Kidobotikz- Where engineering is made less esoteric !

It has always been the deeply held purview of educationists that the best of teachers don’t love teaching, they rather make their students love learning. The love of learning and the hunger driven by curiosity makes more often than not makes students voracious learners. While all of this sounds inspiring and motivational, teaching attitudes across the globe are still varied. While it is easy to blame the bad merits of an education system for churning out teachers who still insist on the old school way of memorizing paragraphs, we as a society should also spend some time and reflect back on our decisions which still keep this system of education up and about.

The first ever global report commissioned by the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering revealed that while just 20% of 16 to 17 year-olds from the UK and 30% from the USA are interested in an engineering career, in India the rate is as high as 80% - the highest in the world. Also when asked whether they would like to take up engineering as a career, 80% of 16 year olds in India said it was their first choice, while the number rose to 81% among 18-24 year olds, and 87% among 24-30 year olds.

With such a high demand for pursuing engineering streams, it is time that we explored whether the course in itself has extolled the required aptitude to the thousands of engineers who receive a degree. Sadly, the findings point to a rather alarming trend. With the ever mounting pressure to perform commendably in exams, students more often than not fail to spend time and appreciate, if not assimilate the course they opt for. As been been wont, year upon year the education system  bears the brunt of angry graduates and industrialists heaping remarks for its ineffectiveness in inculcating the practical understanding of engineering concepts in the students. Sitting back and commenting on this issue will never yield the desired reforms the education system. If change has to occur, it should be initiated from forces outside-in.

We at Kidobotikz believe that we are the pivotal catalyst capable of initiating this change in the system. The values that Kidobotikz espouses are ones upon which the most idealistic of education systems are built. Kidobotikz believes that the concepts of robotics and automation to which the students are exposed in their graduation courses need to de-sophisticated to the level of young teens. This serves the purpose of ensuring that kids learn concepts of mechanics and electronics in a practical way and it also helps them understand some of the most complicated concepts of engineering with great ease. Enabling kids with the knowledge of robotics would be a step in promoting a greater good because it changes the perspective with each technical studies are evaluated in the country and would indeed help place our students on par with some of the finest minds across the planet.

 Happy Roboting ! ! 

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Robots come to each other's aid when they get the signal

Sometimes all it takes to get help from someone is to wave at them, or point. Now the same is true for robots. Researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden have completed work on an EU project aimed at enabling robots to cooperate with one another on complex jobs, by using body language.

Dimos Dimarogonas, an associate professor at KTH and project coordinator for RECONFIG, says the research project has developed protocols that enable robots to ask for help from each other and to recognize when other robots need assistance—and change their plans accordingly.

"Robots can stop what they're doing and go over to assist another robot which has asked for help," Dimarogonas says. "This will mean flexible and dynamic robots that act much more like humans—robots capable of constantly facing new choices and that are competent enough to make decisions."

As autonomous machines take on more responsibilities, they are bound to encounter tasks that are too big for a single robot. Shared work could include lending an extra hand to lift and carry something, or holding an object in place, but Dimarogonas says the concept can be scaled up to include any number of functions in a home, a factory or other kinds of workplaces.

The project was completed in May 2016, with project partners at Aalto University in Finland, the National Technical University of Athens in Greece, and the École Centrale Paris in France. In a series of filmed presentations, the researchers demonstrate the newfound abilities of several off-the-shelf autonomous machines, including NAO robots. One video shows a robot pointing out an object to another robot, conveying the message that it needs the robot to lift the item.

Dimarogonas says that common perception among the robots is one key to this collaborative work.

"The visual feedback that the robots receive is translated into the same symbol for the same object," he says. "With updated vision technology they can understand that one object is the same from different angles. That is translated to the same symbol one layer up to the decision-making—that it is a thing of interest that we need to transport or not. In other words, they have perceptual agreement."

In another demonstration two robots carry an object together. One leads the other, which senses what the lead robot wants by the force it exerts on the object, he says. "It's just like if you and I were carrying a table and I knew where it had to go," he says. "You would sense which direction I wanted to go by the way I turn and push, or pull."

The important point is that all of these actions take place without human interaction or help, he says. "This is done in real time, autonomously," he says. The project also uses a novel communication protocol that sets it apart from other collaborative robot concepts. "We minimize communication. There is a symbolic communication protocol, but it's not continuous. When help is needed, a call for help is broadcast and a helper robot brings the message to another robot. But it's a single shot."

Source: Phys.org

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The homosapiens who desire home automation . . .

“At the bottom, robotics is all about us. It is the discipline of emulating our lives, of wondering how we work”-  Director, Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics, University of Massachusetts.

  In a way, all of roboting and computing involves emulating processes or activities that are either too mundane for us or too complicated to be solved by a single human mind in a respectable time frame. This belief, as philosophical as it may sound, is the driving force behind the technological revolution that all of modern humanity benefits from. For 21st century to have arrived, generations of 20th century scientists and engineers have burned the proverbial night lamp. This being said, for us to progress ourselves and our following generation into the 21st century, the well oiled machine that is “innovation” with its fuel of “desire to create” should run at full steam. If we take a bird’s eye view of the landscape of innovations, most of buzz is created by innovations that aim to make our lives a little easier by influencing our daily life and chores. This area of electronics particularly referred to as “Home Automation” desires to make the living experience of our homes grander by bringing the control of all our appliances and wares at the touch of a single button on our smart phones.

 Interestingly, this is one area where students of Kidobotikz desire to contribute as well. It is no news that students and kidobotikz undertake projects apart from their courseware and upload the same on to the tutorials page of Kidobotikz for their fellow classmates to make use of. But what is interesting is the fact that there have been so many enquiries and requests for guidance on this area that team Kidobotikz decided to appoint a special member to explore all possibilities in the area of home automation so that they could guide the students when he/she approach Kidobotikz for guidance.

Meet Alfred, the Kidobotikz appointed armchair expert on Home Automation. A passionate engineer himself, he joined Kidobotikz after falling in love with the concept of opening the world of robotics to school children. Here, he spends time exploring the various facets of the newly emerging area of Home Automation. He says that the brainstorming new projects in Home Automation requires him to stay abreast of the latest developments in the field and try out a few projects by himself before accepting doubts and queries from the students over the same. Even as we speak, he is working on a project which one of his students wanted to explore. The project which is an autonomous “Temperature controlled fan” would require him to try a myriad of sensors which would sense the ambient the temperature and relay the input to the module which would change the speed of a fan accordingly. This way the circulation of air in the room can be taken care of without actually turning the regulator knob. When his student is done developing his own version of this concept, he would submit it for approval and then get it uploaded on to the tutorials page for his peers to emulate the same.

Happy Roboting ! !     

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Social robot interacts naturally with young children

In cooperation with a consortium of European universities and companies, researchers at the Tilburg center for Cognition and Communication (TiCC) at Tilburg University are developing a social robot that is designed to interact naturally with young children to help them learn English or Dutch. The experiment that was launched in Tilburg is the first in the world in which a social robot offers a language program for toddlers from various cultural and language backgrounds. The ultimate aim of the project is to develop a series of language programs in various domains, for instance, numbers and spatial concepts.

As a result of increasing globalization, it is crucial to learn at least one foreign language. For immigrant children who speak a different language at home, for instance, it is vitally important that they learn the school language at an early age. Better language skills will allow them to perform better in school and improve their chances to successfully integrate into our society. Children's sensitive period for first as well as for second-language acquisition begins at a very early age. This is why the project opted to do experiments in preschool settings. In close cooperation with the Service bureau Kinderopvang in Tilburg, five preschools and daycare centers were selected. The parents of all three-year-olds were approached and a large group agreed to participate because they whole-heartedly support this study.

By the beginning of July, the researchers will complete their first experiment, in which they investigated the best way for the robot to communicate with three-year-olds such that they experience the interaction as safe and pleasant, and to ensure that it is sufficiently educational. The contact between the robot and the children is filmed. In general, the toddlers react positively and spontaneously to the robot. The first research results are expected in August.

Source: Phys.org

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Geek Speak: The insatiable thirst of Curiousity . . .

The truest fruit of technology lies in the way it empowers the human race. A technology is usually considered empowering when it can reach out to the youngest minds of the society and inspire them to add to its value. This is a fact that is reiterated day upon day at Kidobotikz. It so happens that on my every passing day here at Kidobotikz, I discover some amazing stories.

Students who join kidobotikz are known for their resolute and unflinching love for the field of robotics. These young makers make it a point to spend their weekends and vacations doing what they love best - building robots. However, when this desire turns into a passion what these kids do to satiate their curiosity and maker instinct is as good as anybody’s guess. More often than not, the results arising from such passively pursued projects are remarkable beyond measure. My tryst with such stories is something I relish.

Meet Gireesh Suresh, an integral cog of Kidobotikz’s R&D team and a passionate faculty member of the Kidobotikz team. An armchair expert on robotics since his high school days, Gireesh takes pride in being able to help Kids of learn the concepts of this amazing field. Gireesh who has not been here for long enough already has an interesting story to share. He is currently associated with guiding a student on a project for which the student had approached Kidobotikz. The student Smritika, who is an alumni of Kidobotikz, wanted to pursue a project where she would be exploring the possibility of using a Passive Infrared (PIR) sensor to detect human presence in an area. This concept is quite revolutionary wherein it finds applications ranging from Automatic doors in office lobbies to autonomously operated corridor lights in a library. It also finds potential applications in disaster management scenarios wherein trapped victims can be detected using the device.

While all of this is regular at Kidobotikz, the interesting twist is the fact that Smritika is actually not in India. She resides with her parents in Dubai. When she wanted to pursue this project, she couldn’t find a local makerspace where a school student could be accommodated. Thanks to special efforts from Kidobotikz, Smritika now receives guidance and gets her doubt clarified on the project from Gireesh via Skype.  Her guide Gireesh is all praise for the young girl. “From getting to know about the PIR sensor and deciding it potential use, it took her a very short duration. This shows the impact and influence robotics has on kids’ intellectual acumen.”  

Happy Roboting ! !

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Olive robotic suitcase brings new meaning to carry on luggage

Air travel is already stressful enough without having to trek long distances through what are essentially giant coach stations while dragging a bag on wheels behind you. There have been a number of attempts to relieve this situation in recent years with foldable scooters and bags that can follow its owner's smartphone, but Olive ups the ante by combining the two with full-on robotics.

Billed as the world's first intelligent suitcase, Olive can provide reminders, tell its owner to hurry if time is short, and has a built-in scale to warn about excess weight. If the gate is a bit far, a pair of foot rests fold out and Olive becomes a two-wheel balancing Segway-like vehicles that can carry its owner at a walking pace to the destination. Once there, the robot's battery can charge portable devices.

According to Ikap, Olive connects with its owner's smartphone or other devices using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth via an app that allows for full control. The app can locate the bag wherever it is using GPS and 3G/4G technology, and it has an automatic lock/unlock mechanism in case it's left unattended as well as provide alarms if it's disturbed. The lock also works with NFC technology, so keys are redundant.

Olive uses skeleton tracking to follow its owner

Ikap Robotics took out first place in the Service Robotics section of the 2016 Automatica Start-up World Competition held in Munich last month and the company says it is currently seeking investment and collaboration to further develop and manufacture Olive. We tried to contact the makers regarding the current state of development of Olive, its estimated price and potential availability, and will update this story if we hear back.

The video below shows Olive strutting its stuff.

Source: Olive Robotics, Gizmag

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Geek Speak: When pupils become masters . . .

Kidobotikz is a place of where one gets to discover wonderful realities. When one enters Kidobotikz classrooms, it is usually a beehive of robotic nonchalance. Students are generally oblivious to the surroundings and spend their time learning the essential concepts of robotics. However, there’s an entire breed of students at kidobotikz who are involved in something far more phenomenal. They don’t just gain something from the robotics community. They strive to give something back to the vast pool of knowledge in the robotics community.

Meet Mathivanan, Associate engineer at Kidobotikz. He is not your average trainer in an educational institution. He has a much more important purpose here at Kidobotikz. This electrical engineering graduate from Puducherry always wanted to create an impact in students and wanted to teach them the knowledge of robotics which he learnt by himself. This desire of his is precisely what inspired him to join Kidobotikz. Here at Kidobotikz, he helps bright young minds realize their dreams. He helps students build new projects and working models. Every time a Kidobotikz student or alumni desires to create a new concept in his or her own area of interest, he or she she is allotted a faculty at Kidobotikz. These faculty help the students conceptualize their ideas, brainstorm the technicalities and finally implement all of them to create a working prototype, not much unlike an incubation center. The students approach the faculty as and when they find time to collaborate on the project and successfully make it work.  

Mathivanan is currently associated on a project with Hemanth, a 7th grader from St.John’s Matriculation Higher Secondary School. The project which is as novel as it is futuristic. Hemanth who had an idea to develop a home automation system spent some time brainstorming this idea with his mentor and the final result was a concept which was simpler yet had a much more powerful impact on the daily life. Hemanth, who had a fascination for IoT devices, is now developing a device that will protect the household wiring from overloading by keeping real time surveillance of the load on the system. The device, claims Mathivanan, which is halfway through to successful completion will be capable of keeping track of the power consumption through the household fuse and intimate the user instantly in dire situations. It is capable of sending instant updates via a GSM transmitter which will relay the information directly onto the user’s mobile phones. It also capable of autonomously turning off the power supply in case of threat to the system. This will help in preventing short circuits, power surges, detecting power theft and will optimise the overall power consumption by a household. Under Mathivanan’s guidance, Hemanth is also working on to add an additional feature to the device wherein the device will notify the user the total consumption of power in terms of the bill amount by factoring in the power tariff. The knowledge of robotics has the potential to not only shape the future of our children, but that of the entire society and its way of life.

Happy Roboting ! !

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