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NASAs tennis ball Sized Robot Assistants
Rob sent us linkage to
a wired article that talks about Tennis ball sized robots
that will zip around working as assistants for astronauts. They
are described as being like the training bots in Star Wars.
They'd be cool as pets if we lived in zero-g...
But am I the only person to recall what happens when these balls go BAD? Nasty, nasty results... I refer you to the Hellraiser series of movies as graphic and tragic examples of what the future might hold with Problem Balls.
I wholely denounce this ball exploration! If God wanted us to have balls in space, (s)he would have put them there!
--
rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)
"People will pay big bucks for the luxury of ignorance."
Incidentally, I saw this post while taking a break from Tetrisphere, in the middle of a "let's see how many points I can get" session. I'm on level 4:5 and already have 48.3 million. I doubt I'll have the attention span to get all the way to episode 13, though (my record when playing for speed).
See, 'coz like, Tetrisphere has these little robots which are shaped like a tennis ball and unfold into various utility robot forms, and one of them is fan-propelled and stuff, and...
*realizes she's rambling, and decides to hide in a corner where nobody will notice*
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
... which would be so much cooler. You know, like the Seeker from Dune. If the Army Air Corps was still in charge of space exploration you know they'd do it.
Oh well. sigh.
-- Jeff Paulsen
Space Aliens Took Our Balls!
Or, if Congress drops even more funding for NASA, they could use:
Congress grabs NASA by the balls!
---
seumas.com
I went over the NASA site to see if anything was mentioned about this. Eventually, I ended up at the Ames Res. Center site and found this interesting related item. It turns out that ARC/NASA does work in robotics and sponsors a contest for middle and high school students called Botball. This from their press release.
Two robot teams will `do battle' at a time, trying to put the most Ping-Pong balls into a target within a set time limit. The small, one-foot robots compete on a smooth, 4-foot by 8-foot playing surface.
The botball program teaches students C computer programming as well as increases their skills and interest in mathematics, science, physics and design, according to organizers.
These is the contest rules.
There is going to a live webcast (real video) of the finals on July 20 and 21. So it is too late for this year.
Sorry for the off-topic post but I love it when there is something like this that gets kids interested in science/engineering/computers.
Oh, I can just imagine the office assistant software running these:
Astronaut: OK, Houston, I'm going to replace the TCB-315 unit now...
Ball: Hi there! It looks like you're trying to floss your teeth! Would you like some help?
Astronaut: Um, no... please go away.
Ball: (dances about, and wanders off)
Astronaut: OK, Houston, got the main housing off, I'm going to detatch the primary...
Ball: Hi there! Would you like to learn about primary robotic arm operations?
Astronaut: No! Go away!
Ball: (winks and departs)
Astronaut: Ok, got the primary connector...
Ball: Hi! It looks like you're trying to floss your teeth! Would you like some he--
(some smashing sounds)
Houston: Columbia, please confirm, we've lost telemetry on PSA 3.
Astronaut: Confirmed. Now, about this connector...
Well, hopefully they'll assist astronauts. There seems to be a rising tide among conservatives to cut NASA. Heck, they didn't even uphold the funding of the F-22, much to the chagrin of our dear Secretary Cohen.
I think things like these tennis ball sized robots illustrate how vital the space station is in promoting technological innovation. Lots of people have ragged on the International Space Station, saying that it's nothing new, it just orbits the earth. I think its clear that even space travel around our own earth has tremendous benefits.
There are bound to be medical advances on board the space station -- but I think articles like this should show that just having an active space program promotes really creative thinking -- who knows what we'll see next. I know I'll be waiting...
http://www.newscientist.c o.uk/ns/19990717/newsstory7.html :p
Sorry I cut out the frames it was in
Wait, this little robot ball takes 2 years to build? Also, shouldn't be consider a baby submarine? (zero gravity, fan to thrust aka no nano-rockets/compressed air/pulley system via wires or fibers) Well, robotic due to it's intelligence, avoiding getting into people's way and all. I guess the 2 years is to make it durable and work under stress, you are asking a tennis ball size to survive space station disasters and do investigations after all.
:)
I bet another hard part is to have a hoard of them working together. It could take 5 spaceballs to cooperate and put out a little fire or take different camera shots of a unreachable space.
Another thing that would help these balls do precision positioning is if once there they can attach a tricorder to a solid space and use that tricorder to move in little increments. Just because you can't send a human into small places doesn't mean you don't need the fingers of a astronaut. But this is probably hard to include into the budget--micro surgeons these balls aren't. On the bright side, the surgical
programming can be on a mainframe that's on the
shuttle, not in the ball, you just need to give it a robotic arm--maybe the Toyota assembly factory can help in this respect
I wonder if positioning them for surgical work would be manual, like a 3D view of the tunnel and you see a ball, and you use your hand to guide the ball left and right.
Talk about juggling. This is a hard project. Good luck.