Meet 'Waste Shark', the garbage-gobbling drone which is cleaning up the oceans

There may indeed be floating plastic waste strewn all across the surface of the world's oceans, but most of that trash still enters the water along the shoreline. It was with this in mind that South African entrepreneur Richard Hardiman created the WasteShark. It's an aquatic drone that's designed to autonomously cruise harbors and gulp down garbage, before that waste can drift out to sea.

Manufactured by Hardiman's Netherlands-based company RanMarine, the craft takes the form of a small electric catamaran with a scoop (or "mouth," if you will) located between the pontoons. As the WasteShark moves through the harbor, that scoop skims the surface and collects floating trash, transferring it into an onboard hopper for subsequent removal.

Plans call for the drone to also collect data such as water quality, depth and weather conditions, transmitting that information to port authorities in real time. Additionally, its onboard software will allow it to progressively learn about its environment, so it can tweak its routes for maximum efficiency depending on weather and tides.

Hardiman's project was recently accepted into a Dutch accelerator program for port-related technologies, which is what brought him to The Netherlands. He and his team have been testing WasteShark prototypes in the Port of Rotterdam – they're of two different sizes, and are thus named Fatboy and Slim. A pilot project ultimately calls for four of the craft to work the port over the next few months.

In the long run, Richard hopes to develop a larger solar-powered version called the Great Waste Shark, that can collect up to 500 kg (1,102 lb) of trash at a time. Onboard sensors including a camera will help it avoid collisions with other harbor traffic, although geofencing technology will also be used to keep it out of particularly busy areas.

For now though, you can see the prototypes in action, in the video below.

Source: New Atlas, RanMarine, Popular Science

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Geek Speak: Keshav

         “The future belongs to the curious, The ones who are not afraid to try it, explore it, poke at it, question it and turn it inside out.” 

This interesting quote is by  Clay P. Bedford, a man who was responsible for some truly revolutionary projects like the Grand Coulee Dam. It quite crisply encapsulates the true importance behind imbibing the spirit of curiosity in students. Meanwhile, back at Kidobotikz, it’s a rather quiet friday evening. With the course having gone digital, the few students that are here today are the ones who are transition to their digital courseware or the ones who had some head-scratching doubts in their robotics courses last night. These are the young minds that put in fairly heavy amounts of time into robotics and try to outshine their peers. We meet one such young fella today; one who is quite bubbly, inquisitive and wide grinned. Meet Keshav, our geek for the day. 

Hey Keshav! Can you tell me a bit about yourself?

I’m Keshav. I am in the 3rd grade of PSBB KK Nagar.

Can you tell us why and when did you join Kidobotikz?

I came to Kidobotikz in 2013. I was a very small boy. I saw the board of Kidobotikz and came with dad here. I wanted to join but my parents felt that I was too young. So dad said No. I begged for 2 weeks and finally convinced dad to get me enrolled here.

That is good. What do you like the most about Kidobotikz? And what did you think about Kidobotikz before joining here?

That’s a funny story. Before joining Kidobotikz, I did not know much about robotics or basics. I thought they will give me a humanoid and ask me to make it work. Then finally, when I actually started the course, it was a surprise. I had to start by building robots that ran on wheels, then move on to robots that have legs and only then can i know enough to start developing a humanoid.

The best thing I like about Kidobotikz is the teachers. They are very friendly and teach very patiently.

What level are you in? And why do you like robotics?

Here, I am at the end of Junior Level- 3. I am now in the process of transitioning to the digital platform. I like robotics because I want to build one. I want to become a scientist in the field of robotics.

Which is your favourite robot?

I have no favourite robot. But i have a dream robot. I want to build a robot that can cook by itself and serve the food later on. This I will gift to my mother.

What to do want to do when you finish schooling and college? 

I have no plans on what to do yet. But, my ambition in life is to become a robotics scientist.

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Smart Helmet lets you chat to fellow riders up to half a mile away

Over the years, bike helmets have become more than just a means of protecting a rider's head, helping to keep cyclists informed about their surroundings, signaling turns and playing headbanging tunes, for example. Pulling across some features from its line of smart motorcycle helmets, Sena has unveiled its new smart helmet for cyclists, which includes a QHD camera, Bluetooth connectivity, built-in speakers and an intercom system for keeping in touch with fellow riders.

Bluetooth is the core of what makes the Sena Smart Helmet so smart. Connected to a smartphone, the stylish stack hat can play tunes through two external speakers, which saves a rider closing themselves off from the outside world with earbuds. For those who don't want to glance at a handlebar-mounted screen, the speakers can read out stats like heart rate, speed and cadence from a connected fitness tracking app.

When used in tandem with the microphone at the front, the device also allows for hands-free phone calls. If your riding buddies have their own Smart Helmets, there's an intercom system that allows for up to four people to chat at once, within a half-mile (900 m) range.

Front and center is a mounted camera, which can record up to two hours of video of your rides, in either 1440p Quad HD at 30 fps, or 1080p Full HD at 60 fps. Videos can be overlaid with music from a smart device, and there's an option to also record the voices coming in from the intercom. Those recordings are stored on a MicroSD card, and can be transferred over Wi-Fi after a ride to watch, edit and share the trip.

Two separate mobile apps drive the system. There's one for the camera, which can preview and play videos and set recording options, and one for the headset itself, which allows a rider to set up intercom groups and fiddle with more general settings.

In-transit control can come from buttons on either side of the helmet, with the left side for Bluetooth functions, and buttons to start and stop the camera on the right. For users who'd prefer not to wave their hands around mid-ride, there's an optional accessory that puts those controls right on the handlebars.

Sena unveiled the Smart Helmet for cyclists at Interbike this week, and it's expected to be available in the next few months.

Source: Sena, New Atlas

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Will Robots take over our Jobs? So what?

Will Robots take over our Jobs? What if they do?

Sounds like a very ominous scenario, doesn’t it?

Well, yeah. Robots are replacing humans in a variety of scenarios. Automation is appearing everywhere. Regardless of humans and the pace at which they adapt themselves to the truth, innovations in areas like robotics, computerized algorithms, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, medical sensors and machine-to-machine communications, 3-D printing, and autonomous vehicles will increasingly transform the global economy. They are expected to make the processes efficient and smoother, thereby even displacing many in the human workforce.

So are the possible outcomes somewhat similar to the following imagery?

1) Jobs being replaced by so called “machines with a brain"

2) Humans taking orders from their new robot masters? 

3) Robots competing with humans for jobs and resources.

Funnily enough, the aforementioned scenarios are too ridiculous to be true. AI or robots taking over humans makes good fodder for science fiction but does not hold true in the actual realm. Here, robots are automating processes and activities but not poaching on the livelihoods of humans. If anything, the demand for skilled labour has only gone up. 

Yes, we are talking about STEM. Students from the STEM curricula are in demand around the planet. As more and more automation occurs, the more is requirement for qualified students and professionals who are capable of operating or fine tuning these processes. If anything, the day of the average worker with vocational skills are gone, but it’s sunshine for the one with the right skillsets- possibly in the fields of electronics, computers, mechanics, processes and mathematics.

STEM degrees as % of all degrees in 2011

Facts show that across the BRICS nations and the western world, engineers as a community are the ones in demand (not in quanity but quality). 

Moral of the story?

As we churn out more robots, so do we need to churn out engineers capable of supervising these behemoths.

If you are a engineer or a wanna-be engineer, you can give it a rest and not fret over it. Robots are taking over our jobs, yes; but not making us redundant! They are instead giving us a responsibility of ensuring they do their jobs. 

Happy Roboting ! !

Image credits: The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education
What's the Big Deal?
CNN Money

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Robots learn to nudge around without collisions

On the road to an increasingly autonomous future, robots and AI systems will need to be programmed to instinctively avoid collisions when they take the wheel. But if bots are designed to be too careful, performance may suffer. A team at Georgia Tech has created new algorithms that aim to strike a balance between the two extremes, allowing robots to move in a swarm safely and efficiently.

Collision avoidance is one of the most important considerations of autonomous vehicles and robots, but some researchers have pondered the ethics of allowing self-driving cars to break minor laws to keep things running smoothly. It follows that autonomous robots may need to relax their own "bubbles" of personal space a little, too.

"When you have too many robots together, they get so focused on not colliding with each other that they eventually just stop moving," says Magnus Egerstedt, a roboticist at Georgia Tech. "Their safety behaviors take over and the robots freeze. It's impossible for them to go anywhere because any movement would cause their bubbles to pop."

Similar to other research into robot swarm behavior, Egerstedt's team developed a set of algorithms that allowed a small group of robots to cross paths and swap spots quickly and without crashing into each other. Essentially, each robot navigates using a set of safe states and barrier certificates, but does so with minimal disruption to their key objective.

"In everyday speak, we've shrunk the size of each robot's bubble to make it as small as possible," says Egerstedt. "Our system allows the robots to make the minimum amount of changes to their original behaviors in order to accomplish the task and not smack into each other."

The video below demonstrates the effect of that system, and watching the four robots moving in sync is almost hypnotic. The researchers demonstrate that it works just as well with eight robots, and even if one rogue bot doesn't follow the rules, the others will adapt to the wild card, keeping their distance and continuing onto their goal regardless.

Though there have been a few minor incidents and even a fatality, autonomous technology in cars has a pretty clean record for safety so far, but that's with a relatively limited sample size. These kinds of safety systems could help keep incidents to a minimum as more and more self-driving vehicles pull out into public roads, and even clear the airspace for autonomous planes.

"We haven't seen thousands of autonomous cars on the road together yet," says Egerstedt. "Robots are very conservative — they want to make sure they're safe. You couldn't pack the interstate with self-driving cars with today's technology."

The team's research paper will be presented at the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control in December.

Source: Georgia Tech, New Atlas

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Robots have transformed agriculture. Here's how!

When we think of Farming, our mind immediately races to the images of farmers and their oxen dredging in the fields. Farming has always remained the dominion of human labour with either beasts of burden or expensive machines supplementing their efforts.

The concepts of accuracy, prediction or cutting edge technology are always one that have remained unassociated with agriculture. All of that has changed in the past few years- thanks to robotics!

While there are a few naysayers behind the entry of robotics into the area of agriculture, most are happy to embrace automation, especially when it helps boost income and reduce stress. But whether you love robots, fear them, or just can’t look away, they are upending farming as we know it. We would like to present to you some of those mean machines which have turned quite a few heads.

1) Wine Bot

Created by a french inventor named Christophe Millot, this self-propelled robot is used for pruning vines, removing young shoots, and monitoring soil and vine health. Millot named his bot Wall-Ye, an interesting tribute to the beloved animated film character. Wall-Ye incorporates a tight security system. It is designed in such a way that it can be commanded to operate at pre-designated vineyards and any intervention with an malicious intent will only result in the self-destruction of the hard drive.

2) Bee Bot

Harvard engineers have unveiled a teeny-tiny bee bot dubbed RoboBee. Allegedly to be the smallest flying robot ever made the goals of this cute little robot are broad and have far reaching impact on the planet. It finds potential applications in everything from autonomous pollination to post-disaster search and rescue. In the UK, researchers are working on an autonomous bee with a more structured goal. They want to map the honeybee brain so they can completely synthesize bee behavior — and keep the world’s food chain intact.

3) SwagBot

SwagBot, designed by the Australian Centre for Field Robotics, has been conceived with a unique purpose in mind. It is designed to monitor and interact with crops and plants, along with animals roaming about the farm. The omni-directional, all-wheel drive electric robot is built to withstand rugged terrain and can even take trailers along for the ride. The team recently let SwagBot loose on a cattle farm where it towed a trailer, interacted with horses, rolled across fallen logs and powered through streams.

4) Farmbot

Farmbot Genesis is an open source, autonomous farming system that is supposed to fit virtually anyone’s backyard, greenhouse or rooftop. Sensors make it possible to leverage real-time data about soil. Additionally a camera monitors plant health—when it detects weeds, it removes them autonomously. Offering a huge list of mods and add-ons—from rainwater collection to compost to resource management—there’s a lot of customization possible.

Last but not least, 

5) Case IH Concept Vehicle

We’ve reserved this behemoth for the last. Quite a burly monster, this technology is expected to turn the agricultural world on its head. The Case IH Concept, which dropped the cabin of a tractor to envision what the future of self-driving tractors might look like. This autonomous tractor is designed to be remotely monitored and programmed. It uses a combination of sensors to detect obstacles and warn farmers, asking them to plot the ideal course around it without tearing up the field. It packs features such telematics for remote management of farm machinery. 

At this juncture, it is also worth to mention the fact we at Kidobotikz are also doing our bit to the field of agriculture by making our own robot optimised for agriculture. Called Agribot, this robot is packs in quite a few features that will make it an asset for any farmer.

Happy Roboting ! !

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Tree-planting drones to speed up reforestation efforts

Planting trees in remote forest locations is a slow, laborious process that still relies on humans with shovels to do all the work. DroneSeed, a company based in the Pacific Northwest, wants to drastically modernize that process by employing squadrons of drones to plant seeds, spray for invasive species, and monitor the tree growth process.

Forests are important for mitigating the effects of climate change, acting as carbon sinks that absorb as much as 30 percent of annual CO2 emissions. Logging can also be a means to sequester carbon, with wood products in some cases a substitute for fossil-fuel heavy materials such as concrete and steel. Either way, trees need planting, and DroneSeed works with both forestry companies to reforest logged areas, and environmental NGOs to combat deforestation.

In the case of timber companies that work about 7 million acres in Washington, the state requires successful reforestation of 190 healthy trees planted per acre within three years after harvest. Otherwise, a forest can take 100 to 300 years to rebuild naturally to its previous state, where mature, towering trees like Douglas fir are dominant.

But managing forests is difficult in places like the Pacific Northwest, with terrain too steep and rough for machinery to navigate. The drones could go almost anywhere in this region, 3D mapping the terrain and identifying micro-sites that give seeds the best opportunity for taking root and developing into healthy trees.

The drones would first apply herbicides to clear previously logged land of grasses and brush that would otherwise choke off young tree saplings. Spraying is currently done rather messily via helicopter, or through slow, laborious manual labor. DroneSeed's drones can carry an 11-liter container of liquid and spot spray within two centimeters of GPS coordinates.

Loaded with a batch of seeds, the drones would then fly to specified sites and fire a seed into the ground at a rate of 350 feet per second (384 km/h) using compressed air. According to the company, a drone could plant up to 800 seeds per hour, compared to 800 seeds a human can plant in a day, covering an acre (0.4 ha) of forest in 1.5 hours on a full battery charge.

Besides speeding up the process while drastically reducing costs, as most robots do, in this case the human labor it replaces is a good thing. Forestry and logging is a physically demanding job and one of the most dangerous on the planet, while such companies have had an increasingly difficult time finding and retaining workers.

The company is currently going through a permission process to be able to apply herbicides, and hopes to be up and operating sometime in the coming months.

Source: DroneSeed, New Atlas

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