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Farmer Builds Robot Army
46-year-old Wu Yulu has only a basic school education but has managed to build himself 26 robots from scrap materials over the past 30 years. At first his creations were simple and could barely shuffle along by themselves. The robots got more complex as time passed, and eventually he built ones capable of climbing walls, serving water, lighting cigarettes, playing musical instruments and writing calligraphy. "When I was 11, one day I was sitting on the doorstep, and while watching villagers passing by I suddenly came up with the idea of building a machine that walks like a man," he told the Beijing Times.
I for one welcome our new barely walking, cigarette lighting, handwriting robotic overlords!
It is not immoral to create the human species - with or without ceremony, Samuel Clemens.
perhaps next time he could attempt to build a reliable web server?
"Wu, who lives near Beijing, sees all the robots as his sons, "
and later on in the article
"Wu says he has to sell off some of his robot collection after plunging his family into debt "
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
What happens when some marketing guy at Cyberd.. err.. IBM reads this article and then remembers that they're building a "cognitive computer" with DARPA cash and decides to create some wonderful synergy.
Paul Merton met this guy earlier this year http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4LIThTB8Ww
In every other country he would have been arrested for obstructing traffic or scaring the shit out of the neighbor's kids. Only in China can one rise from a dishwasher to a robotic overlord ... oh wait. Something has changed here...
I take my hat of for somebody with no study in the field whatsoever who builds a robot that can walk and pull a rickshaw. I'm not a robotics expert, but for me this means at least that he knows to: - Create the right circuitry - Program some microcontroller - Control motors - Calculate mechanical forces and equations to keep the robot in balance - Use the right sensors to ensure that closed-loop feedback & steering is possible to keep the robot in balance Is anybody else here wondering whether this is even possible for him to learn all that stuff without guidance (given that he's a farmer who must provide for his family and presumably doesn't have the time to fiddle with robots _and_ study) ?
-Who is building the robots?
-Wu is.
-That's what I asked.
-Wu is building the robots.
-Yeah, who is building the robots?
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
Well, you know the rest
China Daily's report is dated 2006.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-07/07/content_636244.htm
Look at the picture. His Rickshaw-bot is mechanical and he has a steering wheel.
It's not a complex task he has solved there. Stability is already present (2 wheels at the back, two legs at the front),
Sensors? Closed-loop feedback?
Lol. more like a few electric motors and some gears.
.. he could start a hip-hop group could Wu Clang Clan.
.... oh, never mind. I'm groaning, too.
See, it's funny, because his robots go clang, and
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
My moisture farms can use two droids.
For the love of god, robots are going to be the death of us all. Good thing this guy built 26 of them, he'll be the first to die in the massacre.
Okay, ten out of ten for ingenuity, but these are not robots. They do not sense their environment and make decisions based on their sensor input. (For example They do not have the capacity to be reprogrammed, or re-tasked. They are merely clockwork mechanisms.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Imagine what this guy could have done if he had a decent education.
This is a sig. It is like every other sig in the world, except that it is mine, and it is different.
He hasn't built himself any beautifful robot daughters...
Farmer:... You can sleep in the barn. Just don't be a-touchin' my three beautiful robot daughters. Y'hear?
Fry: Robot daughters?
[He points to his robot daughters outside the house.]
Farmer: This here is Lulabelle 7.
Lulabelle 7: Yoo-hoo!
Farmer: Daisy-Mae 128K.
Daisy-Mae 128K: Yoo-hoo!
Farmer: And the Crushinator.
[The Crushinator is a huge pink thing with tracks instead of legs.]
Crushinator: (mechanical voice) Yoo-hoo.
Fry: Whoa!
God, schmod. I want my monkey man!
If an American farmer made a robot slave dressed in clearly traditional Chinese farmer clothes to pull them on a rickshaw, they'd be denounced as a racist.
I therefore denounce this Chinese farmer as a racist for doing exactly that with a White American looking robot.
--
make install -not war
This guy deserves some recognition. I just made this Wikipedia page for him:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_yulu
Please help build up the info there if you know more. I especially need help getting some Chinese (Mandarin) characters for his name, village name, etc.
Thanks!
LUKE: Uncle Owen...
OWEN: Yeah?
LUKE: This R-Wu unit has a bad motivator. Look!
OWEN: Hey, what're you trying to push on us?
modern scholastic education is more bent on making the student a clerk than provoking creativity.
throughout history, youll find that a pathetically small percentage of great inventors have been through scholastic education.
this person should be given a lab, and a few good technical assistants. just like 19th century inventors had.
Read radical news here
What I wasn't impressed by was the lack of insight of the post I replied to. He's not some sort of robotics Professor, he's a guy that's built some ace robots out of scrap.
I love these sorts of crackpots, but let's not pretend he's done any cutting edge engineering here, 'kay?
dear moron,
if you had ANY knowledge of history of science, you would have known that with a few exceptions, ALL of the biggest scientists and inventors of the past are the sort of person THAT guy is.
you just called a lot of people ranging from faraday to tesla crackpots.
are you sure slashdot is the right place for you ?
Read radical news here
Parent is right. this story is WAY more geek/nerd than a goodly percentage of stories we had in the last few weeks.
move this to main from idle.
Read radical news here
its called creativity, muse, curiousity. these 3 have been and are the driving force behind all technical achievements and innovations and inventions since the dawn of time.
but clearly, you dont have either, and dont understand shit about them when you see them.
Read radical news here
babbage ?
Read radical news here
how many 'shitty' simple robots you have made in your entire life, yourself ?
please enlighten us.
Read radical news here
While these are impressive and nifty machines, what exactly constitutes a "robot" anyway? When I was a kid I built a machine out of Meccano that was able to climb up some stairs. Had I built a robot?
At car plants there are machines that pick up windshields with suction cups and then put them in the front of cars. Are these robots?
To my mind, the 'self-driving cars' you see in events like the DARPA Grand Challenge are robots, but a mechanical gadget, while cool and clever bits of engineering are NOT robots. Am I wrong?
More links and pics about this guy:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Sky-News-Archive/Article/200806413251033
http://www.china.org.cn/english/NM-e/96084.htm
http://rashmanly.wordpress.com/2008/11/27/wu-yulu-of-china-builds-his-own-wu-clang-clan-of-robot-sons/
Some semi-random quotes:
"[Wife] When we got married, everyone warned me he would care more about his robots than about me," she said, "but on the other hand, at least he doesn't drink or chase other women."
"So far, though, the farmer has encountered little success.
Five years ago, one of his inventions short-circuited, burning the family house to the ground.
Then in 2000 a salvaged battery exploded, leaving Mr Wu with serious burns on his hands and torso, requiring several weeks of hospital treatment.
Rebuilding the family home, paying his medical bills, and taking out extra loans to finance his new creations have left him staggering under almost £5,000 of debt. "
"Nor was that fire the first time his obsession hurt his loved ones. Wu grew up in a family where sometimes there was "no oil for cooking," Dong said. Once, the family scraped all its money together and bought him a remote-control car. He broke their hearts, she said, when he immediately took it apart to see how it worked."
""I got a rechargeable battery-like tube for a very low price from a recycling shop, thinking I could save money," Wu said. But he did not understand the English warning on the tube, and "when I tested the tube, it exploded in my hands. I remember a big fireball suddenly burst out, and I lost my memory." Luckily, neighbours rushed him to hospital. His memory returned, but the scars on his hands and arms and the pain he frequently feels in his wrists will last forever."
"Wu's perseverance finally began to pay off. Feature stories on the "farmer inventor" began appearing in various media. After one report on China Central Television (CCTV), its science channel hired Wu as a prop-maker, paying more than 3,000 yuan (US$375) a month. Each week he goes to CCTV for orders and makes them at home. Selling robot Wu Laowu helped speed the repayment of his loan."
Thus, it may not end so badly after all. Obsessed Geeks *can* break even. Maybe my SQL replacement language has a chance after all ;-)
Table-ized A.I.
Put our boy on the front page. Long live Wu, women de pongo!
Perhaps the agriculture ministry should be in charge of Gundam.
Father: The mill's closed. There's no more work. We're destitute.
Children: Ohhhhh.
Father: I'm afraid I have no choice but to sell you all for scientific experiments.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Me: I have built a robot.
America:
Do you have the patient?
I looked and the patent for building robots was filed in 1992 and you cannot build it without paying the license fee for $400.000
Me: I have built it though.
America: So you are violation of copyright, that a 5000 doollar fine.