Google, Intel, Microsoft Fund Robot Recipes

Dotnaught writes "Google, Intel, and Microsoft are funding what may become a robot invasion. Money from the three tech companies has enabled researchers at Carnegie Mellon University to create a new series of Internet-connected robots that almost anyone can build using off-the-shelf parts. These "recipes" describe how to build a robot that connects to the Internet using common parts and a $349 Qwerk controller from Charmed Labs."

Comments

Misdirected effort, perhaps?

[caitsith01]

Whilst it's laudable that companies are investing in robotics at all, it seems to me that the time has come for investment on a commercial scale in robotics for specific applications. These 'hobby' type robots are all well and good (and no doubt particularly appealing to many around here) but they don't actually DO very much of any use, and the average member of the public is not going to be all that excited by them.

Roomva and similar robots are a step in the right direction, IMHO: relatively cheap, one- or two-function robots which have an obvious and straightforward function. People can see that, understand it, and if it works well (which I gather is not really the case just yet), will want to buy it. Once there's actual profit to be had, investment will increase rapidly and voila, the real robot revolution* begins.

We seem to be at a point where we have the tech for some truly cool everyday use robots. Perhaps even something like an x-prize for robotics, with the objective being to build a cheap, mass-produce-able, functional robot to perform a specific household task, would do the trick. Some major investment from some major players could kick start a very fundamental change to the way we live.

Plus, having lots of robots around the house would be frickin cool...

* the good kind, not the humanity-crushing kind

Re:Misdirected effort, perhaps?

[Animats]

Whilst it's laudable that companies are investing in robotics at all, it seems to me that the time has come for investment on a commercial scale in robotics for specific applications. These 'hobby' type robots are all well and good (and no doubt particularly appealing to many around here) but they don't actually DO very much of any use, and the average member of the public is not going to be all that excited by them.

Hey, something like 60% of Roomba owners name the things, and those things rate slightly above wind-up toys and below a Furby in smarts. There's a market for those things. Of course, there's a market for the Ionic Breeze air cleaner, which doesn't even clean air.

What this new effort sounds like is an alternative to FIRST robotics, but at a lower price point.

The real action starts around $1000. Check out Robots-Dreams.org, which covers Japanese and other hobbyist humanoid robots. There are four or five makers of those things now, and they're very impressive.

Hobbyist robotics tends to be weak on sensors and terrible on sensor fusion, but once anyone can get working hardware, that should improve. There's been enormous progress in vision processing in the last five years, but it hasn't filtered down to the hobbyists yet, even though the hardware isn't the problem there.

Re:Misdirected effort, perhaps?

[camperdave]

Perhaps even something like an x-prize for robotics...

Well, there are a few such competitions, but more for serious stuff like search and rescue, and firefighting than for simple household chores. After all, there are already cheap, mass production robots and automated machines for vacuuming, mowing lawns, making coffee, doing dishes, etc.

NO

[ch-chuck]

If you think the "browser wars" were bad, just wait untill Microsoft and $POTENTIAL_COMPETITION fight over control of a household robot.

Bring Robotics to the Masses

[parker]

I contributed to TeRK while working on my MS at CMU.

The idea is to provide as simple of an interface to programming the robot as possible. You can write your own stuff directly on the hardware if you like (it's got a serial connection so it's easy to connect to). Or, you can take advantage of the layers of code and write something which runs on your PC... but still has access to things like values from the analog inputs and moving the motors -- all via 802.11. The project uses a lot of open source and the source code for all of the components is available. There is a lot of framework code written in C that runs on the Qwerk board itself, and it uses ICE to connect from the board to either a relay server or your PC. Then, for the people who don't like to program at all (or are just starting out), there is a lot of software, including a basic emulator of the board, mostly written in Java, that they can just run on Windows, Mac OS, or Linux.

During development, we took our PC app and a couple of Qwerks to a group of robotics hobbyists and they were floored by the kind of capability you can get for free with the Qwerk and all of the software that's already been written. Most of them wanted to find a way to incorporate the board into their own projects.

Anyway, the goal of the project is to have a wide appeal. I hope it can get a lot more people excited about what they can do, and all at a very low cost compared to other kits.

Carl and Tom on dorkbotpgh

[drewzhrodague]

Carl and Tom spoke at one of the Pittsburgh dorkbot meetings. There's iPod video and MPEG-4 of their presentation in the March archives.

Purposes

[Maxo-Texas]

* Vacuum (we sort of have that but I have dogs so i need a real sized canister)
* Clean and stack Dirty Dishes
* Fold and hang clothes (I can wash and dry them).
* Mow lawn (we sort of have that)

I can't see buying a robot for fun. But I would pay about $300 to $500 per item on that list.