Before we get into the details, let us see why it is important to learn about microcontrollers in general and the AVR RISC series in particular. A recent white paper by Sun Microsystems, on picoJava Microprocessor core architecture claims that an average home, by the end of the decade, will contain between 50 to 100 microcontrollers controlling digital phones, microwave ovens, VCRs, televisions sets and television remotes, dishwashers, home security systems, PDAs, etc. Even though this may only reflect the position of a typical home in the advanced countries, there is no denying that even this reflects a huge volume of the microcontroller and microprocessor usage in the home environment. Besides home use, another area that is fueling the microcontroller growth is electronic commerce.

With the advent of “smart cards,” which have much more storage capacity than the more conventional magnetic cards and are more reliable, these devices are all set to replace paper currency, which means that a humongous number of people will be using the smart cards. There is even more: An average car has about 15 processors; the 1999 Mercedes S-class car has 63 microprocessors, while the 1999 BMW has 65 processors! In fact, except perhaps the human body, microprocessors and microcontrollers have gotten into everything around us (and even that may not be completely true—it would not be surprising if a heart pacemaker is microprocessor controlled).

Microcontrollers or microprocessors are easier to use as a controller than say a dedicated digital state machine in a system such as a washing machine, for example, cheaper to upgrade, and require less inventory; all issues critical for maintaining economic viability and profit in the face of cutthroat competition—thus this great rush for microcontrollers and microprocessors. Given the mass usage of microcontrollers in devices, systems, and consumer components, it is obvious where the money is.

So we want to learn about microcontrollers and microprocessors. However, you might have noticed that I have used these terms interchangeably and rather loosely. It is time to consider what a microcontroller really is and how it differs from a microprocessor.

Download ebook Programming And Customizing The AVR Microcontroller
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Buy Programming And Customizing The AVR Microcontroller book from amazon.com for US$ 29.67

Babysitting robots, once the province of speculative fiction, are on the market. They make conversation, recognize faces and keep track of kids. They’re not a replacement for TV or games, but for personal care — and some researchers worry that kids will be harmed.

“If you leave a small child in front of the TV, you have to keep popping in to make sure they’re OK. But these are so safe that people will eventually leave their children in the care of robots,” said Noel Sharkey, a University of Sheffield roboticist.

Sharkey’s concerns, voiced Thursday in an editorial, “The Ethical Frontiers of Robotics,” published in Science, come at a potentially historic intersection between robotics and parenting.

Personal service robots are more common than industrial robots, and people are happy to use them for tasks once fulfilled by people. One survey of public attitude towards robots found that many people were willing to to use them as babysitters — more people, in fact, than would use robots as priests or massage therapists.

Models now on the market range from the Hello Kitty robot — “perfect … for whoever does not have a lot time to stay with child,” proclaims a vendor — to the discontinued Sony QRIO and NEC’s PaPeRo, which tells jokes, gives quizzes and uses radio-frequency identification chips to track kids. In another generation, these sophisticated machines will likely seem quaint.

“What would happen if a parent were to leave a child in the safe hands of a future robot caregiver almost exclusively?” wrote Sharkey. “The truth is that we do not know what the effects of the longterm exposure of infants would be.”

Sharkey does, however, take instruction from psychologist Harry Harlow’s famous and controversial tests on the importance of maternal care for monkeys, and ostensibly people: when nursed by inanimate objects, they grew up to be withdrawn and socially dysfunctional.

In the editorial, he mentions research — which now would be too unethical to conduct — on monkeys raised by inanimate nurses, which demonstrated the importance of maternal care.

Roboticist Ronald Arkin of Georgia Institute of Technology agrees that robots will affect people. “This stuff absolutely warrants further study,” he said. “People’s behavior is going to change as these artifacts are introduced. We see that with previous technologies, too — TV, the internet, the VCR.”

Arkin is, however, less immediately concerned than Sharkey, and willing to wait for research results before being alarmed. “We don’t have to be fearmongers, but we do need to study them intelligently and rationally,” he said.

But Sharkey is worried that sound science is impossible. Commercial robot makers, he said, are “doing experiments showing positive results by introducing them into schools for two or three hours a day. Children love them. But what we can’t do, scientifically, is long-term studies with isolated children.”

The sorts of tests necessary to directly test the effect of robot care would be unethical.

To Clifford Nass, director of Stanford’s Communications Between Humans and Interactive Media Lab, Sharkey and Arkin’s concerns are ultimately just practical. There’s a more fundamental question posed by the use of robots to care for children.

“The question is, if robots could take care of your children, would you let them?” he said. “What does it communicate about our society that we’re not making child-care a number-one priority?”

Nass pointed out that surveys show people are least willing to use robots as massage therapists, even though robots could make excellent masseurs. The reason, he said, is the meaning of a massage.

“There are some things you do for symbolic reasons, not technical reasons,” he said.

Citation: “The Ethical Frontiers of Robotics.” by Noel Sharkey, Science, 322, Dec. 19, 2008.

source: blog.wired.com

Robots can be used for 2 purposes, for good purposes or bad purposes. With the ethics of robotics, robots can be expected to be used for good purposes only. Here the article about ethical guidelines on war robots.

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International guidelines are needed for the ethical and safe use of robots “for care and for war”, according to a leading British scientist.

Professor Noel Sharkey, a robotics expert from the University of Sheffield, warned of the potential dangers posed by new generations of civilian and military robots.

He drew attention to developments which could see battalions of armed and semi-autonomous robots being deployed in battle, both on the ground and in the air.

The US Future Combat Systems project aimed to use robots as force multipliers, with a single soldier initiating large scale ground and aerial robot attacks.

“The ethical problems arise because no computational system can discriminate between combatants and innocents in a close contact encounter,” Prof Sharkey wrote in the journal Science.

In the civilian area the hazards were more subtle but nonetheless real, he pointed out. Large numbers of “personal care” robots had already been developed for child-minding and care of the elderly.

Research had shown that children could become closely attached to robots, often preferring a robot to a teddy bear. But robots were unable to provide the care and attention offered by humans, which could have unpredictable psychological consequences, said Prof Sharkey.

“Because of the physical safety that robot minders provide, children could be left without human contact for many hours a day or perhaps for several days, and the possible psychological impact of the varying degrees of social isolation on development is unknown,” he wrote. “What would happen if a parent were to leave a child in the safe hands of a future robot caregiver almost exclusively?”

Studies had shown that in monkeys, severe social dysfunction occurs if infant animals only develop attachments to inanimate objects.

Care of the elderly was another area where robots were making a big impact, said Prof Sharkey. Examples of such devices already in use included the “My Spoon” automatic feeding robot, the Sanyo electric bathtub robot that washes and rinses, and the Mitsubishi Wakamura robot for monitoring, delivering messages and issuing reminders about medicine.

Robots on a Mission, a rookie team of seventh-grade students from St. Peter Lutheran School in Arlington Heights and home-schooled youngsters, learned about coping skills Saturday during a robotics tournament at Lake Zurich Middle School North.

After being disqualified in the first round because their robot had four motors, one more than the three allowed, the team redesigned the robot and scored well in the second round.

“The boys did a great job of coming together and regrouping,” said their coach Dave Solak. “They looked at the problem, removed one of the motors and made some adjustments and improved their scores in the next rounds.”

ROAM was one of 16 teams from Arlington Heights, Barrington, Batavia, Buffalo Grove, Elgin, Grayslake, Kildeer, Lake Zurich, Mundelein and Palatine competing in the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology Lego League regional competition.

Lego competitions also were going on Saturday at the elementary school level at Lincoln Middle School in Mount Prospect and at the high school level at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

Dressed in matching black team T-shirts boasting a futuristic robot on a gray background, ROAM teammates were among more than 100 children ages 9-14 who went head-to-head with their robots, built and programmed with the Lego Mindstorms system.

“I’ve always been interested in Legos and technical stuff, so I thought that I would like this. I was surprised by how huge this competition was, and by the number of districts competing,” said Kyle Wahlberg, a fourth-grade student from Frederick School in Grayslake who was participating for the first time.

This was the first year that Frederick School participated in the competition and interest was high, said Principal Eric Detweiler.

“We originally thought that we would sponsor one team, but when the number of students interested reached 28, we formed three teams. We even had to turn some away,” Detweiler said.

This year’s theme was Climate Connections, which immersed middle school students in the impact of changing weather patterns. Teams have brainstormed since September and programmed their robots to accomplish tasks during 21/2-minute competition rounds

Teams were judged on how well their robots performed in table action, as well as design and programming. Their research project on climate and their teamwork also were evaluated.

Team STEELE from Kildeer received the Technical Interview Award; Gem Miners from Lake Zurich won the Teamwork award; Gesundheit! from Grayslake won the Robot Table Performance award and Got Robot? from Elgin took the Judges Award. These teams will head to the state tournament Jan. 16-17 at Forest View Educational Center in Arlington Heights. Lego Republic from Lake Zurich received the Research Presentation Award.

Motorola Foundation members have been major supporters of the competition, with many of its engineers serving as mentors and coaches for teams every year

The Bluetooth Boe-Bot Robot Kit for Microsoft Robotics Studio (MSRS) is a Parallax Boe-Bot Robot and an A7 Engineering eb500-SER Bluetooth module. The eb500 module makes it possible for the Boe-Bot robot’s BASIC Stamp 2 microcontroller brain to communicate wirelessly with MSRS running on a nearby PC. The BASIC Stamp microcontroller runs a small PBASIC program that controls the Boe-Bot robot’s servos and optionally monitors sensors while it communicates wirelessly with MSRS.

MSRS makes it possible to write robot sensor monitoring and motion control code (called services) on your PC with popular languages such as Microsoft Visual C# and Visual BASIC. This code relies on other services that communicate serially with the Boe-Bot robot via the Bluetooth connection to request sensor measurements and issue control commands. With this arrangement, MSRS makes puts an extensive service library and the PC’s processing and data storage abilities at your disposal for robotics applications.

Download Bluetooth Boe-Bot Robot Tutorial here:

Vex Robotics Design System is a robotic kit intended to introduce students as well as adults to the world of robotics. The Vex Robotics Design System is centered around the Vex Starter Kit (which retails for about USD $500). This kit comes with the Vex “brain” (a microcontroller), a hobby-grade remote control, various sensors (2 bumper sensor and 2 limiter switches), three electric motors and a servo, wheels (4 small, 2 medium all purpose, and 2 large high traction tires), gears, and structural parts. Additional sensors (ultrasonic, line tracking, optical shaft encoder, bumper switches, limit switches, and light sensors), wheels ( small and large omni-directional wheels, small, medium, and large regulars), tank treads, motors, servos, gears (regular and advanced), chain and sprocket sets, extra transmitter and receivers, programming kit (easy C) extra metal and rechargeable battery power packs,can all be purchased separately.

This tutorial will show you how to maximize your Vex Robotics Design System. Here are some previews of Vex Robotics Tutorial which will guide you how to get the maximum performance.

You can download the tutorial here;

For the Vex Robotics Kits, you can buy it from Amazon.com:

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ANN ARBOR, Mich., Dec 05, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — As more companies adopt robots the need for safety training is expanding across the U.S. and Robotic Industries Association (RIA) is responding with more training events and locations than ever.

For the first time, Knoxville, Tennessee is host to RIA’s 2009 Spring Robot Safety Conference at the Knoxville Marriott from March 23-25, 2009. This three-day conference features a mix of workshops and conference sessions. Tabletop exhibits also accompany the conference with top companies displaying their latest robots, accessories and safety product innovations.

The RIA continues a twenty-one-year tradition of safety training as the National Robot Safety Conference XXI comes to Detroit at the Hyatt Regency Dearborn October 26-29, 2009. Attendees have four days to receive comprehensive training for their automation safety concerns. Pre- and post- conference workshops accompany the main conference, which features presentations on robot safety, standards, case studies, the latest developments and more. A networking and tabletop trade fair is also included, adding to the event’s value and excitement.

Companies interested in participating in the tabletop exhibits for either conference can call RIA at 734/994-6088.

In addition to its two conferences, RIA offers one-day Robot Safety Standard (R15.06) & Robot Risk Assessment Seminars. These robot safety seminars, modeled after RIA’s popular In-House Training courses, make their inaugural stops in Long Beach, California at host facility DENSO Robotics on February 4, 2009, and in Phoenix on March 30, 2009.

According to RIA’s Standards Development Director, Jeff Fryman, “The addition of the Long Beach and Phoenix seminars highlight the Association’s commitment to reach those interested in industrial safety throughout the West. These seminars extend an opportunity for those in the region to attend and receive training that meets their needs.”

Full seminar, workshop and conference agendas are being developed for all safety events and will be posted on the Association’s website (visit www.robotics.org) along with detailed registration information.

The Robotics Research Laboratory, tucked away in a corner of Coates Hall, tends to go unnoticed by most University students.

But out of this remote nook, Dr. S.S. Iyengar and two computer science graduate students hope to bring national recognition to the University through a new robot they have been working on for the past year and a half.

Iyengar, computer science department chair, Bharat Narahari and Jong Hoon Kim are making great strides in the robotics community by building a robot with technology that hasn’t been used anywhere else, Iyengar said.

The AgBot, powered by solar panels, includes features such as lawn fertilization, seed planting and security.

But Narahari, one of the creators of the AgBot, said he hopes the AgBot will be able to take on many different duties in the future.

“What we are imagining is, about five years down the line, suppose if you want to do a toilet cleaning job … buy a module and fit it inside the AgBot so it will clean your toilet,” he said. “And if you are out on a vacation for a month, and you need to guard and protect your house, so you go to some robot store, buy a security module, and just place it in the AgBot, so you have a full feature intrusion detection robot.”

Iyengar compared the robot to a cell phone. He said 10 years ago, a cell phone would just make calls, but today it has many different features. In the same way, he said, the AgBot is just a prototype that will be expanded to provide many functions as it is developed.

The AgBot, an invention Iyengar said could be worth a lot of money, is safely secured by the University. He said he didn’t want to give the idea to a large company because he didn’t want them to take the machine apart after buying it and make it into something completely different.

“I want LSU and the computer science department to make a niche here,” Iyengar said.

Some of the other projects being worked on by the RRL include a “pipeline robot,” which can inspect pipes for cracks and leakage, and a “maze robot,” which uses sensors to detect obstacles.

“All of it is built here,” he said. “And the very interesting thing is, [it was built] for probably a price of $2,000.”

The AgBot is being prepared for the commercial market, Iyengar said.

“We have proven the concept,” he said. “We have applied for patents, so now it is going to be ready for execution.”

Iygenar said he wants the robot to be available across the nation and be very cost-effective.

“We want to do it at a very cheap price,” he said. “If somebody wants the base of the robot only for doing a few things, that’s very cheap.”

Iyengar said he expects potential buyers to not only be homeowners but also golf clubs and baseball fields because the AgBot would cut back on lawn maintenance.

To see a video of the AgBot, click here.

ECS Student Robotics team members Rob Spanton and Chris Cross were among presenters showcasing their work to UK academics at a workshop discussing ‘Robotics in the Curriculum’.

According to Dr Su White, who organized the workshop, their enthusiasm and the success of their project was evidence of the many potential gains which students can experience when teaching with a robotics theme is included in the undergraduate curriculum. The Student Robotics challenge runs competitive activities in local sixth forms colleges and school.

‘Robotics in the Curriculum’ was convened by Su White of the ECS Learning Societies Lab in conjunction with the Higher Education Academy subject centres for Engineering and Information and Computer Science. Curriculum innovations from Southampton were showcased alongside contributions from engineering and computing colleagues from across the UK.

Student Robotics, which has won sponsorship from Motorola, demonstrates that there are accessible and low costs ways in which learning about engineering and electronics can integrate the theory with the practical and at the same time be challenging and enjoyable.

‘Robotics is an important part of the undergraduate curriculum in Southampton and demonstrates practical and exciting applications of computer science and electronics,’ said Dr White. ‘Student Robotics is a voluntary activity which involves students drawn from across our Faculty. Students also have options to study robotics formally at various levels of their degree course. We are particularly proud of the way in which our research and our teaching mutually benefit in this subject area. Rob Stanton has now progressed to PhD studies, and his supervisor Dr Klaus-Peter Zauner can clearly identify benefits which have resulted from the challenges our undergraduates have undertaken.’

Robots may soon be everywhere, in homes and at work. They could change the way humans live. If this happens, it will most likely raise many philosophical, social, and political questions that will have to be answered. In science fiction robots become so intelligent that they decide to take over the world because humans are deemed inferior. In real life however they might not choose to do that. Robots might follow rules such as Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, that will prevent them from doing so. If the Singularity happens robots will be indistinguishable from human beings and some people may become Cyborgs, with some parts half biological and half artificial.

Economic impact

Given that in the next two decades robots will be capable of replacing humans in most manufacturing and service jobs, economic development will be primarily determined by the advancement of robotics. Given Japan’s current strength in this field, it may well become the economic leader in the next 20 years (part 1, part 2). Marshall Brain also discusses the emergence of robotic economy.

Market evolution

Today’s market is not fully mature. One or more software compatibility layers have yet to emerge to allow the development of a rich robotics ecosystem (similar to today’s personal computers one). Microsoft is currently working in this direction with its new software Microsoft Robotics Studio. Other candidates to reach this goal might be Free Software solutions such as Player/Stage or cross-platform technologies such as URBI.

Timeline

Developments related to robotics from the NISTEP 2030 report :

• 2013-2014 — agricultural robots (AgRobots⁾.
• 2013-2017 — robots that care for the elderly
• 2017 — medical robots performing low-invasive surgery
• 2017-2019 — household robots with full use.
• ???’ — Nanorobots

Robotics in 2020

Robots may be commonplace: in home, factories, agriculture, building & construction, undersea, space, mining, hospitals and streets; for repair, construction, maintenance, security, entertainment, companionship, care.

Purposes of these Robots:

• Robotized space vehicles and facilities
• Anthropomorphic general-purpose robots with hands like humans used for factory jobs - Intelligent robots for unmanned plants - Totally automated factories will be commonplace.
• Robots for guiding blind people and home automation for the elderly and disabled.
• Robots for almost any job in home or hospital, including Robo-surgery.
• Housework robots for cleaning, washing, transporting etc - Domestic robots will be small, specialized and attractive (= cuddly).

Properties of these robots:

• Autonomous, with environmental awareness sensors .
• Self recharging, self diagnostic and self repairing.
• More sophisticated artificial brains, perhaps with ten thousand or more cells, combined with electronic circuits.

Legal rights for robots?

According to research commissioned by the UK Office of Science and Innovation’s Horizon Scanning Centre, robots could one day demand the same citizen’s rights as humans. The study also warns that the rise of robots could put a strain on resources and the environment.

Otto Voettiner’s hands shook slightly as he lined up his team’s robot and released it along a Lego-filled course. The robot, Billybot, had a seemingly simple mission: to cross the table, lift a red ring with its long, gray fingers and return to base.

The seconds ticked down. His eight teammates, all fourth- and fifth-graders from Mountain View Elementary in Haymarket, watched intently beneath furry hats bearing their school’s cougar mascot. The “future MIT student,” as his coach proudly called him, had completed the task correctly dozens of times. But something was off yesterday, and Billybot veered off course, crashing into a little Lego house.

Otto was cool about the crash and the resulting low score. “At least we have two more tries,” he said.

More than 200 students, ages 9 through 14, had three chances yesterday to show judges what their personally designed, built and programmed Lego robots could do at River Bend Middle School in Sterling. Statewide, about 2,400 students donned team T-shirts and funny hats and took their childhood toy to a new level of sophistication.

Turning Legos into robots, complete with sensors and computer hard drives, has become a popular weekend pastime for a growing number of young students in the Washington region and beyond. Ten years ago, the Manchester, N.H.-based educational organization known as FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) joined forces with Lego to establish the FIRST Lego League competition. This year, 135,000 children were expected to compete in about 40 countries. The regional tournament leads to a state championship in December and a world competition in Atlanta in the spring.

Neighborhoods, home-school organizations, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts all organize Lego League teams. Fairfax County has dozens, including seven from Oak Hill Elementary in Herndon. There’s interest for more teams but not enough volunteer coaches, said Martha Cosgrove, a third-grade teacher at Oak Hill, who has coached an all-girls team for seven years. Her daughter, a member of the first team, is a junior in high school and spent her summer at an engineering program geared toward young women.

Cosgrove’s goal is to reach out to students who are underrepresented in engineering and technology careers. That means going after more girls, Hispanics, African Americans and those who aren’t in gifted programs.

But if yesterday’s competition is any indication, the robotics competition, although growing, is still solidly a game for self-identified brainiacs. Most teams came from schools with gifted and talented centers.

Mountain View’s students were handpicked from an enrichment program, said coach and third-grade teacher George Lombardi. As one of his students explained, “You have to be one of the smartest kids in the class to do it.”

The students have eight weeks to put together robots and presentations. On competition day, they are evaluated on a range of objectives, including teamwork and the performance and design of the robots, a category that brought Mountain View a first-place prize.

In addition, the students had to research how technology could help address a real-world problem associated with climate change. The Cougars chose to study drought and came up with a poster-board presentation and a skit called “The Scoop on Drought.”

Some of the children already sounded like scientists.

Paige Payne, 9, presented on an ancient Peruvian irrigation system with three kinds of “raised bed systems,” including a “phreatic system, in which the systems are joined in areas where the groundwater table is close to the surface of the soil and there is a means for groundwater recharge such as an infiltration lagoon.”

While the audience of parents and teachers let the information sink in, she asked, “Do you have any questions?”

Between events, the Cougars marched two by two through the middle school hallways. “We keep our heads up high/For we are the Cougars of Mountain View/Our goal is to reach for the sky,” they belted out.

One second-grader followed, marching and singing along a step or two behind. Her mother, Laurie Payne, held her hand, and said that she wants to be on the robotics team someday, just like her sister.

GLENDALE — Student Boris Aguilar adjusted a robot’s movement using computer codes in preparation for a competition Saturday at the FIRST Lego Robotics Tournament at Roosevelt Middle School.

His team programmed the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot’s movements on a laptop computer, which through a wireless signal sent codes to the robot made out of Legos.

Seeing the robot perform as it was programmed came as a great relief to Boris and his teammates because they had been working on the robot for two months.

“It takes a lot of stress out,” Boris said.

Boris was a member of America’s Next Top Scientists Team, which represents Gage Middle School in Huntington Park.

About 22 teams of elementary and middle school students from Los Angeles County competed in the second annual tournament at the school.

But at least two teams couldn’t make the tournament because California Highway Patrol shut down several freeways due to fires in Sylmar on Saturday, said Teacher Randy Kamiya, who organized the event.

Seven or eight teams also were missing team members who were unable to make it to the tournament because of the freeway closures, he said. One group had only one student on the team, Kamiya said.

No Glendale schools participated in the event.

“Our students thought it wouldn’t be fair to the other teams to participate in the tournament because they were the host school,” he said.

The competition is a qualifying event in which 70% of the teams move on to another competition at Legoland in Carlsbad, he said. Teams that do well in the Legoland competition go to a national championship in Atlanta.

“It’s a blast,” Kamiya said.

Roosevelt Middle School automatically qualifies for the Carlsbad competition because it hosted the event.

But before the teams move on to other competitions, they had to meet qualifications in four categories in Saturday’s competition.

The theme of the robotics competition was climate change, so robots had to perform weather-related tasks, such moving a polar bear or picking up minerals and placing them in a coal mine.

“Robots are required to perform tasks on a 4-by-8-foot table,” Kamiya said. “They have two minutes and 30 seconds to complete as many tasks as possible.”

The highest score possible is 400 points.

Teams were judged on their presentation related to climate change, robot design, teamwork and performance, Kamiya said.

“All children must be involved in the entire process,” he said.

The Arcadia Girl Scouts Troop 238, who represent the LOL Comets, practiced six hours a week for two months for the event.

“It gives you the opportunity to be creative,” team member Audrey Chen said.

Coached by Melanie Tizon and Warren John Ong Pe, Grade 6 student Joseph Aldrin Chua and Grade 5 students Eldrich Chua and Dominique Sy, all from the Grace Christian Elementary School, bagged the silver medal with a certificate and a Lego trophy, beating 21 other schools.

This is the first time that the Philippines garnered a medal in the open category in the elementary level of the competition.

The students’ winning entry, entitled “Green Whiz Community and the G-Tech Robot Engineering a Better World,” features 12 robots doing various tasks to help save the environment.

The wiz kids’ robots aimed to show the urgency of saving the environment, emphasizing that technology can be used to stop the destruction of, and save the planet from, environmental degradation.

The featured robots include Next Gen Car, a lightweight hydrogen-powered car which consumes lesser energy; H2O (Water) Treatment Robot, which is designed to filter wastewater from factories for safe disposal; E-Sorter, a robot that sorts biodegradable and nonbiodegradable garbage using color coding of containers; Paper Recycling Area, a factory robot that recycles used paper into usable materials; Iced Sub-Zero Robot that makes melted ice in the polar region back into ice form; and Forest Surveillance Robot, which has a built-in camera that guards forests and waterfalls from illegal loggers and hunters.

Other robots used were AD Robot, which is perched on the top of a mountain and advertises the importance of planting trees in order to save the earth; Air Pollution Monitor Robot, designed to monitor the level of carbon dioxide and other pollutants; CO2 (carbon dioxide) Sequester E3K, designed to sequester carbon dioxide emitted by factories; E-Card, used to switch on and off household appliances; Heliostatic Mirrors are equipped with mirrors that follow sunlight and magnify it as an alternative source of light; and WM 123 are windmill robots that serve as alternative source of energy for the community.

Students from Benigno Aquino High School and the International School of Manila won certificates for winning the sixth place in the open category of the high- school and primary levels, respectively.

Capturing the gold medals for the open category were Malaysia, Taiwan and South Korea for the senior high-school, junior high-school and primary levels, respectively. In the regular category, South Korea received gold medals for the primary and junior high-school levels, while Sweden got the top prize for the senior high-school level.

South Korea obtained three gold medals, Singapore got one silver and one bronze, and Malaysia got one gold, one silver and two bronze medals in the entire event.

In the open category, student-contestants were tasked to create robots within the theme “Saving the Global Environment,” which were judged based on their appearance, uniqueness, interactive behavior, good engineering and stability. Team members showed the quality of the entry through successful demonstration, good explanation and projected high team spirit.

Science Education Institute Director Dr. Ester Ogena said the Philippine team’s triumph was proof that Filipino students are on a par with students around the world.

“Our students have shown their best and given more opportunities like these, we could tap more potential in the field of robotics,” she said.

Ogena vowed to increase more support in robotics as it takes the lead, together with Felta Multi-media, in preparing for the staging of the World Robotics Olympiad (WRO) in the Philippines in 2010.

“Preparations are under way for this grand event and we are very excited with the privilege that we would be hosting the WRO two years from now,” she said.

Ogena said the robotics olympiad is a good training ground for future engineers who would like to improve the way of living in the world through robotics.

“Our end goal in supporting the WRO is to entice our students to venture into science careers and beef up the critical mass of scientists and engineers our country needs,” she said.

Overal Design:

Fig. 1.A

Figure 1A shows a 3D graphical representation of the robot, where different parts can be clearly identified according to the following table:

For the detail explanation, please visit this page

Austin College became one of 28 high schools, colleges and universities in the nation to receive a grant to enhance computer science curriculum with robotics technology. The grant was provided by the Institute for Personal Robots in Education (IPRE) and a gift from Microsoft Research.

“Implementing robotics into computer science and other sciences makes the curriculum more interesting and interactive,” said Shellene Kelley, associate professor of computer science, who tested robots for the IPRE and attended a three-day faculty workshop at the Georgia Tech College of Computing during the 2008 spring term. “Hopefully this will help combat the U.S. trend of declining student interest in math and the sciences,” she said.

Kelley will be implementing the technology at Austin College during her fall 2008 Communication/Inquiry (C/I) course, “Computing with Robots: It’s all a BOT science,” where each student will explore ways to automate robot behavior through computer programming with their own personal robot. Kelley also will be utilizing the robotic technology in a 2008 Jan Term and in a 2009 spring term course.

“It’s much more fun to teach a robot to navigate around obstacles, perform a dance, or roam the halls taking pictures along the way than to write a program to solve a mathematical equation or search for information in a file,” Kelley said. “But the same logic and problem solving skills are needed to accomplish all these tasks. Students will not only learn to program robots but also learn to program computers to solve many types of real-world problems.”

Kelley said the C/I course, Austin College’s unique brand of freshman seminars, and Jan Term course utilizing the robots will be a way to attract undecided students and some non-science majors to the science and computer science field, aligning Austin College with the IPRE grant’s goal.

“Robots are a compelling way to stimulate students and spark their imaginations to consider the endless possibilities of careers in computer science,” said Dr. Stewart Tansley, senior program manager at Microsoft Research. “With these awards, we hope to accelerate the broad development of robotics programs, making computer science more immediate, relevant and significant for students and professors everywhere.”

The 28 recipients will share $250,000 and receive book-sized robots, called Scribblers, which are enhanced with special hardware technology and software. “IPRE’s efforts in developing this technology over the past two years makes it possible to put a robot in the hands of every student in the class for about the same price as a textbook” said Kelley. “This is key to encouraging experimentation and learning, both in and out the classroom environment.”

Grants were given to schools that met IPRE’s criteria for the technical quality of academic program, chances for successful implementation and matched IPRE’s mission to reinvigorate undergraduate computer science curriculum by delivering robotics technology tailored to education.

The IPRE applies and evaluates robots as a context for computer science education. IPRE was created in 2006 as a joint effort between Georgia Tech College of Computing and Bryn Mawr College sponsored by Microsoft Research.

The team — one of 50 in the nation and only four in South Carolina — was chosen to participate in a Green Machine competition to retrofit a robotic vehicle engine with a hydrogen fuel cell.

Nancy Zende, the Mauldin High team adviser, said the team’s acceptance into the competition is “a testimony to what we’ve been able to do in the past and to our willingness to take on additional challenges.”

The team has also taken on additional members, she said, almost doubling from last year to this year.

The 40-plus team members also have more adult volunteers and business community mentors because of the project, Zende said.

The project, which began in September and will culminate in May during a competition in Cleveland, hinges on the team’s ability to master hydrogen safety and polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell construction, application and maintenance concepts.

Basically, the team will retrofit one of its battery-operated robots to run on a hydrogen cell, she said.

Most of the work now is research, but game design and construction phases are coming.

In January, the team will launch a six-week build period for its annual competition season.

Team members have an “amazing enthusiasm” for the project, she said.

As well as preparing for the actual competition, the team is focusing on how and how soon the technology can be accessed and used by the individual, particularly in commuter situations, she said.

“There may come a day within the lifetime of these students when they see hydrogen fuel cells as the main means of powering automobiles,” Zende said.

She added she has always viewed the Robotics Team as a means of preparing the students for jobs that don’t exist yet, and that this project emphasizes that opportunity.

This is a “significant opportunity to get in on the ground-floor level on what may turn out to be an important industry in this state,” Zende said.

“South Carolina is positioning itself to be a leader in the hydrogen fuel cell (industry).”

The Mauldin Robotics team will display one of its robots Oct. 11 at the Roper Mountain Science Center.

www.greenvilleonline.com

“With expectations running high for the growth of humanoid and medical-care robotic systems markets, semiconductor-fueled innovation is an extremely important field,” said Marco Cassis, Corporate Vice President and President of STMicroelectronics K.K., ST’s subsidiary in Japan. “By combining HRI’s globally renowned breakthroughs in robotics and ST’s highly advanced know-how in semiconductor technology, we are confident in our ability to accelerate technological innovation in humanoid robotics and medical-care robot systems. We are very pleased to announce the development of this robot, in addition to our cooperative relationship with HRI, the first that ST has established with a Japanese university.”
“Robotics Technology (RT) is expected to be a fundamental technology for the sustainable development of human society in the 21st century and is expected to be widely applied in manufacturing industries as well as in such industries such as nursing care and medical treatment as well as in industries confronted by food and environmental issues,” said Professor Shuji Hashimoto, Director of the Waseda University HRI. “HRI has been researching and developing advanced intelligent robots for the next generation through the integration of machine technology and information technology. The introduction of cutting-edge microelectronics technology is essential to the realization of such robots. We thus have high expectations that our cooperation with ST will accelerate our research. In addition, we will pursue a new model of industrial-academic cooperation through concrete cooperative activities with ST in education and research fields.”
The WV-1 is a two-wheeled robot on which a pole with weights is installed in an inverted fashion on a pedestal. A feedback system, controlled with the STM32, ST’s ARM(R) Cortex(TM)-M3 based 32-bit MCU and the LIS344ALH 3-axis digital acceleration sensor, allows the robot to move while maintaining its balance. The MCU rapidly computes the angle of robot body incline, angular velocity and other sensor data, enabling the motor to constantly generate optimum torque, which allows the robot to continue moving smoothly without tipping over. Potential applications for this inverted pendulum robot control technology include postural control functions for humanoids and other devices, realizing new means of mobility.
HRI received a grant from “the project for reinforcement of development technologies for robotics” from The Robotics Industry Development Council. The grant was used for the development of the WV-1. Additionally, HRI is now working on plans to commercialize the robot.

http://www.marketwatch.com

View the video from youtube.

I’ve build the second line follower robot using 7 photodioda sensor and microcontroller AT89S52… the movement is quite fast and running smoothly…

The third line follower robot has been built using 7 photodioda sensor, microcontroller ATMega8535 and motor driver L298N… already running OK but need suit DC motor to make the movement faster…

I have built 2 line follower robot and 1 firefighting robot just using modified motor servo… and great, the robot is very easy to be controled…

Here the my first line follower robot using modified motor servo (old picture):

The robot’s movement is very slow, added more voltage and increase the wheel’s size is very important to increase the robot speed.

Step by step of modifiying motor servo from societyofrobotics.com:

What is a servo? A servo, unmodified, typically has a rotation of some set amount. In other words, they cannot rotate continuously. This is because of the built in angle feedback control system. There is an internal potentiometer which is used to determine the angle which the servo is at. Pots, or variable resistors, cannot rotate continuously.

There is however a way to modify a servo so that they can rotate continuously. Why do this? Because although you lose position control, you gain speed control. Neat, huh? To do this, obviously the pot needs to be altered in someway. There is also a mechanical stop within the gears which needs to be removed as well.

A note to what will be tricky about this servo tutorial. There are many types of servos, and they all have variations in how the mechanics work. It will be too much work for a tutorial to cover all types, so I will cover the basic concepts instead. Fortunately, most servos made today are designed to be easily modified.

So the first step would be to open up the servo.
1) First make sure the servohorn is removed from the output shaft. The servohorn attaches to the main output gear (the biggest gear), so removing it helps keep the gears from all falling out when you open the servo up. Also, use a microcontroller to command the servo to rotate to 0 degrees, the point between the maximum and minimum angle the servo can rotate to. You may also do this step by hand, although it might not be as exact.

Note, if you are making The $50 Robot (or at least using the ATmega8 microcontroller), download this .hex file and upload it to your ATmega8. You dont need to compile anything, as I already did that for you. This program will tell the microcontroller to send a signal at 1.5ms, the signal your servos need to hold at the zero position.

2) Next unscrew the four really long screws in the corners. Be careful not to strip the screw heads.

3) Now open up the top half of the servo. There are two parts that will open. The bottom half has the circuitry and wiring - make sure that remains closed. The top half contains the gearing. When opening, be careful not to have all the gears fall out. Memorize the gear locations just incase they do, so that you can reassemble everything. Make sure all the gears remain with the main part of the servo, with the exception of the large gear connected to the output shaft. Be careful not to contaminate the servo grease, as that would lead to an increase in gear wear.

4) Now you need to find the pot. It is connected to and under the largest gear. You must pull off the main gear to find it.

5) Next we need to center the servo. Do this by plugging it in to your controller and send the signal required for it to go to 0 degrees. You should probably see the gears rotating without stopping. Now rotate the pot head (no, not that type of pot head) so that the gears stop rotating. It will probably be very sensitive so take your time. It is very important for this to be perfect. Get some superglue and glue the pot head to make sure it remains in place.

6) Now while the glue is drying, try to find the mechanical stop on the main gear. It will be something protruding that prevents the gear from rotating continuously when the gearing is assembled. Metal gears usually have a protruding metal pin, pull it out. Plastic gears have a protruding plastic peice that you need to cut off. Get a pair of snips and carefully cut it off. You might also have to file it down if your trim was not perfect. Rarely will it be. Don’t damage the gear teeth during this process.

7) Attached to the gear that was connected to the pot is a little slot for the pot to fit in. Remove the slot from the gear. Chances are you can just pull it right out with a flathead screwdriver. This slot is so when the gear rotates, the pot will rotate with it. Keeping the pot in a fixed location tricks the servo to think it is at the same location.

Reassemble everything. Make sure the output shaft rotates continuously. Then send PWM to the servo. You will notice that by telling the servo to go to a particular angle, instead it will rotate at a particular speed. Neat, huh?

Not Working?
I just finished this tutorial but I’m having problems! Help!

Well you aren’t alone. Try these forum posts:

http://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=4400.0
http://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=507.0
http://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=1732.0
http://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=1350.0