Warming up to robots; WPI symposium shows a practical future.

Byline: Jacqueline Reis

The following correction was published Oct. 18, 2007:

WORCESTER - Entrepreneur Dean Kamen attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Because of incorrect information supplied by the school, a story about robotics in yesterday's paper incorrectly stated Mr. Kamen graduated from WPI.

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WORCESTER - Occasionally, said iRobot Corp. co-founder Helen Greiner, soldiers are skeptical that they really need a robot, but they usually come around.

"We call it the edge-of-the-cave-epiphany," she said, referring to instances in places such as Afghanistan where troops faced with entering a cave may stop to think, "Maybe a robot would be a good idea."

Ms. Greiner's Burlington-based corporation makes robots that save lives for the military and others that save time for ordinary people. Her remarks yesterday were part of a robotics symposium at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, which announced in December it would offer the first robotics major in the nation. Twenty-three students have enrolled in the major, which bridges computer science and electrical, computer and mechanical engineering.

Yesterday's event gave a sampling of what the field already includes and what might be around the corner.

Dean Kamen a WPI grad (SEE CORRECTION) best known for creating the Segway scooter and founding FIRST Robotics, a competition for high school students, described how his company, Manchester, N.H.-based DEKA Research & Development, is creating robotic arms for veterans who lost one or both in battle. Approximately 1,600 veterans have lost one entire arm, and more than 24 have lost both, he said.

His company came up with 8.9-pound wearable arms that, after two days of training, one tester controlled using electrodes on his torso.

Mr. Kamen, who joked, "I spent the best five years of my life as a freshman here" at WPI, said he expects robotics to merge with other concepts over time, much as computers have. "I think this melding of people and prosthetics is going to blur that line pretty quickly," he said.

Not all robots are serious. IRobot invited people to modify their Roomba vacuum robot for different uses and was surprised with the results. One person dressed the robot in a frog costume and sent it into traffic in an imitation of Atari's old Frogger video game, while others reconfigured the robot to make sand art. "You never know what people will do with it," Ms. Greiner said.

And you never know how attached people will get. That can be particularly true for the military robots, such as one that a Marine asked to be repaired even though the machine clearly had seen its last explosion. The device had removed or exploded 17 improvised explosive devices and a vehicle bomb, and the solider credited it with saving his and his friends' lives several times.

Even vacuum robot owners get attached to their machines. Customers are occasionally disappointed when the company offers to replace a robot instead of repair the one they have, Ms. Grenier said.

"They had this vision of us coming with an ambulance," she noted. "I think people buy them as appliances... but they start thinking of it differently."

They often name the robots, she added. "I think something's going on here, because did you ever actually name your toaster?"

Contact Jacqueline Reis at [e-mail]

ART: PHOTO

PHOTOG: T&G Staff/PAUL KAPTEYN

CUTLINE: Dean Kamen, CEO of DEKA, shows a film clip as he describes his company's robotic prosthetic arm at WPI yesterday.