Geek Speak: Thazeem Mohammed

It’s Friday the 19th of August and today officially marks the one week countdown to KRG’s 9th Edition. Back at Kidobotikz, familiar scenes are unfolding with lots of students flocking to get their robots ready for participating in KRG. These young gentlemen are left with less than week to submit their registrations for Kidobotikz’s flagship event and slugging towards the deadline with an intent to be ready in time for the registrations. Meanwhile, I spot a kiddo with a demeanour that is not much unlike any youngster I meet here at Kidobotikz. He is engrossed in a brainstorming session with his buddy/partner; both of them are probably dwelling over the details of their project to get the aspects right. This is when I precisely interrupted their conversation to prise out an interview out of him and his buddy.

Hey Thazeem! Why don’t you temme a bit about yourself and your path to Kidobotikz?

I am Thazeem Mohammed. I study in class 9 of Modern Senior Secondary School, Nanganallur. Back here at Kidobotikz, I finished my Beginner level here a couple of months back and am now on a hiatus until I take up the Advanced level in October. I joined here in April after being introduced to Kidobotikz by a friend of mine named Siddharth who himself is in the Advanced level. It’s been an interesting few months. I was infact looking for a place to learn robotics and then Kidobotikz happened.

That is interesting. So, how do feel as a student here at Kidobotikz? And why are you here this weekend if you are on a sabbatical from the course?

Well, to anybody who asks me this question, I always say this- “I underestimated the system at Kidobotikz”. I was looking for a place to join and learn robotics out of interest, but at Kidobotikz, I found more than that. It’s more about learning and having fun in that process. I have learnt concepts in a fun way at Kidobotikz which would otherwise be utterly boring. To answer your second question, I am here to take part in KRG’s August edition which is happening a week from today. My partner-in-mischief Sai Sriram and I are here to get our robots ready to take part in various.

Interesting! So, what robots are you developing for the event?

I am here to develop two robots. One of them is a Line tracer robot which will be used in the Autotransbot event. The other one is a wall follower event where the robot will carry out it’s locomotion around the walls.

Impressive! So, what do you think of the idea of learning robotics at such a young age? Are there any particular robots that you have a fascination for?

Well, the whole idea of learning robotics as a course while still in school is something that I completely support. It helps me let off some steam from the regular learning that I do at school while also supplementing the same learning that I try to get away from by immersing myself into robotics. Talking about favourite bots, I gotta say my favourite would be the Hexapods we learn in the Expert level. They quite resemble insects and their locomotion and are fairly complex. That keeps me in awe of them.

Moving on, what do you plan to do with the knowledge that you learnt here?

I actually planned to do Civil engineering for my bachelors. Ever since I saw the “Introduction to Kidobotikz” video, I have shifted my goalposts. Now I intend to do robotics in my higher studies. While, I am still not sure which college I wanna enroll myself in, I just wanna join any college where I can pursue a Mechanical engineering course, if not a full-fledged robotics course.

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Intel unveils new developer drone

Intel has dabbled in drones in the past, building impressive obstacle avoidance software and even claiming the world record for the most drones to be flown in synchronized flight. But now the company is looking to be a driving force behind the technology's rise, announcing a ready-to-fly drone called Aero that really is a software development kit designed to push the boundaries of unmanned flight.

Intel announced the Aero drone at its Developer Forum in San Francisco this week, alongside an all-in-one VR headset and its new tiny Joule computer. Aero is a fully assembled quadcopter that runs on the newly-announced Aero compute board, a playing card-sized device powered by an Atom quad-core processor that handles storage, communications and input/outputs.

This combines with an optional Vision Accessory Kit, which includes an 8-megapixel camera, VGA camera and Intel's RealSense R200 camera, to give software developers flexibility to explore potential applications for drones. Aero will also come equipped with Intel's RealSense Technology, which uses the drone's cameras, processor and sensors to create a model of a 3D environment.

Intel first showed off this technology at CES this year onboard a Typhoon H, a hexacopter built by electric aircraft-maker Yuneec. Obstacle avoidance technology is something that has popped up on some consumer models, such as the DJI Phantom 4, but with the ability to detect obstacles and plot alternative courses RealSense sounded like it might be a step up.

A planned demonstration is one thing, (even if it did involve dodging falling trees) but picking out obstacles in the real world is another. The Aero drone also comes preloaded with AirMap, an airspace management app that tells pilots where it is safe to fly and notifies them of things like wildfires and weather patterns.

Source: Intel, New Atlas

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Fostering the 'Jugaad' way of learning in mainstream education ! !

Far from the days of Japanese terms of management philosophy and production and intensive post "dot-com bubble" jargon, if there is one more word which cas captured the fascination of industry majors, it has to be the word Jugaad. ‘Jugaad’, which is a colloquial Hindi word, has gained significant traction these days in the business and management parlance. The word, which literally means a "hack", is generally used to represent an ingenious fix or a simple work-around in situations that would warrant strict adherence to existing norms or practices.

This method of solving a complicated issue with out-of-the-box thought processes is often used to signify creativity wherein a conventional mindset or approach is shunned to make existing things work without significant expenditure; or to create new things with meager resources. The Indian-originated practice of Jugaad engineering is widely accepted as a effective form of frugal engineering across the world. ISRO which successfully managed to achieve the title of being “the first country in the world to place a probe in orbit around Mars on the very first attempt” itself attributed its enormous success to process of Jugaad inspired frugal engineering where the attitude of “make do with what you have” is embraced. This practice of “form follows function” is actually what drove the cost economics behind TATA’s Nano Car or the endless models of sub-INR 10000 smartphones that are available in the market today.

Interestingly, the concept of Jugaad in itself has never been approved or acknowledged by the mainstream education system in the country. Infact, it could even be considered that the Jugaad actually thrives due to immense satisfaction caused by it being able to bend around the existing framework and come up with a decent work around. In a scenario like a faulty desktop, conventional wisdom would advise the user to find a qualified tech support and reach out for authentic spares; while a Jugaad mindset would advise the user to develop a cheaper workaround by himself.

This form of resourcefulness, which does not conform to existing ethos, has never been promoted by the education system as it views this as a “hack” culture fraught with un-usefulness. On the contrary, this system promotes anything but un-usefulness. It is a system wherein the user can be creative only if he is well versed with the technical knowhow of the given process or product. A jugaad mindset would actually motivate a student to be technically sound in order to be able to achieve the desired workaround.

We at Kidobotikz aim to bring these hitherto marginalized concepts into the learning scheme of things for our students and make the ‘Jugaad’ way of learning as a part of mainstream education. We promote core philosophies of frugality in learning through our kits where kids understand the face value of every component and tinker with designs to achieve high optimum performance as against cosmetic appearance. This will not only make the process of learning fun and fulfilling, but will also make the society a better place as such life hacks go a long way in driving contentment in an increasingly capitalist society.

Happy Roboting ! 

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NASA's robotic mission to capture asteroids gets a "go-ahead"

NASA is that much closer to snatching an asteroid after the robotic half of its two-part Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) passed a key program review. The mission to retrieve an asteroid and move it into lunar orbit for study can now proceed to the next phase of design and development ahead of a planned launch in late 2021.

NASA's manned and unmanned mission to move an asteroid into either lunar or cislunar orbit isn't just a cosmic rock collecting trip. The space agency regards it as a major demonstration of the technology and methods that may one day allow it to send astronauts to Mars.

The first robotic phase of the mission will demonstrate the capabilities of a number of key technologies, such as an advanced, high-power, high-throughput solar-electric propulsion system, the ability to carry out autonomous high-speed proximity operations near an asteroid, and the capability of touching down on one.

In addition, NASA hopes to try out advanced robotic systems for grappling with an asteroid and a gravity "tractor beam" technique that uses the mass of a spacecraft to steer a large object in space. ARM will test advanced solar-electric propulsion systems.

NASA says that the target for the robotic phase won't be selected until 2020, but that it will be a near-Earth asteroid similar to asteroid 2008 EV – a primitive carbonaceous asteroid that may be rich in volatiles, water, and organic compounds. It's hoped that ARM will be able to recover core samples of such an asteroid that will not only reveal more about the origin of the Solar System, but also the commercial viability of asteroid mining.

The Key Decision Point-B review was carried out in July and approved on August 15. It's the latest in a series of development milestones leading to the mission liftoff. In this case, the milestone has to do with mission content, costs, and schedules for phase B of the project. The objective is to provide a baseline mission for risk, cost, and scheduling analysis for an independent review.

As part of the advancement to the next stage, NASA will be inviting government, private, and international participants to help in developing the robotic phase of the mission and selecting payloads. NASA says that it will provide spacecraft integration services, power, data storage, and payload telemetry. In addition, an ARM Investigation Team will provide technical expertise for the next three to five years for both the manned and unmanned phases of the mission.

Based on the most recent reviews, NASA has pushed back the launch date to December 2021 and the budget has been increased to US$1.4 billion for the prelaunch phase of the mission. The manned mission, which is pencilled in for 2026, is still in the concept phase.

Source: NASA, New Atlas

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Towards a DIY-driven curriculum . . .

DIY or Do-It-Yourself is a cultural movement that has its roots dating back to the post-World War II era when the entire world rebuild itself after the devastating effect of the world wars. To overcome for the shortage of high demand labour, people took up activities of building homes, furnishing carpentry and painting by themselves. This in-turn drove an industry where products were made more modular to ease their assembly. Important commodity such as furniture, household appliances, domestic implements were all designed in such a way that users could buy them in knocked down kits and then easily assemble them in the confines of our homes and use them without much ado. Some of the best loved products in the industry made their name by catering to the creative and constructive spirit in humans where the users did not just enjoy a particular product but also took home the satisfaction of assembling the product themselves thereby feeling one with it. This aspect of the commodity reached out to a primal instinct in us. When we talk of such commodities (read furniture), a certain Danish conglomerate comes to our mind. With their DIY-styled furniture and highly impressive meatballs, IKEA did more than just sell the furniture for homes. It made users feel at heart the utility of every component in the product. 

Moving on, one actually wonders how this act of assembling products or components makes us feel better compared to purchasing an off-the-shelf product. The reason for this lies in our childhood and our constructive upbringing. We as humans love to see things take shape. It is always wonderful to see things evolve from random components and objects into things with definite form and functions. Kids who love playing with building blocks and play-doh or adults who fix motorcycles as a hobby can relate to this primal spirit where they are both creating and learning at the same time. Such activities awaken the less explore cognitive skills of creativity and right-brain thinking in us.

What if such an instinct is used not only for activities of play or fun? What if we could put such strong energies to some good use? Only if there were a curriculum that supported our innate creative spirit and incorporated the same into the courseware as a part of the mainstream education. Such a way of learning would be one that can always harvest our creative and keep our learning processes sharp because it is one we as children would pay attention to and be entertained by.

Team Kidobotikz has always given impetus to the creative and the constructive mindset of children as an untapped potential. Our Kits which aim at providing a fun-filled learning experience to students has always given back more than what it took from the student- the zeal to learn and the desire to innovate. Every student who ever was associated with us not only took back home the knowledge of robotics, but rubbed his creative spirit and potential on to the trainers as well. As an organization this has galvanized our efforts to make the experience of our kits available to all. We look forward to a day where every school going kid who gets back home switches on a maker board rather than a TV show.

Happy Roboting ! !

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Robots defeat humans on the foosball table

A bar, club or community space favorite, table soccer – or foosball – is fast and fun for players of all ages. But if you don't have enough people to get in on the spin action, a development platform at the Swiss École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) may come in handy. The blue shirts are controlled by human players, while robotics powers the whites. And the robots are winning.

Designed as a Bachelor's and Master's research platform, students are challenged with developing a computerized platform for table soccer. The robotic foosball table has been in use for several years, but recent upgrades have given the system a speed, accuracy and power boost. So much so that EPFL students reckon that human players with an average skill level have been beaten by the robotic table soccer player.

The robotic system keeps track of play courtesy of a 300 fps camera positioned under the table's transparent playing field. High dynamic linear motors, of the kind found in manufacturing, quickly bring the robot team's players into striking position, then another motor is given the task of rotating the player to shoot. The developers reckon that the millimeter precision and high speed acceleration of the system gives the robots a winning advantage.

But despite the recent upgrades, the system is only able to make use of a very simple strategy. The control software detects the ball as it's served through a hole in the side of the table, it then instructs the appropriate robot arm to stop it at a player's "feet" and then shoot it toward the goal, relying on its speed and power to win the day.

"At this stage, the system is like a bodybuilder with a tiny brain," project coordinator Christophe Salzmann quipped. "But in addition to being strong, we want the robot to be able to fake out the opponent, steer clear of the opponent, and predict the ball's path and the opponent's position."

To these ends, the student team has started to install a laser tracking system that detects the position of the human opponents' handles. The developers are also looking to introduce competitions purely between robot players, with the aim of testing various strategies loaded into the system control software.

The robot foosball system is overviewed in the video below.

Source: EPFL, NewAtlas

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Robotics: Gen Knowledge for Gen Z

“Personally, I’m not afraid of a robot uprising. The benefits far outweigh the threats.” 

The aforementioned quote was said by Daniel H. Wilson, a New York Times best selling author, a and an armchair expert on robotics. In every sense of the written word, the above quote holds up. All along the evolution of robotic technologies, there have been fans as well as naysayers. The community of naysayers have always held a paranoia towards the growth of robotics and it’s supposed taking over the world through artificial intelligence. While what may happen in the future is as good as anybody’s guess, if current trends are any indication, robotics as a field of study or as a branch of technology is definitely gonna revolutionize the way we live. Especially when one considers the fact that the access to core concepts of robotics have now trickled down to the younger generation. Placing the know-how of a technology in the hands of tomorrow’s generation is only going to expedite the process of bringing future to the present.

The new generation of children who were born after the global paranoia of Y2K or the dot com bubble or the 2008 financial crisis probably had parents who shielded them from the consequences of these global events which spread the fear of unemployment and career uncertainty to the youth who witnessed them. The world has come a long way from such crises and stabilized now. Children who were probably toddlers back then are now in their teens. These teens, the perspectives of whom now spans the entire globe thanks to phenomenon like smart phones and high speed internet, have resources and time of abundance that their seniors were not blessed with until a decade ago. 

These young netizens, who today are blessed with luxury of instant access to knowledge, should be given the right set of skills for them to become the right beneficiaries of such luxuries. When facts such as that of History and other social sciences are available at instant clicks, it no longer makes sense to spend considerable time on memorizing them. It makes more sense for them to spend their energies on concepts that are dynamic and ever changing. Concepts of science and technology which are evolving everyday thanks to endless research, need to be given more attention to. The subjects of programming and algorithm on which the entire information age runs are more vital than history and art. It is imperative that students learn these important subjects at a younger age in a manner that they can use throughout their lifetime. It is prudent that these concepts are packaged in a manner that students of a younger age can comprehend. Robotics which is at the crossroads of all the aforementioned subjects of importance should be included in the curriculum of children. It will have an immense impact on their scholastic performance. Learning robotics will not just equip them for their academic year, it will equip them with a skillset for their lifetime. 

Happy Roboting ! !

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