NASA competition will see virtual robots repair a storm-damaged Martian base

NASA, in conjunction with global innovation consultant organization NineSigma, has launched a new competition aimed at pushing the limits of robotic dexterity. Known as the Space Robotics Challenge, the competition comes with a US$ 1 million prize purse, and could one day lead to robonauts setting up habitats and life support systems prior to a manned mission to Mars.

When humanity embarks on its first crewed journey to Mars, the endeavor will be fraught with danger, and the very real possibility of human fatalities. NASA and its partners are working hard to ensure that, prior to embarking on this mission, its explorers are as well prepared and as safe as possible.

In pursuit of this goal, the agency is encouraging the development of robotic companions, who can stand in for astronauts where possible when there is a high degree of risk. NASA has chosen to adopt a humanoid approach to their robotics designs, as evidenced by the agency's Robonaut 5 (otherwise known as Valkyrie) automaton.

In order to prove useful to NASA in space and on the surface of a hostile planet such as Mars, a robot worker must have a high degree of flexibility and maneuverability. This has been achieved in a terrestrial environment with the use of hydraulic actuators. Unfortunately, hydraulic systems would inevitably fail in the below-freezing temperatures that will have to be endured as an inevitable component of a mission to the Red Planet.

To avoid such a failure, NASA's R5 robot is manipulated via elastics technology, which typically involves a series of motorized springs and is more resilient to the extreme environments synonymous with space exploration. The Space Robotics Challenge will ask applicants to program a digital analogue of an R5 robot driven by elastics technology. The competition opens today, with a qualifying round slated for mid-September. The final, which will decide the distribution of the 1 million dollar prize pool, will take place in June 2017.

The virtual robotic helper must be programmed to undertake a series of tasks aimed at making a dust-storm-damaged Mars base operational. The simulated R5 must repair a damaged solar array, re-align a communications array, and detect and seal a habitat leak.

The tasks have been designed to highlight the possible uses for robotic partners in future manned missions, including the potential of using the robonauts to prepare Mars habitats prior to the arrival of their human counterparts. The technology pioneered in the challenge is expected to be easily adaptable to other robots, and could eventually help in the goal of removing humans from dangerous work environments back on Earth.

Source: NASA, New Atlas

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Why you should be at KRG this weekend!

After a week of closely covering the happenings at Kidobotikz’s makerspaces, both the intended-for-makers hall and makeshift makerspaces which spring up in the classrooms (pun intended); we are here on Wednesday with barely two days left to go for the eagerly anticipated weekend extravaganza- Kidobotikz Robo Games. Participation for the 9th edition has swelled to a sizable proportions with Kids expressing their eagerness to participate in as many events as their tight schedules can manage. If there is someone who has to bear the brunt of this swell in participation, it has to be the poor trainers who have toiled equally alongside these young children to get their projects ready in time. All through the entire week, the Kidobotikz makerspace has been a beehive of activity with quite a lot of buzzing and whirring. 

While we understand that all this cacophony may not exactly be music to the visitors and parents, who wait on patiently for hours while their wards work on seemingly bizarre projects and robots; for the Kidobotikz team though this represents something surreal and important. It is something that appeals to our core philosophies The work undertaken by our students and the interest garnered by the event KRG is something that drives us at Kidobotikz, because it represents all the goodness we expect to inculcate in our students.

If you’ve read through both the previous paragraphs and are still wondering as to what use does an event like KRG or an organization such as Kidobotikz hold for you, we have a very simple suggestion: you should see it to feel it.

The following are the key takeaways that we feel KRG offers to all those who spend the two days with us:

1. Immense fun: Well, it is the whole essence of the event! We promise this more than anything else. KRG in itself defines a new level of fun, one that brings in high tech warriors breathing down each other’s neck.

2. Nail-biting finishes: With events such Manual Robo Sumo and Robo Race, we have planned an event that is expected to be high octane in terms of cut throat competition on the arena. To ensure that there is fierce competition on the arena and there are no home ground advantages, we have kept everything from the design and size of the arena to the number of participants on the lull. We want to ensure that wins are not easy for any of the contestants. We are apologetic for our sinister intent but we are doing it because, well we are the organizers and we have been tasked with ensuring suspense.

3. “Bring down the roof”-esque jolly: The joy of participating in an event should never be limited by decibel levels. Infact, a famous scientist once so eloquently stated that

“The limit of fun that can be had in an event are determined by 3 important factors:
a)duration of event,

b)unpredictability of the event

c) decibel levels permitted in the area.”

Well, we have ensured that the first two parameters are in our favour. For the third one we plan to use the high intensity of the event to bring make the event as fun as we can. So, if you are somebody who likes to cheer and scream at the top of your voice, you’ll definitely not be out of place at KRG! That’s a promise.

And did we tell you our secret formula for this?

Total Fun achieved in the event ∝   Decibel levels

4. Wunderkinds: Well, they are the stars and heroes of this whole event! How often do you come across a gathering school students who were hurriedly working towards getting robots ready to battle. These are students for whom robotics is child’s play and something they’ve been honing for a few years. When hundreds of these young minds are going to be at their competitive best, it is a feat that one should definitely not miss.  

5. Robots: Well, we are pinning a great deal of hopes on these inanimate objects to blow life into the entire event. And they haven’t let us down in the past! With a myriad of robots expected to be en garde and fiercely breathe down each others’ sensors, KRG promises to be a cracker of an event!   

If you’ve read all this, we’re pretty sure you wouldn’t wanna miss all this action. What to do if you are neither a student nor a parent?  What to do if you are somebody who has no inkling about robotics and are just somebody who read this blogpost from facebook?

It doesn’t matter that big to us. For us, you are a key well wisher who took the time and effort to read our article. We would be grateful if you could grace the occasion of KRG and take part in the festivities

Come visit us at  KRG this weekend and catch all the action.

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Turning Bluetooth into Wi-Fi puts implanted devices online

University of Washington (UW) engineers have developed a new way to bring internet connectivity to low-power electronic devices such as brain implants and smart contact lenses. The interscatter communication system, which creates Wi-Fi transmissions from reflected Bluetooth signals using a fraction of the power normally required, has the potential to impact everything from blood sugar monitoring to splitting credit card bills.

Interscatter enables low-power devices to communicate by using technology already existing in common mobile devices, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or ZigBee radios, to act as the transmitters and receivers for the reflected signals. And, according to the researchers, it is able to create these Wi-Fi signals whilst consuming 10,000 times less energy to do so than standard methods.

Instead of generating Wi-Fi signals on your own, the technology claims to create Wi-Fi using by Bluetooth transmissions from nearby mobile devices such as smartwatches. The system relies on a communication technique known as radio wave backscatter (a diffuse reflection of radio waves back in the direction from which they originated), to enable devices to interchange data by manipulating and reflecting existing signals.

The small sizes and often difficult locations of implanted electronics in the human body often means that power supplies are limited, which puts conventional wireless communication out of play. As a result, medical devices such as smart contact lenses have been unable to send data using Wi-Fi to smartphones without bulky, clumsy external power supplies. These same limitations also restrict other nascent technologies such as brain implants that reanimate limbs or monitor internal organs.

The Interscatter technology can enable Wi-Fi for these implanted devices while consuming only tens of microwatts of power. Building on previous work in this area, the researchers in UW's Networks and Mobile Systems Lab and Sensor Systems Lab designed and created prototype devices that specifically target previously impractical applications, building interscatter communications systems for a smart contact lens and an implantable neural recording instrument which can directly communicate with smartphones and smartwatches. 

To demonstrate interconnectivity, the team used a smartwatch to send a Bluetooth signal to a smart contact lens fitted with an antenna. This transmission was then converted into a "single tone" signal by removing the randomizing applied to keep Bluetooth communications secure, then backscattered that signal so that the data coming from the contact lens could be encoded into a standard Wi-Fi packet easily readable by any Wi-Fi enabled device.

Bluetooth devices randomize data transmissions using a process called scrambling.The team figured out a way to reverse engineer this scrambling process to send out a single tone signal from Bluetooth-enabled devices such as smartphones and watches using a software app.

Developing the system was not all easy sailing, however. One of the major difficulties encountered when creating a backscatter signal is that there is a mirror image of the signal generated at the same time, which chews up bandwidth and plays havoc with networks that connect via the mirrored Wi-Fi channel. To solve this problem, the UW researchers used a radio technique known as single sideband, where one half of the modulated signal (in this case the mirror image) is filtered out. The UW team has also demonstrated that the techniques can be applied to more mundane technologies, such as credit cards. The researchers created smart credit card prototypes that are able to directly exchange data with one another by bouncing back Bluetooth signals transmitted by a smartphone. The team believes that this technology will provide opportunities for inbuilt applications to perform simple data exchange tasks (such as users splitting bills by just tapping their credit cards together) that would not normally be possible.

Providing the ability for everyday objects like credit cards – in addition to implanted devices – to communicate with mobile devices can potentially unleash the power of ubiquitous connectivity, feels the team.

This new technique will be presented in a paper on August 22 at the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Data Communication (SIGCOMM 2016) conference in Brazil.

The video below demonstrates the technology in action.

Source: University of Washington, New Atlas

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Build to Boast: What your child should actually learn to brag about?

What is a toy? A rather silly question to ask. But to actually define it, one would require the help of a dictionary. An immediate scouring of the oxford english dictionary would reveal something of this kind. 

” A toy is an object for a child to play with, typically a model or miniature replica of something. ”

The definition in itself is fair enough and tries to fairly encapsulate what a toy is. But all the dictionaries in the whole wide world fail to reveal the true purpose behind why a toy exists in the first place and why these objects of non-emotivity appeal to children. Several studies into Toys and their associated psychology have revealed that Kids use toys and the whole activity of play to mimic adults and expose themselves to adult-ish behaviour. Kids tend to anthropomorphise toys and feel attached to them just like the way they would grow attached to their favourite cartoon characters. Despite the lack of any human emotion or communication, toys themselves manage to appeal to the primal instincts in humans. By this argument, it can be easily surmised that toys and the act of play are a major part of upbringing in children in their formative years. However, the supposed positive effects, toys can have on children are in themselves determined by the type of toys kids are given access to. Herein lies the gaffe created by us, the adults.

Bowing to our increased purchasing power and our crass consumerism attitudes, we have exposed our wards to a line of less than healthy choices in terms of toys and other consumables. The design of toys themselves have gone up in sophistication to keep up with our lifestyle choices. From being articles of leisure that were expendable after fair usage, toys have become something of a collectible that drives divide between the users. This wedge in itself has only made toys something of prestigious possessions for children rather than things that are meant to bring them closer to pals. 


With the advent of the smartphone revolution, a newer gadget has made it to the hands of our young ones. The smartphone and it’s sibling, the tablet PC, have now made it to the hands of children as opposed to the chalk and slate used by the previous generation not too long ago. These connected devices which put the internet with all its mystifying glory at the hands of young children do not much good in terms of making them good learners. Children are increasingly distracted from the true purpose of the internet- learning.

This means that the true purpose of learning in itself is defeated. The humility that can be learned from building something is lost when a child spends bragging about his possessions and spends time yearning for products that are increasingly out of his affordability and opulence. The true spirit of learning can be achieved only when children use their constructive energies in play and learn from play. This mindset can be cultivated in them only when they are exposed to toys and activities that promote learning through building. 

This form of constructive engagement is what we at Kidobotikz try to achieve through our kits. Our kits are aimed at making children appreciate the engineering behind every gadget they come across and understand the inner workings of every product they use. 

Happy Roboting ! !

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Solid-state lithium battery knows when to keep its cool

One of the new frontiers in battery technology is creating safer versions of the ubiquitous lithium-ion battery, like those that power electric cars and the computers or phones you read these words on. These little suckers are great at packing large amounts of energy into tight spaces, but can run into trouble at high temperatures. Versions that replace combustible, liquid electrolytes with solid parts is one way this problem might be overcome and researchers have just thrown up one possible answer, building a solid-state lithium-ion battery that can be heated all the way up to 100° Celsius without bursting into flames.

If you've ever left your phone out in the sun on a summer's day, you may recall an on-screen temperature warning, advising you to let the phone cool down before using it again. This is because the liquid electrolyte within the battery can ignite or swell up under high temperatures. Improper charging, or overcharging, can be another cause for this type of malfunction.

Such instances of lithium battery failure are very rare, but a busted iPhone is one thing and an electric vehicle bursting into flames is another. The sheer amount of lithium batteries in use around the world every day means that there is plenty of opportunity for something, somewhere to go wrong at some point.

This has led researchers to explore how the safety of these batteries might be improved. Smart chips that can be embedded inside to monitor the battery's health is one possibility, and replacing the liquid electrolyte with solid components is another that is gaining some attention in laboratories around the world.

The electrolyte is the solution tasked with carrying the charge between the battery's positive and negative electrodes. The idea behind solid-state batteries is to replace this solution with something that can endure high temperatures. But this concept brings on another set of problems, among which is how to connect the solid electrolyte with the solid electrodes in a way that allows the charge to circulate with as little resistance as possible, maximizing its run time on a full charge.

Researchers at Switzerland's ETH Zurich have come up with a battery design they say addresses this problem. They liken the battery to a sandwich, with two electrodes as the bread and a layer of solid lithium garnet electrolyte as the meat inside. Garnet is a mineral that forms gemstones, is used as an abrasive material in waterjet cutting and also happens to be a material with one of the highest known conductivities for lithium ions.

The team crafted the solid garnet electrolyte in a way that gave it a porous surface. The negative electrode was then applied in a viscous form which allowed it to seep into these pores. This creates a larger contact area between the electrode and electrolytes, and means that the battery can be charged faster. The design also meant that it could withstand temperatures of up to 100° Celsius (212° F) when the team put it to the test.

"With a liquid or gel electrolyte, it would never be possible to heat a battery to such high temperatures," says Jan van den Broek, one of the authors of the study.

In its current form, the battery works best at 95° Celsius (203° F) and above, temperatures that better facilitate the movement of the lithium ions. This could see it put to use in battery storage power plants that save excess energy for a later date.

"Today, the waste heat that results from many industrial processes vanishes unused," says Semih Afyon, a former research scientist at ETH Zurich and now with the Izmir Institute of Technology in Turkey. "By coupling battery power plants with industrial facilities, you could use the waste heat to operate the storage power plant at optimal temperatures."

But with further development, the team says that the sandwich-like solid form of the device could be adapted to thin-film batteries. These could change the way things like phones and laptops are powered, and even be placed directly onto silicon chips.

The research was published in the journal Advanced Energy Materials.

Source: ETH Zurich

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Geek Speak: Vishnu

For those of you who are reading this article, I’d rather say “Mark your calendars” because the countdown for KRG has commenced and we barely have five more days to go. We are all aware as to how the week can just whiz past when you are awaiting for the most important weekend of the trimester. Back at Kidobotikz, it’s business as usual. Being the fact that today is sunday and there’s no holiday in the week before KRG begins, it was a jam packed afternoon over here. “Jam packed” in the literal sense as there has only been standing room for every student with all of them racing against time to get their robots ready. The makerspace is infact so cramped that students have had to borrow spaces in the classrooms to work on their robots. Meanwhile, amidst all the beehive of activity, I manage to find my target for the day. I spot a reticent chap who’s hard at work on fixing his robot that bears an uncanny resemblance to an SUV. More than him, his robot’s dynamic design captivates me. I decide to engage him in a conversation to satiate my own curiosity.

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

I am T.K. Vishnu. I study in class 8 of Sri Krish International School, Kundrathur. Back here at Kidobotikz, I commenced my Advanced level recently and am now progressing through it with quite a bit of fervour. I joined here in when I was in class 7. I found Kidobotikz while I was scouring the internet for a robotics kit that I could use. Interestingly, I found more than what I was looking for. 

Interesting. So, how does it feel to be a robotics enthusiast here at Kidobotikz? 

Robotics for me is a highly passionate hobby. I grew up loving mechanics and mechanical designs, so robotics represents the next logical step for me to explore. So, I took it up here at Kidobotikz. One thing that stumped here was programming. I wasn’t expecting to see “programming” turn up in my courses. So, when that happened, I was quite baffled. You usually don’t see mid-schoolers learn programming. But, thanks to the Kidobotikz curriculum, I have been able to quite comfortably gain my foothold in the concepts of programming.

So, I take to it that you are here for KRG? Is this your first KRG or have you already participated in it before? 

This is infact my 3rd KRG. I participated in the two preceding editions and had a forgettable experience. I participated in a lot of events, but wasn’t quite able to stand out in performance. This time, I am participating with a resolve to win. 

That’s unfortunate! So, what were the events you participated in the previous editions?

I participated in several events. The ones that I can actually remember are Robo Race, Robo Sumo, Robo Kabbadi, Line Tracer. But this time, I have enrolled in events that I am confident of putting up a more than decent performance. 

Interesting! What are the events you are participating in this edition?

Well I have enrolled myself in AutoTransbot, Pick ‘n’ Place and a project expo. For the project expo I have developed an Automatic Air-filter that can be retrofitted atop street lamps and monitor the air quality of the street. But, the event that I am hoping to leave a lasting impact on is the Robo Sumo. I was sooo close the last time. This time I hope to win it. 

Could you let me know what went wrong for you the last time at Robo Sumo and how have you planned for it this time? 

Well, the last time my robot employed a Johnson gear motor. This let to the robot having a sub optimal torque and couldn’t exert its thrust quite well upon the opponent bots. I have made up for it this time by employing Square Geared motors which have a much better torque output. I also am going to employ powered forklifts on the forward section of my robots so that I can shock the opponent by toppling it over.

Impressive! My best wishes for you! To conclude our chat, I’d like to know your future plans and ambitions when you graduate from Kidobotikz and high school.

Well, I have no concrete plans yet. I don’t have any idea as to which college to join as well. But, if there’s one thing I can tell you with certainty, it’s that I will take up robotics. Most importantly bots that can take part in battles. It’s something I ponder on a lot about and I see myself working towards the same. Other than that, I plan to take up everything as it comes by.

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Self-driving Ubers picking up passengers from later this month

If you're ready to welcome in the era of self-driving cars in person, you may want to head to Pittsburgh later this month, smartphone in hand. Uber and Volvo have signed a deal to team up on developing autonomous driving technology, beginning with ferrying Uber customers around the Pennsylvania city.

Beginning later in August, it will be possible to use the Uber app to hail a ride from a self-driving Volvo XC90 in Pittsburgh. This will mark a pretty big first – Google and some automakers have been testing self-driving cars for years, and Tesla's Autopilot can essentially take over for a driver on the highway, but no one has yet offered a full door-to-door ride in an autonomous car to regular consumers.

It won't be a lone robot car pulling up to pick you up, though. A human driver will be in the driver's seat ready to take the wheel if anything goes wrong, as is currently required by law. Rides in a self-driving Uber will also be free for the time being.

The ridesharing company has been testing the technology at its Advanced Technology Center in Pittsburgh for many months already and competitor Lyft is pursuing similar ambitions with General Motors.

So far Volvo has delivered just a few cars to Uber, which then outfits them with its own autonomous driving system, including a number of sensors, cameras, lasers, radar, GPS and Uber's own in-house self-driving software. Volvo is also developing self-driving vehicles using the same base vehicle and its owns autonomous navigation system. The project relies on Volvo's modular auto production platform, which it calls Scalable Product Architecture (SPA).

Uber plans to have a test fleet of 100 self-driving Volvos roaming Pittsburgh's streets by the end of the year. It's all a big field test, with the end goal being a fully autonomous car model that will hit the market by 2021. Together, Uber and Volvo say they'll pour US$300 million into the development process.

Uber's self-driving vision isn't exclusive to the Volvo deal, however. Much of its previous testing in Pittsburgh was actually done using a Ford Fusion. The company has also announced its acquisition of self-driving truck startup Otto. Otto has been in existence only since January and makes a kit that can outfit any big rig to drive itself.

Uber has no plans to make self-driving cars itself, but it clearly hopes to be operating plenty of them within the next five years, just in time to compete with other autonomous ride-sharing aspirants, including the likes of companies that will be making their own, such as Ford.

Sources: New Atlas, Volvo, Bloomberg, Uber

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