Geek Speak: Raghav Ram

If there is one thing that is unpredictable about Kids, it is the fact that can act a lot more adult can you can imagine. It goes for the language they use, the tantrums they throw and more importantly the things they build. The most unlikely of concepts can be imagined by kids. And when they come up with such concepts it surprisingly baffles even the most assuming of adults. With us here today is a young gentleman, who is too young for the word young itself. He is one of the youngest students to have ever picked up robotics as a hobby at Kidobotikz, if not anywhere. I meet him at the makerspace of kidobotikz where he is accompanied by his mom who is as enthusiastic and energetic as this tot, if not more. Meet Raghav Ram, the youngest robotics enthusiast that we know of.

Hey Raghav! Temme a bit about yourself.

I am Raghav Ram. I am studying in class 3 of The Pupil- Saveetha Eco school, Seeneerkuppam. I stay in Anna Nagar. Here at Kidobotikz, I am in Junior Level- 2.

That is interesting. How goes your level? And what are you working on?

My course is very interesting. I have learnt the basics for building a robot and am now actually putting it for good use. With KRG around the corner, I am looking to come up with new concepts that can be turned into working models. I want to display as many projects as I can. That is why I have come with my mother to develop a new project- cleaning robot.

Cleaning Robot? Interesting. Can you tell me how it works?

The cleaning robot which I have assembled consists of a mopping mechanism and a vacuum mechanism. The vacuum sucks all the dust from the front of the robot while it moves around. The mop has cotton threads fixed to rotating wheel. With the application of detergent in the wake of the vacuum cleaner, we can mop the place with disinfectants to complete the entire cleaning operation in one go. This way, I intend to make cleaning my room easier and fun. I have given it a wireless control so that i can clean my room from the sofa.

Your design looks quite interesting. I rather resembles a baby elephant. Have you named your robot?

Yes i have infact named my robot. I am calling him “Cracker”. My sister came up with the name because, the first time we assembled him, he developed cracks.

That is quite amusing. What are the components you have used?   

I have used a 2.4GHz wireless transmitter and receiver, squared geared motor, 200 RPM Basic gear motor, relay board for the controls and a regular CPU DC fan for the suction mechanism on the vacuum cleaner.

Wow! So, temme what kinda robots capture your fascination?

I like all kind of robots, but the one kind of robot that captivates me a lot is a humanoid robot. I envision a future where robot helpers can change the way humans live.

That is cool. One last question before we move on, what are your ambitions in life? What do you plan to do with your knowledge that you learnt here?

I want learn everything there is about robotics. So, I will learn robotics in engineering and build better robots.

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Single-motor bots crawl, swim and climb with a wiggle and a wave

Over the years, we've seen a number of robots inspired by the animals kingdom – from jumpers and crawlers to swimmers and fliers. Inspired by the movement of snakes, an Israeli research team has now developed a bot that's said to be the first in the world to produce pure wave motion using a single motor.

The Single Actuator Wave-like Robot (SAW) has been created by Dr. David Zarrouk, of the university's Mechanical Engineering Department, and a team of students at the Bioinspired and Medical Robotics lab. "The design was originally intended to be used for crawling inside the intestines as a self-propelled endoscope (for filming the intestines and biopsies)," Zarrouk told us. "I had been working on this subject for many years and a couple of years ago I came up with this design which produces continuously advancing wave."

Central to its novel movement is a spiral-shaped rod that's fed though linked 3D-printed slats running down the body. As the single motor rotates the helix spine, continuous wave motion of the body results and the links push forward or backward when they come into contact with the ground.

This dynamic motion is reported to allow the SAW to move over different surfaces (such as sand, grass or gravel) and climb over obstacles or through tunnels. The continuous wave motion body is attached to a wheeled head, which is used for steering, not to aid locomotion. There's even a waterproof version that can swim at 6 cm per second.

It's a quick mover, too, with a top speed of 57 cm per second. "We formulated the speed as a function of the speed wave, wave-length, thickness of the wave and its amplitude, revealed Zarrouk. "We realized from our model that it possible for the robot to crawl even faster than its own wave speed and we managed to prove this experimentally (our robot with the "dentals" moved 13 percent faster than the speed of the advancing wave). 

The wave motion mechanism can be produced in different sizes, scaling it up for search and rescue missions or shrinking down for medical applications.

"In the future, we intend to shrink it further to less than 1 cm in diameter (which is possible thanks to the simple design and single motor)," Zarrouk said. "We also intend to make possible larger version in which we attach two robots through an actuated U joint in order to replace the wheels. "

He also points to the wave bot being something of a tough cookie, easy to manufacture and reliable. "It is easy to manufacture because it has an extremely simple design," he explained. "It has a light weight and no need for complex controllers to make the wave motion. The power density is very high as all the work is being [undertaken] by a single motor with no "sleeping" motors. It almost doesn't break even though it is made of 3D-printed plastic. We made lots of runs on rough surfaces and the robot always succeeded in crawling over them in a single shot and no maintenance in between."

A paper on the SAW project has been published in the journal Bioinspiration & Biomimetics. You can see various SAW flavors in action in the video below.

Source: Gizmag, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

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Geek Speak: Sendhan

“Distance means so little when passion means so much”. Words like these stand the test of time. What’s all the more impressive is the fact these aren’t false. Several instances that we come across in our daily lives reiterate these facts. It’s the weekend and students are back here at Kidobotikz as usual. Everybody is here already gearing up for the next of Kidobotikz’s festivities- KRG. Students discuss projects and ideas with their trainers in anticipation for narrowing down on ideas that they can make a working model out of so that they get to display the same at Kidobotikz’s coveted event. I enter a room full of enthused young guys who are all here working on some tech fuelled concept of their own. The fact that it is a saturday and they are learning some serious science seems to be lost upon them. Most other children would rebel against the idea of science on a saturday. But for these gentlemen, it is a part of their fun and frolic. I stumble upon a young gentleman, Sendhan, who is hard at work figuring out how to solve the issue plaguing the bot he has assembled. Following are the excerpts from this interesting conversation:

Hi Sendhan! Temme a bit about yourself:

Hi! I am Senthan of Class 9, RMK Senior Secondary School, Thiruverkadu.

Thiruverkadu? Isn’t that far?

Yes. It is quite far. Infact, it takes me close to an hour to come all the way from there. But, I don’t feel it so bad cos whatever time I spend on the bus, I still get to have fun building robots.

What level are you in? And how is your course progressing?

I am in the Advanced level. The course is going good. Infact, I am here to work on a project that could be displayed the upcoming KRG. I wanted to do something interesting and this I believe is the right platform for me to express that. I am developing a Self-balancing robot.

Project, you say. Can you explain what you are working on?

As I said already, I am working on a Self-balancing robot. It is a robot which has only two wheels. This makes it inherently unstable. I have developed codes that when executed will make the bot stand upright on its own without falling over.

How have you accomplished this?

Basically, I have used an 3-axis accelerometer which is capable of sensing movement in all 3 direction.  This means that the arduino microprocessor can keep track of the stability of the robot in all 3 directions and control the wheel rotation accordingly so that the robot remains upright.

This interesting. Are you aware of any potential applications for this kind of technology?

I am aware of many applications for such a system. Infact, most humanoid robots of the future could be stationed on self balancing wheels that are capable of standing upright and moving around with ease. Even the White ranger on Power Rangers SPD has a unibike which would use a similar principle. (laughs).

Moving on, what is your favourite course among the 4- Electronics, Mechanics, Algorithm and Programming?

I just love programming. I have always liked it over the other subjects. As a matter of fact, I can code on Arduino and I have learnt C as well. So programming ot is. But since the other subjetcs are important to build a bot, I try to keep in touch with them too.

What do you plan to do for your higher studies? Do you think the robotics that you learnt here is a part of your plan?
Robotics is the only plan. After class 10, I plan to take up computer science in 11 n 12. Since, computer science involves programming, I think I will be at comfort learning the courses. After that I am aiming to take up Mechatronics for my Bachelors. I wanna work towards making better robots.

Wow! That is quite interesting. I wish you all the best. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.   

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Massage-giving robot rubs people the right way

As our population continues to get older, physiotherapists are going to be needed more than ever. It was with this in mind that Emma – or Expert Manipulative Massage Automation – was created. The one-armed robot is designed to help physiotherapists handle an increasing workload, by conducting massage therapy on their human patients.

Emma is the product of Singaporean startup AiTreat, and was developed by Nanyang Technological University graduate Albert Zhang. It's currently undergoing clinical trials at the Kin Teck Tong medical institution, and has already been used on 50 patients to successfully treat conditions including tennis elbow, lower back pain, and stiff neck and shoulders.

Therapists start by physically guiding Emma through the type of massage that needs to be done.

From there, the robot can continue the motion on its own, using a combination of a 3D stereoscopic camera system and a 3D-printed pressure-sensitive "massage tip." That tip is able to assess patients' responses, such as changes in the stiffness of the muscle or tendon that's being worked on. This data is uploaded to the cloud, so that therapists can monitor patients' progress over time, and alter the treatment as needed.

Additionally, if Emma's massage tip detects responses associated with pain, it will ease up on the pressure.

Once the current trials are over, plans call for a second-generation robot to be built, which will be more compact and mobile than the current model. There's no word on when a final commercial version may be available.

"This will be one of the first robots out in the market specifically for use by sports therapists and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) physicians," says Zhang. "Our aim is not to replace the therapists who are skilled in sports massage and acupoint therapy, but to improve productivity by enabling one therapist to treat multiple patients with the help of our robots."

Source: Gizmag, Nanyang Technological University

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Geek Speak: Suryaprakash

In this pressure cooker-esque world of education and competition, it is a never ending battle between fun and scholastics for children. The ever increasing burden of the curriculum always tends to knock the timeslot of play out of children’s routines. Sometimes even hobby and passions get caught in the crossfire of rigorous learning. These get flung out as well. The more kids move through high school, the more play-time loses its turf to tuitions, coachings and other study-related activities. With this being the case, even edutainment loses its turf to mainstream education. Let’s discuss one such curious case.

Meet Suryaprakash, a ninth grader from DAV School, Adambakkam. His tale is one that is getting increasingly regular in today’s high intensity education system. Suryaprakash, who recently graduated from Kidobotikz, is an old student. Surprisingly it has taken him 3 years to complete his robotics course from commencement to finish. I ask him why and he immediately cuts a sorry figure. He says his schedule is jam packed with schooling and classes that he hardly got any leisurely weekends in the last 3 years to take up robotics and finish it in a stretch. He completed his courseware somewhere towards the end of 2014, but couldn’t spend enough time on his passion thanks to his rigorous schooling. Suryaprakash, who feels his school could do a little bit more to encourage science fairs and contests on the premises, has not displayed any robotic experiments at school. Nor do his friends and teachers know that he is learning robotics at such a young age. On the other hand, he has been quite active in all of Kidobotikz conducted robotic events. He says he has participated in robotic events all the way back to Kidobotikz Robo Games 2014 where he participated in the December edition. In all these events, he has fielded a variety of projects ranging from “feed the fish” in the dec-2014 edition to a “Home Automation” concept in April 2015. He was also a part of the Kidobotikz team which visited NIT Calicut to take part in the events there. It all started when he accidentally discovered about Kidobotikz courses when he was in the vicinity to buy a Solar panel for his own project.

After completing his Graduation recently, he is now taking up Raspberry Pi classes at Kidobotikz where he is learning programming, his favourite area of interest. However, luck isn’t always on his side. The weekend classes that he takes here are now clashing with his IIT-JEE coaching classes which also fall on the weekend. So, he had to request the Kidobotikz management to allow him to take compensatory classes. His trainers, sympathetic to his cause and appreciative of his interest to learn, now take separate classes for him on Saturday evenings after he visits Kidobotikz on his way back from IIT-JEE classes. One cannot help but feel awe for this 15 year old who shuttles his way across the city to balance academics and passions. He dreams of doing a Bachelors degree in Mechatronics at one of the IITs.

Happy Roboting ! !       

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Lockheed Martin's Spider bot skims blimps to plug holes

Lockheed Martin's Hybrid Airship is one beast of a heavy hauler. Naturally, maintaining a vehicle almost as long as a football field takes a lot of man hours, but the company has a new little helper on deck. Its Spider robot combs the surface of the aircraft on the lookout for tiny holes before patching them up, thereby automating one of the staff's more tedious tasks.

At present, locating tiny pinholes in a gigantic airship takes crews of workers on the inside and out, armed with a bright light to identify the parts of the surface in need of attention. But Lockheed Martin's Spider (Self-Propelled Instrument for Damage Evaluation and Repair) does much the same thing, entirely on its own.

The robot is actually split into two halves, which lock in magnetically on either side of the airship's outer skin. The half on the outside applies a light to the surface, which shines through to the interior in the event of a hole, where the inner half is waiting with its light sensors to pick up the breach.

When Spider has detected a hole, the robot lines up its patching mechanism and automatically repairs it. It then sends a before and after image of the repair job to a central processing unit. The company plans to use squads of Spider robots, where this central hub would manage their activity as they scoot across the airship. If one fails, it can reconfigure search patterns to make sure no hole is left unplugged. 

You can see Spider do its thing in the video below.

Source: YouTube

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The alternative box to the "Idiot Box" ! !

Parents always tend to enjoy the seemingly endless energy displayed by their Kids. They cannot stop brooding over the charming mischief that kids indulge in when they are not at school or when they are not playing outside. However, there’s a fine line between charming mischief and downright notoriety. Kids always aren’t quite mindful of the discomfort they cause when they are indoors and cannot help but bring down the roof with their pranks and play. Hence, parents have always resorted to means where they get their kids engaged or distracted in some activity that keeps them off breaking crockery or pulling each other’s hair. However, parents tend to not adopt the healthiest of distractions for children. Their go-to solution is usually the ever dependent Television and the humble smartphone with its mighty assortment of games and apps. 

But this is in itself is a very unhealthy habit. With the explosion in content availability across mainstream media, the content that is displayed on these “Media” boxes- or let’s just use the old term “Idiot Box”- is not exactly moderated or appropriated for children. The cartoons of the modern age are far more different from those of the 80s and 90s which were aimed at imparting interesting trivia and healthy knowledge to children. Today’s cartoons with their gory animations and graphicised violence isn’t exactly a smooth influence on the senses. Studies show that Kids who spend inordinate amount of time accessing such content via smartphones or watching them on the TV tend to display aggressive tendencies and are more prone to engaging in unhealthy interactions such as fistfights and aggressive pranks. 

Does this mean parents are meant to keep them off media sources completely and just get them engaged in scholastic activity? Not exactly. One’s mind would immediately race to the saying “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. Studies have revealed that kids have the urge to indulge themselves in such activities owing to excessive energies they have as a part of their growth and metabolism and they proactively find activities where they can expend their energies and time in.

However, this necessarily does not mean that kids be let in spending time on such unproductive activity. Parents as such should always encourage children to take up activity that would help in both their physical building as well as their mental upbringing. What better way to get this done than via indulging in activity that helps them both learn interesting concepts as well as provide them with the gratification of having engaged in constructive activities?

We at Kidobotikz strive to put the unspent energies of Kids to better use. This we believe is helpful for the child in his upbringing as he spends his fun time in activities that are not only constructive but are also creative and informative. Our Kidobotikz kits have always enjoyed the flair for being interactive and informative at the same time. Time and again, this fact has been reaffirmed to us by happy parents who tell us that their ward now has a new distraction that they are happy to see him distracted with.

“The cure for boredom is curiosity; there is no cure for curiosity”

Happy Roboting ! !

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Solar powered Suli brings light to backpacks, bikes and bottles

A simple, versatile light powered by the sun, the Chilean-born Suli brings light to everyone from outdoor lovers to those living off the electrical grid. It meets that diversity of needs by screwing onto a bottle to create a simple lamp, mounting to a bicycle to serve as a safety light, hanging from a backpack, suctioning to a window and more.

There are plenty of compact, solar-powered lights, lamps and lanterns out there at this point, the LuminAID inflatable lantern and the Waka Waka Light among them. A company has to do more than just slap a solar panel on a compact light to make an impression, like power its light with gravity or salt water.

Suli Labs sticks with good, old-fashioned solar, but it packages it inside an ecosystem that's much more versatile than others. Out of the box, the light disc offers up to 25 lumens and up to 60 hours of runtime through five modes. Power to the light is supplied by three AAA batteries recharged via the solar panel on the back. Suli Labs estimates 6 to 12 hours for charging under the sun.

The Suli gets a bit more interesting when you find out it has a threaded bottle mount that screws onto a common plastic bottle to create a lantern. Still, that just puts it on par with other solar bottle lanterns, like the Lightie and Sollight Lightcap.

Where the Suli really develops a personality all its own is in the accompanying lineup of 3D-printed accessories. The basic ring secures to the outside of the light, allowing you to strap it to a backpack, hang it up and otherwise get creative with how you position it. Suli Labs also offers a bike mount to fit the light to your handlebars, a suction mount to stick it to a window, and a transparent stake to light up the garden, yard or other soft ground.

Suli Labs held a successful Indiegogo campaign a year ago. Part of Suli Lab's business plan is to work with the open source community to develop additional accessories and uses for its light, so it also offers a free DIY 3D printing file.

The video shows the Suli being put to its multiple uses.

Source: Gizmag, Suli Lab

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Kidobotikz kits: A Gateway to STEM learning

Over the course of the past decade, the demand for STEM learning in the country has gained commendable traction. STEM, which is an abbreviation for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math is a form of learning wherein all the aforementioned subjects are converged into a single practical-oriented curriculum rather than being taught as separate subjects. This union of the individual subjects into a single form is aimed at improving the thought processes of students as it claims to provide students with a learning environment that keeps them engaged in problem solving and finding solutions. While this is an ideal approach to revamping the course structures that students currently engage in, the concept of STEM in itself has remained Idealistic and its accurate implementation has still remained a distant pipe dream. This situation needs to be addressed with.

Today, promoters of STEM claim to have created learning environments that allow students to be more active.Their belief is that with the creation of an environment using new age gizmos such as tablet or smartphone based apps , students are engaged in their own learning. They emphasise that students get active with the courseware with no manipulation.. However, in cases more often than not, the truth is a different reality. STEM courses as engaging as they claim to be are still inherently complex for young students. The concepts of Science and Technology can be a major leap for the primitive perception of students. It is highly imperative that they are encouraged to get in the mould of visualising concepts and remembering them the right way so that the foundation upon which their further learning happens remains strong. However, contemporary techniques of STEM education fail to capture the imagination of students. Kids, as much as they love to watch animated videos, still are not completely capable of assimilating concepts from just videos. They need a much better tool that helps them experience the physical manifestation of a concept. It also aids when this physical experiments provides them with the instant gratification of learning a concept and experimenting with it in-situ.

We at Kidobotikz looked at this problem of niche and aimed at solving it. The culmination of this problem solving exercise was the birth of the Kidobotikz kit. The Kidobotikz kit offers an overall learning experience for kids in the core concepts of STEM through an online platform that is not only engaging and interactive but is also gamified to promote healthy competition among peers. The kits which are perused by the kids while learning on the platform provide the instant gratification for Kids that other products have been found wanting. Both the Kids and the Kits associated with Kidobotikz are rarely left exhausted in their intellectual elements, all thanks to the efforts spent in developing this kit. If the reader still needs help finding convincing, we suggest you to visit our centres along with your wards to try out a kit today ! !

Happy Roboting ! !

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Walkera’s new superzoom camera drone can spot you a mile away

Walkera has beefed up its prosumer level flagship camera drone with two killer new features. The Voyager 4 has a gimbal-stabilized, 360-degree camera with a 16x optical zoom lens capable of a maximum 1500mm focal length. Plus, with both the drone and the controller connected to 4G wireless internet, there's no limit on control range, so you could literally fly this thing from the other side of the world.

When consumer camera drones like the DJI Phantom were first launched, people worried about the privacy implications of airborne cameras that could see over fences and into bathroom windows. But truth be told, most every drone on the market shipped with such a wide angle lens that your average backyard sunbather would amount to just a few pixels in the final image unless you flew very close indeed.

It was only a matter of time before somebody came out with a drone that packed in serious telephoto zoom capabilities – and in the last week, two have launched. One is DJI's Zenmuse Z3 Zoom camera for the Inspire One, which offers a decent 7x zoom from a 22mm to a 77mm lens equivalent. The other is much more powerful: the Walkera Voyager 4. It blows the DJI camera's zoom capabilities out of the water with a 16x optical zoom that gives you the equivalent of a 10-1500mm lens.

In practical terms, maximum zoom lets you get a similar frame to what a typical Phantom 4 now shoots from much, much further away. As much as a kilometer (0.62 mi) away, according to the manufacturer. 

Telephoto zoom is significant from a filmmaking point of view, because consumer-grade aerial cameras have generally only ever had very wide angle lenses. This made them easier to fly, but harder to film with. For example, when shooting a car, you had to get very close. 

Of course, there's also privacy implications, because a superzoom drone can presumably map every pimple on your backside from a few blocks away, which is far enough that you can't hear it flying. You – or perhaps more pertinently, your local celebrity – will never know it's there. Mind you, this is such an early effort and the zoom range is so wide that we're not expecting any sort of optical excellence from the lens.

Walkera is offering the zoom camera as an option, and at this stage the gimbal-stabilized superzoom camera only shoots 1080p vision, while the fixed wide lens can shoot 4K. Like the DJI Inspire, the Voyager allows the camera to rotate to shoot in any direction, independent of which way the drone is facing. The landing gear also lifts out of the way to keep out of the shot.

Along with the camera, the Voyager 4 has another killer feature, particularly from a surveillance standpoint. It can be configured to operate using its own Wi-Fi network, which has a range around 1.5 km (0.9 mi) in the air, or the drone and the controller can use 4G wireless internet to communicate, giving it virtually unlimited control range.

Using 4G control, you could literally fly a drone in New York, controlling it from Beijing, if the data transmission is quick enough. That's an extraordinary new capability, although many countries have laws that specifically prevent pilots from flying unmanned aircraft beyond line of sight.

Voyager 4 is launching with a new controller, the Devo F18, which has dedicated flight mode switches. The Devo series controllers have typically been a little confusing and unrefined, so hopefully this iteration will make things clearer for non-hobbyist users.

Take a look at the product video below.

Source: Walkera, Gizmag

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The need for an inclusive educational curriculum

What is the best way of undergoing Education? This is a question that is as old as mankind itself. Centuries of learning and understanding concepts have helped us humans evolve as a species, but does just comparing our proficiency with that of our ancestors sufficient? No. That would only partly answer the question. Acquiring knowledge across various spheres such as Science, Math, History has made us collectively smarter, but the average human still does not have a metric that enables him compare his knowledge and acumen with that of his peers. Nor does it make any sense for every human to compare himself with his peers. 

Modern ideas about education continue to be dogged by 19th century notions of merit and ability, which were based on abstract reasoning rather than the ability to design and make things or solve practical problems. These theories and techniques used to measure intelligence are widely used in schools even today. They are closely related to attainment tests in ‘core’ subjects and are used as a way of predicting likely success in traditional subjects recommended by the education boards. This in-turn diminishes the credit for pursuing other forms of ability as second-best.

Of course, English and maths provide the foundation of any young person’s education. It is equally important for them to understand science and their place in the world, which is why history, geography and languages continue to have a central place in the curriculum. But the challenge remains: how do we nurture new generations of engineers, technologists and inventors?

Thanks to the age of Information Technology and that of the smartphone, news and facts are now available at the fingertips of anybody who has access to a mobile phone. The young citizens of the planet are among the most active users of the internet and its wares through smartphones and tablets. With this being the case, they are far more likely to discover content that makes them smarter than an average kid in the 90s or 80s. But, does the curriculum cater to the improved smartness of these new gen whiz kids? Thrusting age old mannerisms of learning, such as rote learning, upon them will be of very little help to improving upon their skills.

It is time to introduce them to newer methods of learning which promote practical thinking and ensure physical application so that a student has instant gratification while he learns the concept. This will ensure that he learns concepts which are not only important to him but also keep him engaged and entertained during the whole process of the learning. Edutainment is the newest order in education. Let us all embrace this change and catalyse the change in curriculums accordingly.

We at Kidobotikz are very much in tune with this philosophy. Our Kidobotikz kits are designed on the beliefs espoused in the former paragraph. Kidobotikz kits are aimed at enhancing the learning methods that students adopt and weeding out ineffective learning practices where the practical understanding of concepts are found wanting.

Happy Roboting ! !

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Drone helps Airbus fly through aircraft inspection

Understandably, drones aren't usually welcome around airplanes owing to the risk they pose, but Airbus is making an exception to that rule. The aerospace firm has been testing and demonstrating how drones can be used for quality inspection before planes are delivered to customers.

Previously, Airbus' quality inspectors had to go up in telescopic handler vehicles to examine aircraft and make sure there were no "non-conformities" such as defects, scrapes or dents. This process was a laborious one, and could take up to two hours. Using drones, though, the company has shown how it has reduced that time to as little as 10 minutes.

Airbus worked with drone outfit AscTec to create a modified Falcon 8 drone with Intel RealSense cameras for intelligent obstacle navigation and a 42-megapixel full-frame camera for data capture. The drone is set to fly a predetermined route around a plane, during which it systematically and automatically take a series of photos. A human drone pilot supervises the flight and is able to take control if necessary.

Up to 150 photos are typically captured and these are then examined by inspectors as 3D models of the plane. It's possible to zoom and pan around the images so as to look closer at certain areas, with the data said to ultimately help improve traceability, prevention and damage reduction.

In addition to making the process quicker and allowing images to be easily reexamined, the drones make it safer and more comfortable for inspectors, who will no longer have to be lifted up in telescopic handlers regardless of weather conditions.

The system is being tested on Airbus A330 and A350 aircraft, after which it is expected to be rolled out for use on all aircraft from next year. It's being demonstrated at this year's Farnborough Airshow in the UK, which runs until July 17.

The video below shows how the drones are being used.

Source: Airbus

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Geek speak: Vidhyasagar

“The hands are the instruments of man’s intelligence” said Maria Montessori once. Of course, she knew much better than anybody about the value of practical learning and the positive impact it can have on the development of children. However, we at Kidobotikz take a sense of pride when we realize that we have actually taken the type of education that bears her a few steps forward and included more science and math in it than her methods of pedagogy could ever achieve. The result is a rather ever growing pool of Kidobotikzians who develop wonderful working models here at Kidobotikz after learning the concepts in a manner that the conventional model of the education system fails to imbibe. 

It is sunday afternoon and all around the city is somber after a tiring week and is gearing up for a new week ahead. However, back at Kidobotikz, the activity is quite buzzing. I enter the exam hall/ makeshift makerspace that Kidobotikz students use to display their prowess in their learned concepts of robotics. For six days a week this place is a beehive of activity with students pouring in from across the city to try out new experiments and apply newer concepts of robotics to add a newer tech-edge to their bots. This weekend is no different.

Meet Vidhyasagar, a 10th grader from Jawahar Vidyalaya. Most students I meet are usually new entrants at Kidobotikz and are usually still in their courses. Vidhyasagar is quite different. He is a veteran here at kidobotikz. Having completed his Graduation from Kidobotikz almost two years ago, he still cannot resist his urge to come here every other weekend. He is here this weekend to try out a new experiment where he builds a bluetooth controlled robot that can be controlled using a mobile phone. For the same, he has already developed an android application capable of controlling his bluetooth controlled robot. While this be a source of wonderment for any onlooker, this is business as usual for Vidhyasagar. He spends most of his time building robots and other gizmos and spends his time working on newer concepts. Thanks to the vicinity of Kidobotikz makerspace to the store of SP Robotic Works, he gets all the access he needs to high end tools that are required in making a new gizmo. He claims proudly that ghe churns out a new project every other weekend thanks to all the support he can get from his parents and trainers at Kidobotikz. 

I ask him if he has won any event and he immediately immerses himself into counting. After almost a minute of counting, he says he has won 28 events related to robotics ever since joining Kidobotikz, much to my bewilderment. This robotics whizkid has participated in a myriad of robotics tournaments across the country and also visited Singapore for a robotics competiton where he featured his robot in the open category against other robots in a “Sumo-wrestling”-type format. He regrets losing in that event and hopes to make it back there sometime with a much better bot. He has even visited Indian universities such as NIT & IIT and taken part in events against college students. This wunderkind hopes to study at IIT Kanpur and is planning to start preparations for his JEE from next year. As of now it is just robotics and class 10th studies for this geek who aims to pursue a career in Mechatronics someday.

Happy Roboting ! !

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Mars rover can now pick its own targets to sharpshoot with its laser

Since arriving on Mars in August 2012, NASA's Curiosity Rover has accomplished a lot, travelling over Martian dunes, taking selfies, and even getting a "brain transplant". With its mission recently extended for another two years, the agency has elected to improve the distant rover's ability to conduct science operations under its own steam. The upgrade is related to the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument, allowing the rover to pick targets to fire its laser at without direction from mission scientists back home.

The software is question, known as Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science (AEGIS), has been used before on the agency's Opportunity rover. The older rover uses the software to analyze images from its wide-angle camera in order to select rocks it should snap closer up, but it doesn't make use of the tech nearly as often as Curiosity.

Now, NASA has applied the technology to Curiosity's ChemCam instrument, which is able to identify the chemical composition of targets by firing a laser at them, and recording the wavelengths of the reflected light. Since arriving on Mars, the instrument, which can analyze rock or soil composition from a distance of 23 ft (7 m), has studied more than 1,400 targets, firing its laser more than 350,000 times.

The software is designed to analyze imagery, searching for snaps that meet certain criteria. The parameters can be adjusted by mission scientists, directing the rover to search for and study targets based on specific size and brightness characteristics.

Despite the capabilities of the software, the majority of ChemCam targets are still selected by scientists, who are actively discussing the soil and rocks seen in the images the rover sends home. However, AEGIS allows the rover to continue gathering data at times when staying in constant contact with mission scientists is difficult, such as when the position of Earth and Mars causes lengthy delays in information sharing.

Another big benefit of having the AEGIS software onboard Curiosity is that it makes the task of lining up shots significantly easier for mission coordinators.

"Due to their small size and other pointing challenges, hitting these targets accurately with the laser has often required the rover to stay in one place while ground operators fine tune pointing parameters," said robotics engineer Tara Estlin. "AEGIS enables these targets to be hit on the first try by automatically identifying them and calculating a point that will center a ChemCam measurement on the target."

Source: Gizmag, NASA

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Geek Speak: Roshan and Riyaz Sadiq

The coldness of Sibling rivalry is one which could put even national teams to shame on the level bitterness that ensues between two competing siblings. With the age of smartphone technology maturing and reaching the hands of younger citizens, the rivalry is just spilling over into the virtual and tech worlds.

Back at Kidobotikz, this form of one upmanship took an interesting turn. Meet Roshan Sadiq and Riyaz Sadiq, siblings and partners in mischief. The two of them are in India on their vacation and yet right on the second day got enrolled here at Kidobotikz. On inquiry, the two of them reveal that their dad had come to check out Kidobotikz’s courses and got them enrolled here on the very same day. I ask them why was that the case and they say, “ Our fights were bringing down the roof and our parents wanted to channel our energies in a more useful activity.” Back in Abu Dhabi, where the two of them reside, the two of them study in classes 8 and 7 of Al Bateen Secondary School respectively. I ask them why didn’t they get enrolled in any of the courses available in their city and their unanimous response was that it was quite boring and that Kidobotikz’s course was quite engaging.

Moving back to their sibling rivalry, even at Kidobotikz the two of are brimming with energy and desire to edge out each other in every way possible. This is quite evident in the manner they’ve gone about their Foundation Level course. It has been hardly a day and the two of them are already halfway through the course. The elder one seems to have performed exceptionally well in the course earning 27 badges already. The younger one, Riyaz, is no meaner too. He’s already earned 10 badges along his course and is fast catching up with brother. I ask the two of them as to how do they think Robotics will influence their lifestyle. The answer I got back was perplexed me. “We are here to build robots as they are the next coolest thing that one can do. Besides, instead of fighting with fists, now we’ll be using robots to settle scores with each other” says a casual Roshan. One cannot help pity the parents who will be bearing the brunt of tech-fueled ruckus these guys would cause once they are back home after their vacations. Living rooms could be the new battle arena, as one wonders. 

With sibling rivalry now moving into the arena of combat robotics, it has added a special special flavour to the already heated field of contest. Not long away are days where siblings like these will come forward to actually solve problems plaguing mankind rather than the problems with each other.

Happy Roboting ! ! ! 

    

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