing back from China to the US and we expect that trend to continue (but the bad news is that new robotic manufacturing plants employ far fewer people).

We believe all countries should assume they are in a race towards robotics manufacturing and we should plan to win that race. Right now we are not. The US stands the chance of losing to other regions if we do not lead with vision.

A snapshot of the trend right now indicates:

Open questions decision-makers should track include:

Books we appreciated for context around Robotics include:

A great way to track the emerging developments in this domain is our page on Robotic Companies.

For deeper considerations of the impact of Roboticson enterprise IT it is important to track all seven MegaTrends and consider them together. Dive deeper into all the trends and examine their impact on your organization via aCTOvision Pro membership, available for enterprises and individuals.

You can launch your examination of the MegaTrends through the categories menu at CTOvision, or directly via these links: Cloud Computing,Artificial Intelligence,Mobility,Big Data,Robotics,Internet of Things,CyberSecurity.

Originally posted here:

Update On The Megatrend of Robotics - CTOvision (blog)

The FIRST Tech Challenge robotics program at Central Middle School is having one of its most successful seasons since the program began more than three years ago.

This year, CMS has nearly 50 students who are on six teams -- "Ground Zero" Team 9078, "Ice Breakers" Team 10397, "(Insert Name Here)" Team 10471, "Quantum Mechanics" Team 10398, "Team Tec Man" Team 11949 and "Octobots" Team 11937.

For the first time, the program has four teams that qualified to go to state; all of the teams made it to the elimination rounds in at least one of their tournaments and five of the six teams were captains in final matches when robotics teams select other teams to form an alliance, according to Gail Silewski, FTC coordinator at CMS.

Quantum Mechanics, Icebreakers, Team Tec Man and Ground Zero are the teams competing in the state tournament on Feb. 11.

"I'm looking forward to seeing other teams and how well we can do," said eighth-grader Pranav Kartha.

This years challenge, Velocity Vortex, involves robots being able to get points by shooting wiffle balls into one of two standing circular targets; pushing balls into two corner goals and pushing buttons to light a beacon. The teams started meeting on Sept. 10 and competed in their first qualifying tournaments in November.

When asked about why this year has been successful, the students and their mentors gave several reasons.

Justin Seidler, one of the adult mentors, said members of a team that went to the state tournament last year were split up and put on five of the six different teams. This allowed the experience gained from competing last year to be spread through the whole program.

"I think that the students that were in it last year have really stepped up into a leadership role and have helped guide the newer members so that everybody can be involved," added Katy Olson, a Talon Robotics team member and high school mentor.

Silewski said the mentors also spent more time training students ahead of time so kids had a larger base of knowledge. The students learned about 3D printing and the different stages of building a robot. The high school mentors also have a wider range of skills and are able to provide help with a variety of challenges.

Eighth-grader Luke Schreifels believes this year's challenge is having an impact on the teams' successes. He said it's easier to score more points with the Velocity Vortex challenge.

"The challenge last year, the main scoring was super difficult," he said.

Eighth-grader Joe Brown competed at the state competition last year and said this year he'll have fun going with a new team and experiencing a new challenge. He said last year he learned the importance of keeping supplies organized and having enough spare parts.

"With the state meet, it kind of feels more important because not every team is going to this," he said. "It's fun to see all the teams that are really, really good."

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CMS robotics program soars - SW News Media

By Darcy Meadedarcy.meade@sentinel-standard.com

BELDING Belding High School and its robotics program played host to nearly 50 teams for its Vex Robotics Competition.

Saturday, teams from schools like Pewamo-Westphalia, Hudsonville, Grandville and Petoskey among others descended into Redskin Arena to qualify for state competition. Two teams from Grandville and one from Hudsonville earned the honors to compete on the state level.

Fourteen of the 49 teams were from two Ionia County school districts. Belding had four middle school teams and eight high school teams and Pewamo-Westphalia had two high school teams. The Belding High School teams took eight, ninth, 13th, 16th, 40th, 41st, 42nd and 47th. The middle schoolers picked up 30th, 43rd, 45th and 47th, while P-W came in at 26th and 36th.

"It was tough, but it was definitely better than past years," P-W freshman Alexis Celis said.

The competition started out with 62 qualifying matches, which puts two teams of two robots into the arena and the more points a robot receives the higher they qualify. The match had two objectives, one of which happens with the push of a button, called autonomous.

"With autonomous they have to program the robot to work on its own for 15 seconds and try to score as many points as it can and it can be kind of complicated ... so they need to learn the programming language and make the robot go on its own," STMBotix teacher and robotics coach Doug Klein said.

The next is a round that is nearly two minutes long, where the robots go head-to-head to see who can get the most points. Teams have to push star objects, which are worth one point, and cubes, which are worth two, to the opponents side. Klein said based on how many wins a team has is how they are seeded for the tournament.

Four Belding High School teams and one P-W team made it into tournament play. Klein said his second team had some trouble early on.

"Their robot had problems, the arm lifting mechanism broke, so they got disabled a few matches in," Klein said. "It can be frustrating because stuff goes wrong ... sometimes something goes wrong and you have time to fix it and sometimes it's just like you have to work with what you've got."

The program at P-W is funded through different fundraisers and the club said they have received donations from the P-W Boosters, PFCU, Consumers Energy and P-W Students Take Charge. The club plans to visit local businesses in hopes of becoming sponsored. Klein said the costs add up between registering, t-shirts and getting new part, it can be costly.

When asked why the students decided to join the robotics club, they all said because they had fun in the STMBotix class. Some said they even plan to go into the engineering field.

"I'm thinking about mechanical engineering because my dad is a mechanical engineer, so a lot of the things I know I learned from him," P-W Senior Adrian Celis said. "When we took the robot home he would talk to us about what makes sense here and what doesn't and he knew that we would eventually have the problem with the gears having too much torque on them."

This was the last competition of the year for P-W, but will start back up building another couple of robots in May after the world championship because that is when the new game will be released.

For more information on the robotics club or to donate, email Klein at klein@pwschools.org.

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Belding hosts robotics competition - Sentinel-Standard

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Toyota Industries Acquires Warehouse Robotics Developer - Wall Street Journal

South Hagerstown High School students from the Green Machine and Rebellious Misfits teams and the Synobotz Z team from Carroll Educational Robotics in Westminster, Md, were named tournament champions at Volvo Group Trucks VEX Robotics Qualifier.

There were 37 teams and more than 200 students battling their bots at the recent event held at South High.

The Green Machine team included Kent Ha, Maryanne Kimani, James Stell, and Cameron Hahn. The Rebellious Misfits team was comprised of Katie Custer, Xianvieve Hulbert, Brennen Rosage, Alex Wright and Dorian Johnson. The Synobotz Z squad included Chris Scott, Nolan Hintze, William Hoke and Alyssa Magaha.

The action-packed day required middle and high school students to execute the VEX Robotics Competition game Starstruck, which is played by scoring colored stars and cubes in zones and by hanging the robot on a hanging bar.

As tournament champions, the teams qualified to compete in two upcoming events. The first is the Maryland State Championship scheduled to be held from March 3 to 4 at Sollers Point Technical High School in Dundalk, Md.

The teams seek to continue to advance to participate at the VEX Robotics World Championship, the culminating event of the season held in April with the top teams from across the U.S. and around the world who seek to become world champions.

The second is the CREATE U.S. Open Robotics Championship, scheduled to be held from April 4 to 8 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The events are open and free for media, families and community members to attend.

To prepare for the competition, the teams worked together to design and build a robot using VEX EDR, that could quickly and efficiently solve specific obstacles and challenges that come with playing the VEX Robotics Competition Starstruck game.

The students apply what theyve learned about science, technology, engineering and math in order to build the semiautonomous machines.

An equally important set of skills is learned through the competition communication, project management, site management and the importance of composure, because students have to learn how to lose as much as they have to learn how to win.

South Highs Green Machine Robotics team earned the events top honor VEX Robotics Excellence Award.

Additional esteemed VEX awards were also presented.

Design Award IVM Bio-Quantum Clubs QH BioDragons team

Judges Award North Hagerstown High Schools Hubs team

Robot Skills Winner Carroll Educational Robotics Synobotz Z team

Dawn Reed, tech ed teacher at Smithsburg Middle, was recognized with VEX Robotics Volunteer of the Year award for her time and effort as adviser and coach to five teams from Smithsburg Middle and Senior High schools.

For more information, go to RoboticsEducation.org or RobotEvents.com.

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South High wins Volvo's robotics tournament - Herald-Mail Media

OWATONNA Once modest in size, the Owatonna High School robotics team has quickly grown into a force.

And as part of an effort to assure the squad remains in capable hands for many years to come, the current members have begun appealing to Owatonnas youth with robot demonstrations, like one held Thursday at McKinley Elementary.

I went to McKinley, and sitting there for a presentation like this when I was a kid would be really inspirational to me, said Braydon Kubat, a senior member of the robotics team. I feel like it will be for them, too.

Justin Kiel, principal at McKinley, said he believes this to be a great opportunity for McKinley students.

We are always looking for partnerships in the community to extend the learning beyond our classroom walls, Kiel said. This is a unique experience for students to see robotics in action.

And robotics clubs are growing exponentially, Kubat said. There are more than 6,000 worldwide, and Minnesota already has more high school robotics teams than high school hockey teams.

A handful of robotics team members discussed what goes into making a robot, as well as the competitions the team engages in. When they let the robots loose, students screamed in excitement when the machines picked up and fired orange balls.

This is a glimpse into whats out there, what they can do, Kubat said. One reason students attend a STEM school like McKinley is so they can do stuff like this.

Students see how robotics can integrate all content areas, Kiel said. Also, our students can see how thinking, questioning, and technology can come together to solve a problem.

In the robotics club, known as the Rebel Alliance, you can make a robot do what you want, which is cool, Kubat told the McKinley assembly. You get to learn a whole other language, too.

Students can sign up for the squad as freshmen, said Sam Bendorf, another member of the team.

We have a spot for each and every one of you, [and] well be waiting for you, Bendorf said.

The OHS team competes across the Midwest, and theyll head to Duluth at the beginning of March to tangle with more than 60 other squads, said Kubat, who is in his first year as a member of the Rebel Alliance.

You get to travel, build stuff with your hands and have fun while doing it, said Kubat.

In fact, the hands-on nature of the club is what attracted Kubat this year. Although hes on the business side of the squad, hes learned a great deal about building robots already.

The business team contends with financing, working with businesses to secure capital for the expensive extracurricular activity, he said. Fortunately, we have lots of community support.

The requirements for the competition change each year, and this year the theme is focused on Steamworks, he said. Teams have six weeks to build robots, which receive points for completing various tasks during the competition.

The rules, though they change each year, must always be followed. Consequently, the first few weeks after seeing the next years video and learning the parameters are devoted to designing and prototyping the robot, Bendorf said.

They begin by sketching plans on a white board, then put those plots physically onto the machines, Bendorf said. Later, they wire it, and the last two weeks are devoted to final design.

Students in the robotics club are eager to give back by teaching younger children, said Val Rose, the adviser for the club.

The STEM is what we want to build on, said Rose.

Reach reporter Ryan Anderson at 507-444-2376 or follow him onTwitter.com@randerson_ryan

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OHS robotics club dazzles McKinley students - Southernminn.com