Monthly Archives: May 2017

By | May 13, 2017 | 3:32 p.m.

Team 5818 finished its second season with an outstanding run, reaching the semifinals, at the FIRST Robotics Competition World Championships in Houston recently.

The team spent four days at George R. Brown Convention Center watching elite machines, meeting students from around the world, and cheering on this years robot.

The competition kicked off the first morning, with Riviera Robotics students arriving at 7 a.m. to prepare for qualification matches. Unfortunately, the team got off to a rough start.

After a series of challenging matches Team 5818 emerged from day one with a record of 1-3-0.

Despite its low ranking (57 of 67 in the Hopper division), Team 5818 was not deterred. It bounced back on Day 2, playing a spectacular set of matches without a single loss.

Completing a phenomenal comeback, Riviera Robotics finished qualification matches ranked 13th in the Hopper division with a record of 6-3-1.

The next morning, Team 5818 was the first pick of the No. 8-seeded team.

Working with Team 3835 (Vulcan Robotics from Tel-Aviv, Israel), Team 2910 (Jack in the Bot from Bothell, Wash.), and Team 2230 (General Angels from Herzliya, Israel), the No. 8-seeded alliance was a force to be reckoned with.

In a stunning upset, this international alliance defeated the No. 1-seeded alliance in the division quarterfinals.

After a set of hard-fought matches, Team 5818s run came to an end as it was eliminated in the semifinal rounds.

Looking ahead to a third season in the fall, Riviera Robotics is in search of a permanent build-space and home for its organization.

Anyone who has available space or knows of a space that might be a good fit for the team, can email [emailprotected]

Team 5818 is sponsored by Virgil Elings, FLIR, Valley Precision Products, M&J Machining, MMI Intriplex, Lebow Company, Architectural Millwork, Speciality Tool and Die, MOXI, True Precision Machining, Precision Welding and Axis Machining.

More sponsors include L3, Hope School District, Bowlus Engineering, Hendrix Machining, Bosch, Armabot, Check Yourself Machining, Santa Barbara Industrial Finishing, Continental, Santa Barbara Hackerspace, and Engen Enterprises, Inc.

Riviera Robotics is a student-run community robotics team open to all high school age students on the South Coast. The team is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization funded entirely by community sponsors.

To make a contribution to Team 5818, visit http://www.rivierarobotics.org or email [emailprotected]

Ruby Gans for Riviera Robotics.

More:

Local Robotics Team Claws Way to World Semifinals - Noozhawk

Photo by: J.B. Spector/Museum of Science and Industry

Young visitors at the Museum of Science and Industry challenge Baxter, an industrial robot, to a game of tic-tac-toe.

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CHICAGO If you visit the Museum of Science and Industry over the next 10 months or so, you likely will be greeted by RoboThespian, a life-sized humanoid robot.

You will also be "dazzled," the museum promises, by The Cube Solver, a robot with a lightning-fast ability to solve a Rubik's cube. You'll also enjoy watching Hex, a hexapod robot with six snake-like legs that navigates rough terrain.

They are among more than 40 robots in "Robot Revolution," a national touring exhibit that originally opened at the Museum of Science Industry and returned for a second viewing. It reopened Thursday and will remain on view through Feb. 4 in Chicago before going back on tour through 2020.

The cutting-edge robots many of which have never been on display to the public are from some of the most innovative research labs, universities and robotics companies from around the world. Museum visitors, in some cases, will be able to interact, learn from and play with them.

They also will see and hear from in some of the videos in the exhibit University of Illinois computer science Professor Steven LaValle.

"I have worked in robotics for decades," the computer-science professor told the UI in 2015, when the exhibit first launched. "I am specifically interested in motion planning, sensing and filtering, which has also informed my current work in virtual reality. By combining these technologies, there are seemingly endless possibilities in art, entertainment, health care, communication and education."

He also said he felt honored to be part of the exhibit to help explain aspects of robotics to kids and adults.

David Mosena, president and CEO of the museum, said robotics remains one of the most fascinating areas of science today because scientists and engineers are constantly pushing the boundaries.

"We hope that the opportunity to interact with such a wide range of robots will help people understand how robots become an integral part in helping to improve our world and inspire the next generation of innovators," he said.

The exhibit features four areas, with hands-on activities for visitors:

Cooperation: Discover how engineering breakthroughs are helping create robots that can work with humans to enhance our lives. One robot, EMYS, mimics our facial expressions via advanced facial-coding technology. PARO, a furry baby seal therapy robot, has sensors that respond to the human touch. Museum visitors also may try surgical training simulation to see what it's like to perform a robotic surgery. There also is a robot exoskeleton that augments a person's physical strength and can be used by people who are paralyzed.

Smarts: In this area, visitors identify how the machines are able to sense, plan and then act, while comparing and contrasting the ways humans and robots learn.

Here, they will see ROBOTIS-OP follow their face and make "eye" contact using visual tracking software. Another robot, UR5, has an arm that conceals an ability to learn. Instead of writing code for the robot, one can simply move its arm, and the robot learns to repeat the movement.

Skills: Here, museum visitors may experiment with advanced robot "grippers" to select and pick up objects and watch the Fanuc delta robot select and sort items with precision and speed.

A Yaskwawa/Motoman dual-arm robot in this area challenges museum visitors to a game of 21, while Baxter, a robot developed to work alongside humans in factory settings, competes with museum visitors in games of tick-tack-toe.

Locomotion: Robots move in a variety of ways, offering access to places where humans can't venture. For example, TOPY OSCAR can climb up and down stairs using long rubber treads. Visitors also have the opportunity here to create their own robot by assembling the basic components of one, using Cubelets.

If you go

What: "Robot Revolution," an exhibit featuring more than 40 cutting-edge robots and opportunities to engage with many of them.

When: Through Feb. 4.

Where: Museum of Science and Industry, 5700 S. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago.

Admission: Entrance is not included with the general museum entry and requires an additional timed-entry ticket of $12 for adults and $9 for kids 3-11.

More: msichicago.org or 773-684-1414.

Note: Robot Revolution is supported by Google, with additional support from The Boeing Co., RACO Industrial, The David Bohnett Foundation, The Kaplan Foundation and United Airlines.

Read this article:

Robots invade Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette

RoboWaiters crack team, consisting of a developer, designer and arobotics expert, came together at last nights Disrupt NY hackathon to create a faster, better, smarter waiter using IBM Watson and robots.

Developer Nina Yang came up with the idealast night before the event when her waiter took a while to take her order. Humans, she pointed out, are often busy and cant handle everything. They also can get orders wrong. But, pending any glitches, robots dont.

RoboWaiter works through an app powered by IBM Watson which hooks up to a backend ordering platform that can also control a robot to bring you your food. Customers simply download the app, select their seat and voice their order from the menu and the system sends that order back to the kitchen. A chef then places the order onto the robot and the robot moseys on over to your table with your meal.

Now, if you are a waiter you may be realizing at this very moment RoboWaiter has just come up with a plan to replace your job, which has been a serious concern for many American workers in the last few years and should worry many out-of-work actors just trying to get by in New York.

But on the bright side, according to team member Sharon Gai,Were going to make America great again by giving robots jobs.

Of course, this is not the first robot that has tried to serve humans something. California restaurant Eatsa requires zero human interaction to get your food and one clever robot butler even tried to get former TechCrunch writer Alex Wilhelm drunk by offering him a bunch of booze.

Gai, Yang and their other teammate Irvin Cardenas were already friends before embarking on this endeavor to replace human workers. In fact, the three met right here at TechCrunchs Disrupt hackathon exactly one year ago to take on the event space with their promoter platform CrowdBuilder. That one didnt really go anywhere, but theyre hopeful theyre on to something this time.

Cardenas is also presentingin the robotics session of Disrupt for his startup Robotica.ai. We wish him luck in both endeavors.

More here:

RoboWaiter wants to make American restaurants great again with robots - TechCrunch

While delivering a giant cargo van full of robotic tournament equipment to a school in Monongalia County, Todd Ensign takes a moment to return a phone call.

Hes always busy and for good reason. Ensign and his team manage 12 robotics competitions, which includes running and hosting 20 tournaments at 15 locations across the state.

I was warned when I was asked to help run and manage the states robotics six years ago, Ensign said, Be careful, Todd, robotics will take over your life.

Those words have taken on a profound meaning for Ensign and the entire West Virginia Robotic Alliance today. The group has embarked on an ambitious initiative providing five weeks of robotics summer camps across the state.

Its gotten to the point where the demand is incredible, Ensign said. But now, in our third year, its our biggest effort thus far.

The effort is made possible mainly from a group of partners including the NASA IV&V Educator Resource Center, NASA WV Space Grant Consortium and Mountaineer Area Robotics 2614.

Through the partners, we were able to double our staff this year and support more kids at our camps, he said.

The robotic camps will take place at five locations beginning at James Rumsey Technical Institute in Martinsburg the week of June 5-9. Other camp dates and locations are: June 12-16 at Mountaineer Middle School in Morgantown; June 19-23 at Fairmont State University in Fairmont; June 26-30 at the Robert C Byrd Institute in Huntington; and July 17-21 at the WV State Extension NASA SEMAA Lab in Beckley. There will be a state tournament July 28 at BridgeValley Community and Technical College in South Charleston.

Ensign said the team-based program will be centered around learning to build, document and program the LEGO Mindstorm/EV3 robot and ultimately compete in the World Robot Olympiad.

This is the first time weve been involved with the World Robot Olympiad, he said.

World Robot Olympiad (WRO) is an international robot competition that brings together young people from all over the world to develop their creativity, design and problem-solving skills through challenging and educational robot competitions and activities.

Well be able to send two teams from each camp to the WRO national tournament in September at North Carolina State University, he said.

Teams of two and three students can register together for the camp. Individual students (or pairs) will be combined into teams of three. The intent, Ensign said, is for students who are new to LEGO Robotics or who are on existing FIRST LEGO League teams to form themselves into smaller groups, so they can develop their technical and teamwork skills, while competing in the new WRO tournament series.

Were going to pair three kids together, Ensign said, and run the five-day camps.

The schedule is fairly simple, he said. The first four days will be focused on training and building and the fifth day will be the tournament.

Teams competing will walk in with parts and have two-and-a-half hours to build a robot, he said.

Unlike the past two years, Ensign said students this year can participate in two age categories. The elementary category, which is for students ages 9-12 at the time of camp, and junior category, for students ages 13-15 at the time of camp. The cost is $125 per student and includes four full days of camp, snacks and lunch each day, WRO team registration and the Friday tournament.

Well be giving out awards at the end of each week to the winning teams, Ensign said.

Registration is open now and will remain open until each of the five camps are filled up. Anyone interested in registering can do so by contacting Annelise Williams at 304-367-8215 or email at Annelise.M.Williams@ivv.nasa.gov.

The popularity of robotics across the state has grown almost at an exponential level.

Since 2011 the number of teams has jumped from 75 to more than 250 today. Those teams include myriad robotics initiatives, including FIRST LEGO League Jr., FIRST LEGO League, FIRST Tech Challenge, FIRST Robotics Competition, VEX IQ, VEX Robotics Competition, Vex U, Skills USA and Zero Robotics.

Ensign said while competitions like FIRST LEGO League are fun for the teams, they also help instill ideals and a passion for STEM learning, which could lead to more students entering STEM fields and more young people staying in state for work.

West Virginia faces an uncertain economic future if we do not adapt our business sector to focus more on high-technology industries, Ensign said. 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.

If students get interested in things like robotics at an early age, Ensign said they might hold that interest throughout their school years, eventually applying for a STEM-related job and boosting the states workforce, making for a smarter, stronger West Virginia.

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Demand for Statewide Robotics Camps 'Incredible' - The Exponent Telegram (press release) (registration)