It’s the week of the most awaited event at Kidobotikz and the place is a beehive of activity. With less than 5 days to go for the world record event, the evenings have usually witnessed a mass influx of student coming here with their robots to get them ready and record-worthy. It’s 10 past 6 and I enter the training room only to find that the room is deserted with all the usual buzz absent. Turns out rain played spoilsport and took a toll on this evening’s attendance. Yet all this doesn’t seem to have deterred one particular kid. I strike up a conversation with him to find out his name and what he’s up to. He introduces himself as Koushik and says he’s from Jawahar Vidyalaya. He’s here to get his robot ready for the world record event. A class 8th grader is all he is and yet he has already covered a lot of ground in the area of robotics. He has completed his “Advanced”-level at Kidobotikz.
Still tightening the screws on his ATV robot, he tells me that he has participated in a lot of national level robotic events and even won a couple of Robo races. I ask him what his desire lies and he says he wants to pursue Mechanical Engineering much to my surprise.
Back in the lobby I meet two younger gentlemen who are awaiting to be picked by their parents after completing the assembly of their robot. Both of them are in class 7 and are here to take part in the World Record event too. Meet Shravan and Pranav Balaguru. Juniors to Koushik here at Kidobotikz, the two of them have assembled a wired ATV robot for the event. These are just 3 of the many hundreds of robotics aficionados that throng the campus of kidobotikz for the world record event. Stay tuned for more such exciting stories.
When Gyorgy (George) Levay lost both hands to a meningitis infection five years ago, many people might have assumed that his gaming days were over. That's far from being the case, however. Working with two other Johns Hopkins University grad students, he's developed a prototype system that lets upper-body amputees control games using their feet. It recently won the grand prize in the 2016 Intell-Cornell Cup, a competition for students who are exploring applications of embedded technology.
Levay collaborated with students Adam Li and Nhat (Nate) Tran on the system, the three of them forming a team known as GEAR, for Game Enhancing Augmented Reality.
In its current form, the GEAR technology resembles a pair of platform sandals. Each one contains three sensors under its padding which can detect a variety of foot movements, such as the raising or tilting of the front or heel of the foot. Onboard circuitry translates each of those movements to a different game command.
Set to its basic configuration, this can add up to the equivalent of eight game-control buttons. With practise, however, it's claimed that users can control up to 20 functions. It's good enough that in an online survey, 81 percent of 51 viewers couldnotcorrectly identify which of four gamers was using GEAR, when viewing videos of their game play.
"Twenty to 30 percent of all amputees suffer from depression," says Levay. "They have a hard time socializing, especially young people … The GEAR controller allows people to socialize in a way in which their disability is not a factor. That was a key point we wanted to make with this device."
Levay, Li and Tran have obtained a provisional patent for the technology, and are now looking at licensing it.
The Pebble Core is a first from the company as a non-wrist wearable, officially ushering forward Pebble's push into fitness.
The little device was designed for people who don't want to be tethered to a phone but still want to be connected to the internet for music. While it sounds like an iPod shuffle - which co-founder and CEO Eric Migicovsky doesn't deny for one minute - it promises to hold its own providing even more functionality than a music player.
"We kicked it off four years ago and I think this is our biggest change to our status quo of what we've been building in the last couple years. I'm particularly excited about this (Core) because as a cyclist and talking to people who run, there's clearly a need for music when you run.
"When we came up with this, we thought, 'well it's an iPod shuffle that does Spotify.' And then when we thought about it some more, it was like 'how come no one's thought of this before? How come no one's pushed it out before?'"
What exactly makes it so different? Likely the Core's ability to harness the power of a SIM card, provide you with music thanks to 4GB of onboard storage all running on an Android OS.
The most notable features for runners includes an accelerometer motion sensor and GPS built in so you can track runs accurately. It's lightweight and has strong magnets to clip on to your clothes. There's also of course, a headphone jack for music.
There's no heart rate monitoring and no screen but Migicovsky says Core isn't meant to replace the Pebble watch- it's just a router with a few added perks.
"There's this interesting thing with smartwatches - it's a multifunctional computer that's on your wrist and can do anything. We've never really had the same feeling that we've built it to be a great watch first, then added notifications, then sports and fitness and activity tracking.
"We've always kept it focused. It wasn't this 'anything' machine, like your phone, that can do anything. It was built with a specific purpose in mind, the hardware reflects that, and the design - and the software reflects that as well.
"We were really excited that with Core, we can look at that in the same way where it was built for those who want to listen to music when they work out. But at the same time, build another path to the internet for our watches."
There's no official word on whether there will be specific plans for the internet portion of the Pebble Core but Migicovsky says it's a small price to pay for another SIM card.
"Core takes a SIM card in the back. So you can either get another SIM card added to your existing AT&T or T-Mobile plan, which should be about five bucks a month, to slot one in and it should use the existing data that's already on your plan."
If that doesn't sound appealing, Core can also connect via Wi-fi plus you can store a decent amount of music on the device. You just won't be able to get notifications or connect to the internet without the SIM.
According to Pebble, the Core can manage up to 20 hours of battery life in GPS mode, 9 hours with GPS and listening back to stored music, or 4 hours when the GPS is in use and you're streaming music over 3G.
On first glance, the Core is pretty unassuming. There are only two buttons that can be customized to launch various apps or actions, with the larger (the big middle indent) controlling stop/start for music. It's a simple, lightweight but powerful device which again, is purposeful.
Migicovsky sees the Pebble Core as a little Raspberry Pi computer that's a bit easier to use by everyone.
"A lot of people who run and exercise love the idea of just using a device as a Spotify player with GPS. For $99 it's a simple, straightforward, understandable product. At the same time, it's pretty much just an Android computer inside a tiny little box. That's it. There's no screen, it has GPS, memory, 3G, Wi-fi, Bluetooth, it has all the baseline features of what an Android phone has, just no screen. Developers have been coming out of the woodwork to tell us what they want to build with it."
It's like a Raspberry Pi - a single board computer that's wrapped up in this nice consumer package with a battery and it works."
A few use cases have already been highlighted, but Migicovsky says there's interest in using the Core for everything including tracking suitcases, kids and cars. It's even possible to use the Core as a GoPro attachment to stream 3G.
Beyond that, he notes that the medical industry has also reached out.
"Right now if you make an blood glucose sensor device or something that tracks if someone's fallen, it all has to go through the phone. But phones are expensive, they break, they have short battery lives and they're more complicated. 'Is there a way for those sensors and those devices to talk directly through the internet with Core?' Yeah, of course, that's what it can do. These guys are now looking at a $79 device that they could bundle with existing sensors or existing devices, that could be used as a router."
The CEO also thinks with time, the Core's pricing would decrease allowing people to have additional Cores all with their own abilities.
"Over time, I could imagine that Core's price could come down to a point where you might have one that does one thing - like leave it as a Spotify player in your car - and it's your Alexa and then you have another that's your running something else.
"It takes on a very specific purpose and doesn't try to take on everything your phone does."
Pebble Core still isn't out yet but it sounds like an interesting piece of tech that needs further testing beyond a quick hands on. I personally would be worried about losing it but Migicovsky says the magnets are very strong and durable. As for usefulness, that still remains to be determined. Replacing the phone with another device just to use a smartwatch seems counterintuitive but if it really proves to be the better option, then I'm willing to forego another screen.
The Pebble Core is currently available for $69 through Kickstarter, with the price jumping up to $99 when it officially goes on sale and is expected to start shipping in January 2017.
In 2014, Rolls-Royce unveiled its vision of therobotic cargo shipof the future that it believes will become a reality by 2020. This week at the Autonomous Ship Technology Symposium 2016 in Amsterdam, the Rolls-Royce-led Advanced Autonomous Waterborne Applications initiative (AAWA) presented a white paper outlining what such autonomous vessels might be like and what hurdles stand between them and the open sea.
In the not too distant future, robotic ships without any decks could be sailing the world's oceans
According to Rolls-Royce, the ships of the future will have as much in common with the ships of today as the Santa Maria has withHMS Queen Elizabeth. Without human crews, autonomous ships would operate under computer control aided by shore operators. The giant cargo vessels would look like surfaced whales with smooth decks (if they have decks) and no superstructures. They would also be eerily quiet as they glide along the sea lanes using eco-friendly engines.
How to get to this tomorrow is the topic of the AAWAwhite paperdeveloped by Rolls-Royce in conjunction with a consortium of partners, including Finferries, ESL Shipping, Tampere University of Technology, and Brighthouse Intelligence. Part of a €6.6 million (US$7.48 million) project that runs through 2017, it identifies the areas that need to be addressed and the problems that will need to be solved to create such ships, the business case for them, and how they might be integrated into conventional shipping.
Artist's concept of a robotic ship showing a streamlined structure
One key point of the white paper is that there is no one-size-fits all solution to making an autonomous ship and nobody is going to just slap a black box on the bridge of an existing ship and hit the Go button. Such ships will appear gradually as the technology develops and, like many cloud-based systems, autonomous ships will need time to create a large database to draw from as many types of ships for many missions are built.
An element that all of these ships will have in common, according to the paper, is that they will be computer controlled with arrays of sensors that will include cameras, infrared systems, radar, lidar, microphones, sonar, and GPS. However, the tricky bit will be figuring out how to deal with all the bandwidth these require and whether they can operate in real time.
This is just one problem that would need to be solved, but AAWA says that the advantages of such ships would be potentially immense. Ships could be built without the need for crew quarters, deckhouse, lifeboats, or even decks. They would be much cheaper to build and operate and would carry more cargo. Ship design would be more flexible, human errors would be reduced, and the new technologies would provide new, disruptive business opportunities similar to those of Uber and Spotify in their fields. Central to the autonomous ships would be their ability to make decisions in what the paper calls "adjustable" or "dynamic" autonomy. That is, there are many levels of autonomy, from the lowest where the computer does nothing but follow human orders, to the highest where the computer won't even listen to humans. The ships would be programmed to select the level of autonomy suitable to the task at hand.
A remote engineer handles a propulsion problem
Most of the time, the ship is completely autonomous, such as on the high seas, and if something happens, the computer can either make its own corrections without human intervention, ask for human approval, or turn over complete control as appropriate. It's an area where the paper says the technology is already well developed thanks to autonomous cars, aviation drones, and robotics.
The paper even foresees a time when a robotic ship will be able to coordinate directly with other ships in the area. Eventually, the ships will develop the ability to learn from their own experiences and that of other ships to improve performance. But as situations become more complicated and ambiguous, even the most advanced machine will require human intervention. Weather and other conditions can change suddenly and unpredictably, equipment can break down, and the computer's programming can be overwhelmed or even deliberately attacked. In these situations, it needs the ability to revert to default and fallback positions in the event of a communications failure, with responses ranging from wait for recontact to head for a designated safe area.
The main backup for the autonomous ship would be a series of shore-based control centers linked to the ship by satellite and land-based communications. These communications would need to be bidirectional, accurate, scalable, and supported by multiple systems for redundancy and minimal risk. The operators at these stations would be able to monitor several ships at any one time, identify and correct problems in real time, act as direct contacts with human skippers as needed, and collaborate remotely on problems.
Artist's concept of a robotic container ship
As to human crews, the ideal towards which Rolls-Royce is aiming is a ship with no need of one, but in the short and medium term, deckhands of flesh and blood will still play a part. At first, they may be required for legal reasons or at the insistence of insurance firms to sit about acting as emergency standby sailors or to help in dealing with conventional ships and skippers until standard practices are established. It's expected that humans will be needed in ports for longer, to ensure that cargos are properly secured.
Then there are the legal headaches of robotic ships. Is an autonomous ship legally a ship? Who is liable in the event of an accident? How must they conform to regulations or should the regulations be rewritten? What about in emergencies? Since robotic ships can't provide aid to distressed vessels directly, will it be enough for them to help with their superior sensors to guide and direct rescue vessels?
Robotic ships may carry a token crew at first
To answer these questions and to develop the technical, legal, and safety specifications, AAWA is aiming for a proof of concept demonstrator by the end of next year. In addition, it is working on simulators, and is testing different sensor technologies onboard the FinFerries vessel Stella, which runs between Korpo and Houtskär in Finland.
"This is happening. It's not if, it's when," says Oskar Levander, Rolls-Royce, Vice President of Innovation. "The technologies needed to make remote and autonomous ships a reality exist. The AAWA project is testing sensor arrays in a range of operating and climatic conditions in Finland and has created a simulated autonomous ship control system which allows the behaviour of the complete communication system to be explored. We will see a remote controlled ship in commercial use by the end of the decade."
The video below shows Rolls-Royce's vision of the autonomous ship control station of the future.
“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” said Margaret Mead. By the looks of it, the team at Kidobotikz seems to have espoused this belief quite well.
Meet Navin Arul, one of the star students of Kidobotikz and a robotics prodigy. He has contested in several national level robotic contests and has already won a few. I meet him on the lobby of Kidobotikz office where he is waiting to discuss one of his new projects with his robotics faculty. Upon further enquiry I discover that he is working on a portable water generation system. I ask him how and he says rather candidly that he’ll be using a Peltier module to condense the moisture from the air to get clean drinking water. Kids here at Kidobotikz sure get their tech big! A brief chat with his faculty reveals that he has already written his graduation” exams at Kidobotikz after his one year course and is here occasionally to work on his ideas. So, how do the courses help him, I ask. He says that for his graduation exam, he had questions from Engineering Drawing, Microcontrollers and Circuit Debugging. Last I checked these were a part of the curriculum that all engineering colleges teach and yet here is a 12th grader who was well versed in these concepts and was ready to give engineers a run for their money. The courses here at Kidobotikz are segregated into 5 levels with the following in the ascending order of merit: Foundation, Beginners, Advanced, Expert, Graduate. Each of these levels are designed in such a way that kids aged 12-17 can learn robotics in a fun and practical way.
“Learning these would help us in our engineering courses and help us pick our streams accordingly”, says Navin. Come check us out at Kidobotikz and discover for yourself this cradle of talent.
Whenever the word Chennai is used in parlance, people usually talk about it’s Temples, Tiffins and Temperature. An often neglected “T” related with Chennai is Technology. Engineers from Chennai have often dazzled the global scenario with their innovation. Chennaiites are also known for their sense of belonging and their pride in rallying behind causes. It is a city that boasts of it’s pride in being sound in tech related matters.
We hear about rally of students, teachers, canines and felines. How about a rally of robots for a change? Yes, you heard it right. On the 3rd of July, Sunday, at 6 AM, 101 School students from Chennai are attempting a world record by rallying their ATV robots (101 on total) across the Besant nagar beach. These kids, probably aged 12-17, have spent their weekends over the past year learning the skill of building robots from scratch at Kidobotikz. If you are returning from your morning walk and are taken aback by a swarm of robots approaching you, you are witnessing history in the making.
Join us in cheering for this record attempt and be a witness to history!
A brightly light hall. As silent as the seabed. The invigilator has been keeping track of the dials of his watch for over a couple of minutes now. At the strike of 11:30 AM, he goes “You have one and a half hours remaining”. A bespectacled youngster tries to pick up pace of his writing by scribbling faster on his answer sheets. Why yes, it’s exam time at Kidobotikz! Coinciding with the season of school re-openings is the annual graduation exam for the kids of Kidobotikz. Their months of training and fiddling with their robotic kits and preparation materials are finally being put to test in this 3 hour long ritual.
A quick look at the questions reveals something truly mystifying.
“ Explain the electronic concept behind speed control of a DC Geared Motor using a Microcontroller (that does not support analog output)
OR
Explain the 2 stroke or 4 stroke engine in detail with the diagram. State the most advantageous system out of the two”
These are questions that would generally put a sophomore in an engineering college out of his comfort and leave him scratching his head. But much to the astonishment of this author, a 13-old high school kid has already begun and is halfway through his answer. Truly mystifying!
Exams here at Kidobotikz are a serious business. While the kids who attend these classes may be 6th to 10th graders, the things that they learn really makes one doubt their age. Students join the course with weird unguided dreams, but as they meander their way through levels of Beginner, Advanced, and Expert, they end up at the Graduate stage that makes even an engineering graduate question his/her own competency. Not to mention that these kids are also adept at the processes of circuit drawing, coding, debugging, engineering drawings as these are a part of their curriculum here at Kidobotikz. Credit be given to both the kids and the faculties. For it is the faculties who ensure that these concepts, which are usually tough knots, are taught at the levels of kids who still are yet to leave school.
It’s the week of the most awaited event at Kidobotikz and the place is a beehive of activity. With less than 5 days to go for the world record event, the evenings have usually witnessed a mass influx of student coming here with their robots to get them ready and record-worthy. It’s 10 past 6 and I enter the training room only to find that the room is deserted with all the usual buzz absent. Turns out rain played spoilsport and took a toll on this evening’s attendance. Yet all this doesn’t seem to have deterred one particular kid. I strike up a conversation with him to find out his name and what he’s up to. He introduces himself as Koushik and says he’s from Jawahar Vidyalaya. He’s here to get his robot ready for the world record event. A class 8th grader is all he is and yet he has already covered a lot of ground in the area of robotics. He has completed his “Advanced”-level at Kidobotikz. 
Back in the lobby I meet two younger gentlemen who are awaiting to be picked by their parents after completing the assembly of their robot. Both of them are in class 7 and are here to take part in the World Record event too. Meet Shravan and Pranav Balaguru. Juniors to Koushik here at Kidobotikz, the two of them have assembled a wired ATV robot for the event. These are just 3 of the many hundreds of robotics aficionados that throng the campus of kidobotikz for the world record event. Stay tuned for more such exciting stories.
