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Cockroach-Controlled Robot
robotsrule writes "The latest issue of Make Magazine volume 2 from O'Reilly publishing has an article on a cockroach controlled robot. Roboticist Garnet Hertz has mounted a Giant Madagascan Hissing Cockroach that drives a small mobile robot around by walking on top of a Kensington trackball. There is a row of proximity sensor triggered LEDs that shine light in the roach's eyes, making him steer the robot since roaches instinctively avoid light. Garnet's web page 'Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine' details the project with several images of the roach in action. Debugging the project is inherently impossible."
It's ambiguous whether the system is controlling the insect or whether she's controlling it.
I, for one, welcome our enslaved, robot-controlling females.
Debugging the project is inherently impossible.
They are obviously not using RAID.
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
If this isn't a Rube Goldberg contraption, I don't know what is.
It's very cool, but odd. I mean, seriously: shine a light in a certain way to make a Giant Hissing cockroach move in a certain direction, which then moves the robot?
I assume there are simpler ways of directing robots.
This research also proved that the roach controlled robot drove better than 86 percent of Southern Californian motorists. Maybe we should all have roaches as chauffeurs.
how kafkaesque.
Make the structure out of Titanium and give it some nukes... Indestructable weapon of the future!
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
They're already in the kitchen -- let's hook them up to the blender and Cuisinart.
Eventually they'll have to switch to lawyers, there are some things even roaches won't do.
Frankly, I don't care if this wields scientific data. It's just the most evil villain-esque thing I can think of. ...cool!!!:)
The Matrix, version 0.1 proof-of-concept
His next project is sharks with frickin' laser beams on their heads....
I can't wait to hear the crunching sound...
Just add {In Space!} to anything.
If I suddenly found myself in madagascar with a huge piece of velcro on my back, headlights blinking into my eyes, a ball beneath my feet... I would try and run like hell too.
I'm SURE I saw a B-rated horror flick about this.
multifariam.net -- yet another nerd blog
From the webpage:
This animal-controlled system is also meant to be framed within the context of embodiment, intelligence, hybridity and posthumanism. While posthumanism tends to view humanity's self-reflective reference point as significantly shifted as a result of technology, this project can be viewed as affirmation or rejection of posthuman theory; either human and computational logic can be replaced with the rugged, viseral, and adaptive logic of the cockroach, or the cockroach can be viewed as the ultimate "posthuman": proof that technology has forced a re-calculation of humanity to itself, rendering the Kafkan cockroach body as a better model of intelligence than standard human embodiment within contemporary culture.
Ooh! Now that's an impressive buzzword-to-content ratio!
People for the ethical treatment of insects I am outraged and appaled at the blatant torture of these living creatures. Who else will stand up for the rights of the roach!!! The measure of society should be how we treat our insects roaches make wonderful pets and should not be treated in such a manner.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
How long will it be before cockroaches figure out how to create a human controlled robot? Of course, we are really screwed if the cockroaches are the steel-plated, steel-eating ones from Damnation Alley.
I am calling PETA for this 'incockroachane' treatment of the cockroach.
PETA leaders spontaneously combust debating whether this isn't ethical treatment of roaches or if this empowers roaches to actualize their inner selves.
Microsoft execs are kicking themselves for not having implemented hardware bugs quite like this one...and promises to innovate accordingly.
Roaches are fastened to the machine using a patented spring-based tweezer-like system called a roach clip.
Military recruitment at an all-time high when kids are told that in basic training, they can smoke a roach.
Gromphadorhina portentosa, deus ex machina.
I had an idea for roaches as controllers years ago, but everyone said I was nuts. If I had just ignored my stoner friends, I could have been a pioneer! OK, so I wanted them guiding little rockets, but still...
When the robots revolt all we have to do is turn on a light and watch them run for cover.
#define QUESTION ((bb) || !(bb))
Mark Pauline and Survival Research Laboratories did this with a hamster YEARS ago. And it was a BIG fricking robot!
Great. After nuclear armageddon, the roaches will be free to tool around on the little Segways we made for them. The legacy of man.
So let me get this straight; humans are controlling a cockroach that is controlling a robot? If they're going to tell the cockroach to turn left, why not just do it directly? It seems the cooler thing to do would be to let the cockroach bump around on his own will.
PETA's next project?
Somehow I don't think the Insect Rights movement is as strong in the world as it is for Cute Fuzzy Animal Babies.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I learned how cockroaches were naturals for running machines from the movie Godzilla vs Gigan.
A roach-controlled robotic cyborg has already been created by one couple, George H.W. Bush and spouse, Barbara.
Cockroach smashes you!
frome the same page, CV (bottom of page, Technical Skills) "...Knowledge of networking, including Unix system administration, routers, DNS servers, mail servers, FTP servers, Linux. Insect schizoanalysis...."
...debug that one?
:)
I welcome our new insect overlords.
Hey! Don't mod me down. I mean, how can my comment be any worse than an article about roach-operated robotics?
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
These folks have constructed a fly flight simulator, where they tether a fly in front of a set of lights that form a low-resolution view of a simulated environment. They then measure the torques produced by the fly and use that data to manipulate the environment simulation, so that the fly sees its environment moving about it even though it's tethered in place. They can use this to study the behavioral responses of flies to various stimuli (like a rapidly-approaching light or dark spot simulating a fly-swatter, to examine escape response).
I guess I would be more impressed if instead of having the cockroach walk on a trackball, they used cockroach EMG to control the robot.
Geez, and I thought I was desperate!
I was hoping they'd sign their status reports as coming from Interzone :)
Intelligent Life on Earth
I will be impressed when he announces that he has invented the five assed monkey.
Isn't it cruel to use a cockroach like this?
[snip] The insects I use lead normal, healthy lives: if you don't believe me, send me your address and I'll slip some eggs under your front door.
--
Don't fight Firefox! Let FireFox fight YOU!
They say cockroaches are one of the only things that survive a nuclear catastrophe. Equipping them with robots would be awesome to see after they're the only things left running around. It would be a giant game of bumper-robots on a big pile of debris. Awesome.
Too bad we'd be dead, so we wouldn't actually get to see it...
putfwd.com - 1GB Free file storage with a twist
They should be using good old American cockroaches instead of them hissy Madagasgadooian roaches. Must outsourcing take away all our jobs?
They've been driving taxi cabs for decades.
I was going to make a "I, for one, welcome our new Cockroach overlords" joke as is obligatory in every /. thread. I go to -1 to do a search if somebody had done the joke.
There were 7 posts saying the exact same joke. 7 idential jokes, guys! Seriously, this is not cool. Do a search at -1 before you make the joke. Redundancy is not cool.
Each light is coupled with a sensor that detects obstacles. The guy isn't steering the roach (or robot) anywhere--the roach is avoiding things based on these lights.
I was just thinking about this today. I remembered a while back someone had done this before. It popped in my mind today and I was wondering if any progress was made on it. I get home and see this. scary
You know SW3ROTS is a movie, right... it's not real...
What makes you think slashdot is real? Or a sig on slashdot? Or Bush?
Infuriate left and right
I think this could revolutionize fear factor... combine the hissing cockroach challenges with the driving stunts... I can just hear Joe Rogan, "the hissing cockroach will then drive directly into your mouth!"
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Nobody's welcoming our new cockroach overlords?
welcome our giant cockroach-controlled robot overlords.
Sorry, this one just had to be said...
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
Ok so... what's the point in having a cockroach control a robot if the cockroach is not being steered? In this case you could achieve the same effect by making the robot drive around aimlessly, and use those same sensors to detect obstacles to directly alter the course of the robot if the point is to avoid them.
I Vote no. Not to be taken seriously.
I started smiling by the second sentence.
Tharkban (It is a signature after all)
Hardly a noble reason...
Whan I was in college in the 1970s, the debugger for a Varian computer was called "RAID" (for "Rapid Aid In Debugging").
So the joke actually works on three levels for old fogeys (is the word "fogey" even used any more? only by old fogeys, I guess) such as myself.
OTOH, to be honest, the authors of the Varian debugger probably had Raid (the bug spray) in mind when they named their debugger.
(OTOOH, the predecessor to RAID (for the Varian) was called "AID", so who knows?)
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Also in the 1970s, "when" was spelled "whan".
(But I did use the "Preview" button, dammit!)
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
And neither is redundancy.
Be faithful to your obsessions. Identify them and be faithful to them, let them guide you like a sleepwalker. JG Ballard
If there were such a moderation, I would have just used it.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Please see this.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
...until they develop method to connect neurons of cockroach to robot. This will be NEWS, not a stupid trackball. Interesting application: spider brain in spider-like robot to guard and kill. Hoever, this may be inpractical (feeding live brain versus computer processor).
What modern Obelix would say today? Of course, "Those crazy Americans!".
I found his rationale compelling
Rationale and Goals of this project (a little over half way down the page)
Lane Myer: I have great fear of tools. I once made a birdhouse in woodshop and the fair housing committee condemned it.
Wow... nineteen bullet-points and not one of them mentions any practical usefulness for this... most of them just boil down to "it's novel" or "cockroaches are cool". Not once does he mention any valid point to this experiment. What a waste.
In my opinion, sometimes doing something that isn't practical or "valid" leads to creativity and discovery.
Lane Myer: I have great fear of tools. I once made a birdhouse in woodshop and the fair housing committee condemned it.