Bring on the 'bots.You're in full couch-potato mode after school, plopped in front of the TV. Wouldn't it be great if a robot could raid the fridge for you, take the dog for a walk, and toss out the trash? Who knows? Amazing robots are popping up their metal heads faster than ever. Some robots can vacuum a living room, serve orange juice, and mow lawns. Others explore Mars, perform hip surgery, and clean up hazardous waste Hazardous waste Any solid, liquid, or gaseous waste materials that, if improperly managed or disposed of, may pose substantial hazards to human health and the environment. Every industrial country in the world has had problems with managing hazardous wastes. . No matter what their skills, all robots are electronic machines that must be programmed to do jobs humans normally do. Turn the page to check out some of robotics' latest and greatest! Dino-Bot Mechanical ostrich ostrich, common name for a large flightless bird (Struthio camelus) of Africa and parts of SW Asia, allied to the rhea, the emu and the extinct moa. It is the largest of living birds; some males reach a height of 8 ft (244 cm) and weigh from 200 to 300 lb ? Well, sort of Meet Troody, a robotic copycat of Troodon, a 2-m (12-ft)-long Cretaceous dinosaur that struts on her toes like an ostrich. "If Troody works well, we could recreate extinct animals It may never be fully completed or, depending on its its nature, it may be that it can never be completed. However, new and revised entries in the list are always welcome. Pre-modern extinctions
Troody's claim to fame: she's one of the first biped (two-legged) robots ever--most use wheels. Dilworth uses remote-control to steer Troody as she runs, jumps, and turns. Getting the dino to keep herself balanced as she moves was the trickiest part, says Dilworth. Fortunately she comes equipped with several mechanical helpers: * Her tail: Like Troodon, Troody's tail swings from side to side, balancing her the way your arms balance you. Try to run with your arms folded. It's almost impossible to keep your body from wagging side-to-side. * Tilt sensor: This device is an electronic version of a carpenter's bubble level, a horizontal tube with a bubble of air inside marked with a center line. "If the bubble moves too far to one side, the computer knows Troody is off-balance," says Dilworth. The dino's mini-motors then move her body to correct her alignment. * Force control sensors: Troody's 16 sensors gauge the pressure on her joints, the places where her metal bones meet. If too much force prods her to the left, Troody shifts a joint right to ease the pressure. Eventually, Troody and company could show up at your nearest science museum or theme park. Bug-Bot What has six legs, two antennae, and an electronic backpack? A bionic A machine that is patterned after principles found in humans or nature; for example, robots. It also refers to artificial devices implanted into humans replacing or extending normal human functions. See biomimicry. roach! Japanese scientists wired a normal cockroach cockroach or roach, name applied to approximately 3,500 species of flat-bodied, oval insects forming the order Blattodea. Cockroaches have long antennae, long legs adapted to running, and a flat extension of the upper body wall that conceals the with a remote-control device that commands the insect to turn left, right, or forward. Their reasoning: real insect legs maneuver better in tight spaces than six-legged robots. Android An open platform for cellphones from the Open Handset Alliance (OHA). Based on Linux, Android includes a library of Java classes for building mobile applications. Android and GPhone insects with mini-cameras could be sent to detect people trapped in earthquake rubble. Or robo-locusts (a grasshopper-like insect that destroys crops) could lead a swarm of the real bugs into a trap. To make Robo-Roach, the scientists first clipped off the roach's wings. (Ouch!) Then they attached electrodes, wires that carry electricity, to the insect's muscles. Just like nerves, cells that carry messages in your body, the electrodes send electric signals to muscles to tell them to move. The scientists--rather than the roach itself--control Robo-Roach's every move. How? A real roach feels a wall with its right antenna, which directs the insect to move left. Scientists measure that electric signal's intensity from antenna to muscle. When they control Robo-Roach, they recreate "charges" with the same intensity, using electrodes instead of nerves. That tells it where to go! Dolphin-Bot It looks more like a traffic light than a robotic dolphin. But Rodolph shares something in common with dolphins--and bats: It uses sound waves to "see." Nearly all robots use video cameras to recognize objects. But for sharper vision, Rodolph's creator Roman Kuc of Yale University Yale University, at New Haven, Conn.; coeducational. Chartered as a collegiate school for men in 1701 largely as a result of the efforts of James Pierpont, it opened at Killingworth (now Clinton) in 1702, moved (1707) to Saybrook (now Old Saybrook), and in 1716 was turned to echolocation--a sensing technique in which animals squeak with high-pitched sound waves to determine their own location and target prey. The sound waves bounce off objects nearby, and an echo returns to the animal. The delay between sound and echo indicates how far away each bump and groove of an object is from the animal. Rodolph's "sound-vision" is so sharp it can tell if a coin is heads-up or tails-up! Rodolph emits sound waves with his "mouth," the center circle. His "ears," the two circles on either side of the mouth, rotate to pinpoint the returning echoes. Eventually, handicapped people may command mobile robots like Rodolph to locate objects they can't see or reach. A paralyzed par·a·lyze tr.v. par·a·lyzed, par·a·lyz·ing, par·a·lyz·es 1. To affect with paralysis; cause to be paralytic. 2. To make unable to move or act: paralyzed by fear. person could simply blink an eye to tell the robot what to do. Moon-Bot Imagine a two-month-long trek in the bleak Atacama desert Atacama Desert (ätäkä`mä), arid region, c.600 mi (970 km) long, N Chile, extending south from the border of Peru. The desert itself, c. in Chile--where only 2.5 cm (1 in.) of rain falls every hundred years! For a new robot called Nomad, the trip was no sweat. Nomad wheeled through Atacama last summer, collecting scientific data on the desert in a practice run for even rougher treks--like the moon or Mars. To "see" with the robot's panoramic camera 1. In aerial photography, a camera which, through a system of moving optics or mirrors, scans a wide area of the terrain, usually from horizon to horizon. The camera may be mounted vertically or obliquely within the aircraft, to scan across or along the line of flight. 2. , scientists controlled Nomad from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania “Pittsburgh” redirects here. For the region, see Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area. Pittsburgh (pronounced IPA: /ˈpɪtsbɚg/) is the second largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. , 8,050 km (5,000 mi) away. How do you get the picture from Chile to Pittsburgh? First, Nomad's video cameras scan the landscape. The video is converted to electromagnetic radiation--wave energy like radio waves Radio waves Electromagnetic energy of the frequency range corresponding to that used in radio communications, usually 10,000 cycles per second to 300 billion cycles per second. or microwaves. A satellite dish satellite dish n. A dish antenna used to receive and transmit signals relayed by satellite. satellite dish A parabolic antenna used to receive signals relayed by satellite. beams up the waves to a satellite, which aims them toward the control center in Pittsburgh. A computer then converts the signal back to an image, and it's displayed on a 6-meter (20-ft)-wide curved screen at the Carnegie Science Center museum. Regular visitors can check out what Nomad experienced for themselves. Within a few years rovers like Nomad may hike across the moon. Earth-bound tourists at a theme park may be able to "drive" the rovers themselves for a virtual "moonwalk moon·walk n. A walk on the surface of the moon by an astronaut. intr.v. moon·walked, moon·walk·ing, moon·walks To walk on the surface of the moon. "! RELATED ARTICLE: Totally Cool Career If you visited the lab of 26-year-old robot designer Yoky Matsuoka, she'd give you a hand--a robotic one. She's designed human-like hands for Cog, a robot that mimics the brain and movement of a six-month-old baby. Cog could help scientists understand how humans learn. "When I was young, I wanted a robot to play sports with me," says Matsuoka. She excelled in physics and math in high school, and is now earning her PhD in electrical engineering electrical engineering: see engineering. electrical engineering Branch of engineering concerned with the practical applications of electricity in all its forms, including those of electronics. and computer science. To build her 'bots, Matsuoka designs the model, cuts and shapes metal, wires electrical circuits, constructs and programs the machines. To find out more about robotics, check out the Web site: www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/robotics-faq |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion