Meet NASA's robot destined to mine Martian soil

After all, Curiosity could get some much needed company!

Elon Musk and his private spaceflight company SpaceX recently outlined their plan to make space travel to Mars an affordable reality—just $500,000 for a one-way ticket to the Red Planet. To shuttle people to Mars (within the next decade if ambitious goals can be met) SpaceX is working on a carbon fiber fuel tank for a massive 400-foot-tall reusable rocket that only exists on the drawing board at this point.

But getting people to Mars is only half the battle. Making sure that they can survive, possibly for decades, is a whole different challenge. SpaceX might be the perfect organization to launch people to the Red Planet on massive rockets, but they are going to need some help from NASA to build a sustainable colony, which is its proposed goal.

Fortunately, NASA has been quietly working on ways to harvest Martian resources for some years—a necessary step to ultimately realize a self-sustained Martian colony. In April 2016, NASA published a scientific and technical information (STI) paper titled "Frontier In-Situ Resource Utilization for Enabling Sustained Human Presence on Mars." The paper outlines various ways that minerals, water, and atmospheric gasses could be harvested and used to manufacture plastics, rocket propellants, habitat-heating fuels, and even more complicated materials like fiberglass—all with materials that are already on Mars.

Which is where the Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot (RASSOR) comes in (see video above). The robot, which could be affixed to a rover or made into a rover itself, uses a rotating digging device to scoop up soils that could then be used for resource extraction. As NASA writes on its website, the RASSOR's "design incorporates net-zero reaction force, thus allowing it to load, haul, and dump space regolith under extremely low gravity conditions with high reliability."

The bot in the video above is actually the RASSOR 2.0, a scaled-up prototype of the original 2013 design. If we are going to build a self-sustained colony on Mars in the foreseeable future, the first step will be sending a host of robots like RASSOR to the Red Planet to get to work building our Martian home for us. As the NASA STI paper states regarding a Martian colony: "The crew is there to explore, and to colonize, not maintain and repair. Any time spent on 'living there' and 'housekeeping' should be minimized to an oversight role of robotic automated tasks."

Source: Popular Mechanics, Engadget

Read More

Kidobotikz @ DIDAC INDIA 2016

   “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards towards the technology” ~ Steve Jobs

Going by the words of this tech-visionary, it makes sense that when you’ve got a wonderful product on hand, it is always wise to take it out there and get as many people to place their opinion on it. That is how you figure out whether the entire world shares the opinion of your product the same way your core followers do.

That being said, we at Kidobotikz took the step of showcasing our wares at DIDAC INDIA- 2016, held in Bengaluru between 28th-30th September, 2016, to explore more possible applications for our model of education.

About the event, DIDAC INDIA is the most influential trade event in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region for Educational Industry. Featuring players in the fields of Educational Material, Training & Technology based solutions for all levels and sectors of the Indian Education & Training Industry, it is a platform to reach out to thousands of leaders and professionals from across the globe and gain visibility in the fastest progressing industry.

The Exhibition cum Conference is a meeting point of the international Education and Training industry. Exhibitors from various countries around the globe attend this annual event to present several latest and innovative technologies, modern instruments, solutions, inventive materials, latest methodology for all levels and sectors of education and training. That being said, participating in Didac helps players know more about the existing solutions available across the educational sector and figure out how the right application of technology can enhance the existing educational practices in the system. 

Unsurprisingly, a large number of visitors to DIDAC were Educators, Schools and other industry professionals who explored the annual event to identify the right solution for the challenges they may be facing in imparting knowledge.

Kidobotikz being an EdTech company was benefited as DIDAC offered the best platform to know more about the kind of challenges faced by the burgeoning educational industry and its core players, the students themselves. Being a first time participant, Kidobotikz was represented by a strong contingent to position ourselves in the right manner to capture as many benefits as we could from the 3 day event. A major focus was on apprising the visitors of the core philosophy of Kidobotikz and its journey from a classroom based interactive model to an Interactive and Gamified Online model. Visitors were impressed to find out about the various student-driven projects such as SwachhBot and AgriBot being undertaken at Kidobotikz. 

Says Sanjana, a member of the team that represented Kidobotikz at Didac, ”While in name it was a B2B trade event, DIDAC actually was a conclave of like-minded firms across the EdTech industry. With hundreds of participating firms, one really could not help but wonder the innovativeness of different solutions that are available in the education market. With all teams sharing their unique experience about being a player in the EdTech industry, it was a truly enriching experience. Being able to represent Kidobotikz and convey our vision for disrupting the education system at this platform was a personal best.”

With footfalls ranging between 200-300 over the course of the three days, and several interested educators enquiring about the Kidobotikz model of immersive online education and robotics kits, we would like to say “Mission Accomplished!”.

Read More

Omnidrectional robot moves on an electrically charged ball to keep things simple

In a field where highly complex machinery often pulls the strings of highly complex maneuvers, a system that relies on a single ball to get around is certainly at the simpler end of the spectrum. Ten years ago we were introduced to such an idea, and now the team behind the original Ballbot is back with an even less complicated system. The upgraded machine is dubbed SIMbot and uses an experimental induction motor rather than a mechanical drive system for mobility, resulting in a robot with minimal moving parts.

The original Ballbot was invented by Professor Ralph Hollis, a robotics researcher at Carnegie Mellon University. The tall and slender robot was battery operated and omnidirectional, a set of characteristics its creator says lends itself particularly well to working with people in busy environments.

Because of its slender form and great agility, the robot can roll through doorways, in between furniture and can quite easily be moved out of the way when needed. A few years ago, a company spun out of Carnegie Mellon sought to make use of these capabilities with a version called mObi, eyeing hospitals and offices as its first port of call. The machine has also inspired a number of ballbots around world from roboticists in Japan, Switzerland and Spain.

But ballbots have relied on mechanical parts to move the ball at its base and keep the robot upright. Described as an "inverse mouse-ball drive," this sees motors actuate rollers that press against the ball, move it in the required direction and keep it from tipping over. These act on information gathered by internal sensors that track the robot's balance.

The SIMbot design could make ballbots cheaper and more accessible

"But the belts that drive the rollers wear out and need to be replaced," says Michael Shomin, a Ph.D. student in robotics at Carnegie Mellon. "And when the belts are replaced, the system needs to be recalibrated."

So the team explored more mechanically simplistic means of keeping the ballbot on the move. This led them to induction motors, which are motors that use magnetic fields to induce an electrical current and generate torque rather than relying on electrical connections. They are actually fairly commonplace and can be found in ceiling fans, industrial machinery and Elon Musk's Hyperloop plans.

But applying the technology to a spherical form is a challenge. While the team says progress has been made in this area before with spherical induction motors (SIMs) that can move back and forth a few degrees, their design, combined with advanced software and mathematics, allows for a spherical motor that can spin freely in any direction.

The SIM rests on a hollow iron ball inside a copper shell. Six laminated steel stators sit alongside the ball and produce traveling magnetic waves, guiding the ball in that direction. By altering the currents produced by the stators, the SIMbot can be steered in different directions.

Replacing the belt drives with electric currents cuts down on friction and makes the machine more efficient, but it may also make for more reliable ballbots that require less routine maintenance. And because of the shift away from mechanical components, it may also make them cheaper in the long run.

"This motor relies on a lot of electronics and software," says Hollis. "Electronics and software are getting cheaper. Mechanical systems are not getting cheaper, or at least not as fast as electronics and software are."

You can see the SIMbot in action in the video below.

Source: New Atlas,  Carnegie Mellon University

Read More

Kidobotikzians rewrite the history of Farming with AgriBot

For most of you who know a thing or two about Agriculture, it should not come as a surprise that Farming is inherently a laborious process. All of us have at one point in our lives been to the rural countryside and witnessed the happenings on patches of lands under cultivation. 

However, amidst all the sightseeing and nature watching, what most of us don’t realize is the fact that farming is not just about clearing a piece of land, watering it and seeding it with grains. It’s a major science onto itself. The process of farming requires a lot of labour with the inherent activities such as ploughing, seed laying, irrigation and manuring. More importantly, it also involves the process of weeding. Weeds which arise a few after the seeds have been laid deprive the soil of vital nutrients and compete with the crops for resources such as water and sunlight. These undesirable plants wreak havoc on the crop by competing for resources.

The processes of removing these invaders from the furrows is a highly labour intensive task and one that has remained manual for centuries.

What if we said that Kidobotikz has engineered a solution for this niche issue?

Say hello to AgriBot.

Ananya Hi-Tech Farms in association with Kidobotikz is developing AgriBot, a four wheeled robotic assistant that can take over the activity of farming from humans. It is a robot that has been envisioned with a desire to reduce the burden on farmers and optimise the entire process of farming. Kidobotikz with its talented pool of students and a dedicated R&D team has taken this up as a challenge and develop a well engineered Agribot which is capable of taking over the field from humans and introducing high technology in the area of farming.

This is the first time such a robot has been developed in the country. The 9 membered team which developed this robots consists entirely of school students. To develop the robot from scratch to completion, the team took under 2 months. 

To say more about AgriBot, it is a wheeled robotic assistant that has compact dimensions optimised to take over narrow passageways between furrows of crops. The robot consists of a universal drive train, which currently fitted with a weeder, can be retrofitted in the future to suit other applications such as seed laying. Running at a leisurely pace of 15 RPM, the robot can cover a patch of land measuring 250 meters in length in less than an hour. Working in tandem, a swarm of such robots can remove the weeds from a vast patch of land in record time. At present, weeding done manually takes weeks to be completed. Automating this process can help farmers monitor other vital parameters of the crop such as plant health, nutrient levels etc. 

As a part of its Beta-testing, it was deployed for weeding at one of Ananya Farms’ Capsicum plantations in Hosur where the weeding process is currently manual. With the successful completion of AgriBot's  Beta-testing, it is now expected that Agribot will make this process efficient with its automation.

AgriBot @Ananya Hi-Tech Farms

Happy Roboting!

Read More

Google teaches robots to teach each other

Poet John Donne said, "no man is an island," and that is even more true for robots. While we humans can share our experiences and expertise through language and demonstration, robots have the potential to instantly share all the skills they've learned with other robots simply by transmitting the information over a network. It is this "cloud robotics" that Google researchers are looking to take advantage of to help robots gain skills more quickly.

The human brain has billions of neurons, and between them they form an unfathomable number of connections. As we think and learn, neurons interact with each other and certain pathways that correspond to rewarding behavior will be reinforced over time so that those pathways are more likely to be chosen again in future, teaching us and shaping our actions.

An artificial neural network follows a similar structure on a smaller scale. Robots may be given a task and instructed to employ trial and error to determine the best way to achieve it. Early on, their behavior may look totally random to an outside observer, but by trying out different things, over time they'll learn which actions get them closer to their goals and will focus on those, continually improving their abilities.

While effective, this process is time-consuming, which is where cloud robotics comes in. Rather than have every robot go through this experimentation phase individually, their collective experiences can be shared, effectively allowing one robot to teach another how to perform a simple task, like opening a door or moving an object. Periodically, the robots upload what they've learned to the server, and download the latest version, meaning each one has a more comprehensive picture than any would through their individual experience.

Using this cloud-based learning, the Google Research team ran three different types of experiments, teaching the robots in different ways to find the most efficient and accurate way for them to build a common model of a skill.

First, multiple robots on a shared neural network were tasked with opening a door through trial and error alone. As the video below shows, at first they seem to be blindly fumbling around as they explore actions and figure out which ones get them closer to the goal.

After a few hours of experimentation, the robots collectively worked out how to open the door: reach for the handle, turn and pull. They understand that these actions lead to success, without necessarily building an explicit model of why that works.

In the second experiment, the researchers tested a predictive model. Robots were given a tray full of everyday objects to play with, and as they push and poke them around, they develop a basic understanding of cause and effect. Once again, their findings are shared, and the group can then use their ever-improving cause and effect model to predict which actions will lead to which results.

Using a computer interface showing the test area, the researchers could then tell the robots where to move an object by clicking on it, and then clicking a location. With the desired effect known, the robot can draw on its shared past experiences to find the best actions to achieve that goal.

Finally, the team employed human guidance to teach another batch of robots the old "open the door" trick. Each robot was physically moved by a researcher through the steps to the goal, and then playing that chain of action back forms a "policy" for opening the door that the robots can draw from.

Then, the robots were tasked with using trial and error to improve this policy. As each robot explored slight variations in how to perform the task, they got better at the job, up to the point where their collective experience allowed them to account for slight variations in the door and handle positions, and eventually, using a type of handle that none of the robots had actually encountered before.

So what's the point of all this? For neural networks, the more data the better, so a team of robots learning simultaneously and teaching each other can produce better results much faster than a single robot working alone. Speeding up that process could open the door for robots to tackle more complex tasks sooner.

Source:New Atlas, Google Research

Read More

Kidobotikz's masterful impact at Masterpreneur

It's always a wonderful experience to relive your successful memories and reflect upon the things that made it happen. After all, Memories are but a journey that we take in our minds but relive in our hearts.

For most of you who may not be aware of what we are talking about, here’s some backstory.

CNBC AWAAZ , the channel known for its hard-hitting journalism, is known for its association with a unique reality show called Masterpreneur India. Masterpreneur India is a significant event in it that it helps in creating a community of already existing aspiring entrepreneurs in India who are involved in innovation and are making a difference in their respective business verticals by providing new solutions and products to the community at large. The reality show enables micro entrepreneurs to take a quantum Leap in their business- local to regional, regional to national. It is an event which gives entrepreneurs a platform to fulfill their dream of scaling up.

MASTERPRENEUR INDIA-SEASON 3, which was held in the month of April, was an event that will always remain in the annals of Kidobotikz as an event where we came into our own.

The event which saw a participation of hundreds of startups from across the country had Kidobotikz as one among the relatively unknown participants. The event was known for its unusually tough scrutiny of startups and their performance. After the completion of jury rounds in five zones, the top 15 startups were selected. It was a moment of pride when Kidobotikz was selected as one among the shortlisted contestants for the coveted finals round. From the pool of zonal participants, only 5 startups made to the final round. Kidobotikz, on the back of its strong performance record and its USP of being a firm capable of disrupting the educational sector with its revolutionary model made it to the final round. Representing Kidobotikz at all these levels was Ms.Sneha Priya, Founder, SP Robotic Works Pvt. Ltd (the parent company of Kidobotikz).

At the Grand Finale, all the teams were asked to give a presentation and were subjected to questions by industry stalwarts. The distinguished jury comprised of some well know Industrial stalwarts such as Chathrapathy Shivaji (CMD, SIDBI), Padmaja Ruparel (President, Indian Angel Network), Sanjay Kapoor (Chairman, Sona Koyo group), P.R. Ganapathi (President, VillGro Innovation), Sanjay Pugalia (Editor-in-chief, CNBC). The event was presided by Shri. Piyush Goyal, Hon’ble Minister of State with Independent Charge for Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy and Mines. 

Following this was the voting session where the teams were subjected to poll by the audience. At the completion of the voting session, Kidobotikz which had garnered 65 votes was adjudged as the Runner up in the event.

The proceedings of the Grand Finale can be viewed in the video given below.

The following video is a post-event interview that was conducted by CNBC Awaaz. this video chronicles the experience of Team Kidobotikz and its core vision.

Special Thanks to: Masterpreneur India, The Hindu

Read More

The New York Public Library Unveils a Cutting-Edge Train That Delivers Books

The New York Public Library has installed a new, state-of-the-art conveyor system in its Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street to transport requested research materials from newly-expanded storage under Bryant Park to researchers throughout the library.

The conveyor, developed by New Jersey based company Teledynamic, will begin delivering requested materials to two locations in the building during the week of Oct. 3. One of the locations – the iconic Rose Main Reading Room on the third floor – is reopening on Oct. 5 after an over two-year closure for repairs and restoration.

The new system – installed utilizing an innovative design developed by global design firm Gensler – consists of 24 individual red cars that run on rails and can seamlessly and automatically transition from horizontal to vertical motion. The cars pick up requested materials from the newly-expanded Milstein Research Stacks – which now have two levels that can hold up to 4 million research volumes – and deliver the materials to library staff in two locations: one on the first floor and the other in the Rose Main Reading Room. Staff then provide the materials to researchers for use in the library.

The new conveyor system replaces an outdated setup in which boxes of research materials were placed on a series of conveyor belts. The new system is easier to maintain and more efficient.

The new system:

• Runs on 950-feet of vertical and horizontal track
• Includes 24 cars that can each carry 30 pounds of material
• Moves 75 feet per minute.
• Are tracked using electronic sensors installed on the rails
• Moves materials through 11 levels of the library, totaling 375 feet.
• Is electric, and the cars run on 24VDC
• Takes approximately five minutes to go from the Milstein Stacks to the Rose Main Reading Room (it takes longer for requested materials to be delivered, as the request needs to be received, the materials pulled by staff, and then placed on the system).
• Costs about $2.6 million

You can learn more about the system in the video given below.

Source: Open Culture, NYPL

Read More