Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with robotics

Where did I read about three rules determining how the robots run the factory?

Cool Papa Bell — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:41:47 -0800

Help me find a half-remembered anecdote about robotics and computing taking a cue from ant- or bee-like, hive-mind biological processes -- a story about a car factory's paint process organized with just three rules. If my memory serves, the rules boiled down to:

1) do something essential -- paint a car a certain color when that specific color is ordered.
2) do something useful -- when you don't have a specific order for a specific color, paint the most popular color, because there will always be a demand for it anyway.
3) do something -- don't ever stop the line; if both rules 1 and 2 fail, just paint another car with whatever color is loaded in the machine, because that's better than stopping the production line.

Where did I read this? Am I remembering the three rules correctly?

I think I was reading something from Kevin Kelly's Out of Control, but I don't think that's it (can't easily find it in the text).

Where can I find robotics classes/teams/clubs in Bay Area?

typography — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:39:17 -0800

I am looking for robotics classes/teams/clubs in the Bay Area. I am a recent college graduate working as a co-op in a medical device company. I plan to return to graduate school in the near future majoring in robotics. Though the work at the company isn't boring, I am looking forward to working with robots. After finishing my first robot in my spare time, I have come to realize the amount of resource needed to scale up to bigger projects.

I am now looking to meet people of similar interest to tackle bigger projects. Ideally there would be some sort of team/club that's looking to build something. Alternatively I imagine certain mechatronics or similar classes would also fit the bill. I am simply looking to meet people of similar interests and established resources to allow me to tackle more complex projects.

I checked the community college (De Anza) near me and nothing related to robotics was being offered. Other suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

I'm looking for a tiny video camera to use with a robotics project

gentle — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:31:17 -0800

I'm looking for a tiny video camera to use with a robotics project. The camera needs to be digital, have a digital connection (preferably USB, not wireless), support a minimum resolution of 1024x768 at 30fps and weigh as little as possible — maybe as much as 120g but hopefully lighter. And it must be affordable: less than $500 including lens. I have looked at consumer web cams, but I have not found any that match my requirements (web cams are typically low resolution/low frame rate); also they are all in enclosures so I would need to pry them open. And they are not that light-weight.

I have looked at various RC sites, but they tend to do analog cameras or ones that record to an SD card; I want a live feed to my microcontroller.

I found a company called OEM Cameras that have several digital ones for sale, but the model that I would prefer (which has a standard CS mount) is an incredible $800, and that's without a lens!

Hooking a Chumby up to a Furby?

rwhe — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:07:38 -0800

LazyHiveMind: What fun things can I do if I hook my Chumby up to a Furby? Serious rediscovered interest in robotics but admittedly frivolous project. I have a 2008 production Chumby and a junk box full of original Furbies bought in thrift stores, most of them in pretty good shape (but I'm not afraid to rip 'em apart).

What fun things can I do by wiring together my Chumby and one or more Furbies? I've already thought of an easy one: wire the Furby's mike input to the audio output of the Chumby. Then when the Chumby's alarm goes off, the Furby will wake up and do something interesting instead.

I'd like to work with the original hardware as much as possible, so I'm not really interested in ripping out the Furby's brain and replacing it with an Arduino or something. Also, Furbies are cheap, but Chumbies are expensive, and I like mine. Enough said.

Let the speculative engineering commence!

p.s. Twitter failed me on this one, so I'm counting on MeFites.

Where's my robot?

godawful — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 06:12:33 -0800

How can I determine my robot's location reliably and cheaply? I've made a wheeled robot which can communicate wirelessly with my computer. I used Arduino boards, XBee radio modules and the Wiring/Processing languages. The robot also has an ultrasonic rangefinder on the front.

Now I'm in 'What next?' mode.

I thought it would be cool if the robot could roam and communicate distance measurements back to Processing, which could then draw a map of the 2d floor space that the Robot finds itself in. Thinking this through, though, the major obstacle is determining where the robot is and which direction it's facing when it takes a range measurement.

It seems that the direction problem is easy to solve with something like this compass module. That leaves the problem of location.

I suppose you could take a mean measurement of the robots speed along with the direction travelled and take everything relative to the starting point. However, it seems to me that, with different floor surfaces and general variation, the robot's calculations will get progressively less accurate over time, and the map might just tend towards mush.

How would you solve this problem in an ideal world? A set of beacons perhaps? How would you solve it on my budget, which precludes anything over £100/$150?

Please help me learn how to build my robot

Your Time Machine Sucks — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 03:07:38 -0800

Robotics question: simple and high-payoff project, don't have the time/leet skillz/rationale to jump in the deep end of the pool (i.e. academic smartypantses building attack vehicles), don't want to spend the money on/deal with the physical bulk of the shallow end (Mindstorms et al). What is in the middle? Can you recommend sites/communities where I can go and get smart about basic robotics and look at some beginner projects that don't include a multi-hundred-dollar investment in legos, or, alternately, access to the campus machine shop? I have googled but I feel like I keep ending up at these two outcomes and thought it might be time to see if I could get some human guidance. My robot is going to be an eye and a three-position switch which a script decides what position to put in based on the info seen by the eye. Pretty much the bare minimum which qualifies as robotics.

My non-leet applicable skills are soldering, enjoyment of linux and a willingness to compile OSS, any c-like scripting, well-stocked real-life toolbox, ability to read. I have made my own circuit boards in the past with decidedly mixed results, and I am willing to continue that proud tradition. I am secretly hoping that I can control my little friend using busybox linux since I have a tiny device already running it (thank you dd-wrt), but I guess we'll see about that.

Thank you!

I want to watch four hours of robots driving around slowly.

Skorgu — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:23:32 -0800

Where can I get an uncut video of the DARPA Urban Challenge event? I recorded a chunk of the live webcast of the Urban Challenge, and I see that there's a highlight reel available, but is there any way for me to get my grubby mitts on the full, live event complete with pretend-its-the-superbowl commentary? Higher quality preferred, but I'm really after completeness.

Laptop motherboards that can boot from USB

DrSkrud — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 15:22:20 -0800

Can you name any laptop motherboards (brands, models, etc.) capable of booting from a USB flash drive? We're working on a robotics project at my university, and we're thinking that using a small linux kernel on a flash drive and a laptop motherboard would be much more sustainable (and easier) than dealing with microcontrollers.

What we need to find is a motherboard that can boot off of a USB flash drive. I know these exist, but I have no idea how to find them!

The Future of War?

Ryvar — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 03:48:36 -0800

Help me find a series of illustrated children's hardcover books from the 70s/80s about the upcoming technologies of "The Future" When I was 7 or 8 ('87-'88) I remember my grade school library had a whole series of illustrated hardcover books - big and thin (30-60 pages, say) covering the future of various topics. Future of flight, future of space travel, future of robotics, etc. The future of war was a particular standout as it had a very vivid illustration of two robotic hovertanks in combat - I believe it was on the front cover as well. That's the specific one I'm looking for but I'm after the whole series if possible.

Things I'm less sure about, some of these may be red herrings: I seem to recall all the books generally had a white cover (fairly sure of this) with a blue seriffed font for the title (not as sure about this), and all the titles ran along a basic theme that was literally like "The Future of War" "The Future of Robotics", etc. etc.

The art was particularly well-rendered, and generally didn't fall into the category of cheesy 50s-60s space art. Anybody have any ideas?

Help Me Get Skynet Online (or: Lego Robotics)

CrayDrygu — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 15:08:59 -0800

RoboFilter: What can someone with a budding (but likely fleeting) interest in robotics do for a first project that combines a little building, a little programming, and hopefully only a little money? At work we have a tape library to handle loading and swapping of our backup tapes. It's basically a simple robot which moves items of a preditable size between known locations. The infamous robotic parking lots were probably inspired by this, as they're really very much the same idea.

The programmer in me (which is hobbyist level at best) is fascinated by the idea of programming a simple robot of similar design to do something like, say, fetch CDs/DVDs from a rack. Just for fun, not any practical purpose. But I don't have a ton of cash to spend, so if I do this, I don't want to spend more than a couple hundred on it, especially since my interests in these sort of things tend to be fleeting.

So, I'm thinking of picking up a Lego Mindstorms NXT kit, and a few extra sensors/motors. It has the advantages of being easy to build with (being lego), and also having the ability to be programmed with "real" programming languages if the included tools are too simple.

However, I'm also intrigued by the idea of using standard motors and a PIC. Both the design and programming are going to be more complex, but also more flexible. But I have to wonder if it would end up costing a lot more, or if it might be less, or comparable.

So, is there anyone around with experience using the Mindstorms NXT who can tell me a bit about its features and limitations in actual use? Likewise, anyone into more "serious" robotics project who can comment on the ups and downs of going the traditional route?

Robot Planes!!!

tweak — Wed, 10 May 2006 03:28:04 -0800

Flying Robot Planes? The analysts seem to think there is no good way to stop these things. Why isn't the government interested in using the wisdom of crowds to prevent terrorist attacks? I know about the futures market being used to predict terrorist attacks.... but what about the wisdom of crowds to come up with technology and creative solutions to these problems? Why don't we have a huge suggestion box for the public to throw ideas at the wall and see if any stick? It seems like the only things military and political leaders are interested in is expensive laser-based technology or flashy gadgets that cost millions or billions and years in R&D. Ironically, there are clear low-tech threats that seem effective, and the bureaucratic monoculture doesn't seem interested in unsexy solutions that don't help out their friends the contractors (who are often just retired civil servants).

AskMetaFilter is, after all, the concept of the wisdom of crowds applied in a practical and often very successful manner. So aside from my question about military stupidity and corporate culture, please consider the following: How would you prevent pre-programmed UAV attacks? The first thing I thought of was to hire illegal immigrants to literally watch the skies (and let them earn their citizenship for six months of part-time service). It would certainly be cheaper than paying billions for tech that can knock out a cruise missile but can't hit a UAV simply because it doesn't fucking show up on radar. This vexes me. What would you do?

John Charles Fare fake?

nTeleKy — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 13:51:07 -0800

Can anyone provide me with additional information on performance artist John Charles Fare? I first encountered his name on Wikipedia's List of Unusual Deaths, where it says he was decapitated by a robot during a performance. The only references I could find was the article linked in the question and a few brief mentions here and there. Searches for Golni Czervath, the supposed creator of the robot that performed surgeries on Fare also yielded few results. I get the impression that perhaps they never existed - surely such extreme performances would be better documented - but I'd very much like to know otherwise. So in my pursuit of the truth of John Charles Fare's existence I ask you, the MetaFilter community, does anyone have any information - anecdotal or otherwise - on John Charles Fare?

Arcade Machine

phrontist — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 07:56:00 -0800

I'm the student leader of a FIRST robotics team and we're pondering copyright issues involved with the construction of an arcade machine. Much more inside... As an offseason project/fundraiser we have constructed an arcade machine, complete with coin acceptor and retro joysticks. Any money from the machine will go directly into the team's coffers. We have the go ahead from the administration to put this in the lunch room, with one stipulation: that we can prove no copyright violation is taking place.

The platform is a PIII box running Slackware Linux 10 with old-school 4-way joysticks and arcade buttons (ala PacMan) interfaced such that they trigger keypresses.

So the question is, what joystick-based games (MAME Roms or otherwise) can we run that we can prove are legitimate? How long does it take for copyright to expire on old games? Does the fact we're a non-profit organization make a difference? I'd prefer to use MAME roms simply because it's easier to interface with than many seperate programs.

Robotic Pharmacy

AlexReynolds — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 01:11:07 -0800

What is the need for a human pharmacist in this day and age? I was reading the following thread about religious pharmacists refusing to dispense prescribed drugs that, for whatever reason, offend their moral sensibilities.

I am curious why the job of the pharmacist couldn't be replaced with an automated (robotic) operation, given a few observations:

• most if not all drugs, generic or otherwise, seem to be sold to stores in prepackaged dosages, eliminating the need for a pharmacist to mix products

• careless human pharmacists can make serious dosing or product errors and electronic prescription processes would further reduce interpretation problems

• nosy human pharmacists in an increasingly theocratic state seem prone to stick their business into others' private heathcare decisions

• drug stores would likely want to cut staff costs and reduce the likelihood of lawsuits from dosing or product selection mistakes or inappropriate decision making

Not that I want to put someone out of a job per se, but I'm curious what exactly are the roles of a human pharmacist today that can't otherwise be automated? What requires human intervention in this line of work?

Why are robots creepy?

Robot Johnny — Mon, 04 Oct 2004 10:31:39 -0800

What is the name of the curve or theory illustrating humans' comfort level with robots that look like people? Example: the more a robot looks like a person, the more uncomfortable people are in its presence, but the moment an artificial being is absolutely indistinguishable from the real thing, the comfort level goes back to normal. My Googling leads me nowhere, but I seem to recall reading about this somewhere on MeFi...