An elementary school classroom looks orderly. The students seemed keen to do a task, while the teacher provides instruction. Unlike teachers in schools in general, teachers in these classrooms has a body made of plastic and computer components.

This is not a scene in a science fiction movie but a real place in a school in Masan, South Korea. Engkey, thus the name of the robot in the class room, apparently was teaching English language materials.

Reported by CNN on Monday (25/10/2010), this is part of a pilot program launched by the South Korean government. In this program, second grade elementary school students are taught English by a robot.

Mun-Taek Choi, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology who developed Engkey mentioned, the results of the evaluation show that educational robot system has proven effective in helping improve student interest and motivate them in learning English.

“As many as 36 robots Engkey been incorporated into 18 primary schools throughout Daegu, Korea until the end of this year,” said Choi.

Robot boned round and orange are controlled remotely by a real teacher outside the classroom. The teacher’s face, appearing on screen in the body Engkey. Well, this robot can connect students with teachers at a location very far away, even overseas.

“Thus, these telepresence robots also help overcome the problem of teaching English in South Korea, due to lack of native-speaker teachers,” said Choi.

Japan announced the other day that they are creating a roadmap for sending humanoid robots to the Moon a a first step towards human-robot space exploration. The current roadmap as announced by Japan's Strategic Headquarters for Space Development includes sending the first humanoids to explore the Earth's natural satellite by 2020. This is only 11 years from now which makes Japan's project a very bold one. Humanoid robots can hardly navigate man-made environments with lots of structure on Earth, it is hard to believe that in the next decade robotics technology will advance so far that such robot astronauts will be possible.

I am not saying that bipedal robots will never be constructed and possibly become a major component of space missions. What I am saying is that I don't think this is going to happen by 2020. NASA has had a space robotics program for ever and the most advanced and reliable robots that they have been able to send to other planets, namely Mars, have all been wheeled rovers.

The next generation planetary explorers that NASA is preparing are also of the same kind albeit much larger and more mobile than the current and past generations. The ATHLETE rover for example is under heavy development as a future platform for exploring the Lunar surface and it's design makes much more sense than a bipedal machine. Also, don't forget about Google's Lunar X Prize which is an effort to encourage private industry to construct and send a small exploration rover to the Moon as cheaply and as quickly as possible.

At the end of the day, a rover has higher mobility, can carry a larger payload (instruments, batteries, solar panels) and can reliably navigate terrain of all kinds. To expect a bipedal robot to have such capabilities in a decade requires much ambition and lots of engineering breakthroughs.

I have a feeling that Japan is aiming for publicity more than practicality in space robotics. They have now scrapped plans for their manned space program and they have yet to start the construction of their Lunar lander. They believe it will take another 2 years before they figure out all the details regarding the announced robotics mission to the Moon. Maybe they are trying to get the media to talk about their robotics project and ignore that at the same time they announced plans for the construction and deployment of military satellites. Finally, Japan is also planning to create robotics technologies to help cleanup some of the debris floating in orbit around the Earth. This space garbage poses a huge hazard to satellites, the International Space Station, and any other man-made object that is sent into space.

A few days ago, I received my copy of a new book focused on implementing computer vision systems using the OpenCV library. OpenCV is the most comprehensive open source, cross-platform, computer vision library that have been available and under development for many years; however, only recently a book on learning to program with it finally became available. The Learning OpenCV: Computer Vision with the OpenCV Library book is published by O'Reilly and written by Gary Bradski and Adrian Kaehler both veterans in machine vision with lots of academic and industry experience.

The origins of the OpenCV library go back many years. Intel first introduced the image processing library in 1999. At the time, the library was being developed for real-time image processing on Intel CPUs; in fact, having a copy of Intel's Integrated Performance Primitives(IPP)library installed on your computer can provide huge speed ups in processing images even today. As an open source project, several Beta versions of OpenCV were published on a yearly schedule with the official version 1.0 released in 2006. Since then, the project remained dormant until a year ago when robotics startup Willow Garage decided to take over continuing its development as an open source computer vision library that would be of use to scientists, industry developers, and hobbyists alike. Version 1.1 was released in October 2008 to coincide with the publication of the Learning OpenCV book.

I have used OpenCV over the years and I am glad that finally someone wrote a book describing how to program with it. The online documentation is not the best to get people started and it is only useful to those with knowledge of computer vision who just want to know how to use the API. The new book is here to fix the documentation problem helping experts and amateurs alike to get started with programming basic and advanced image processing algorithms with ease. I have spent a couple of days reading parts of the book and so far I find it to be very well written and more useful than the online documentation. The book does a great job describing both the API and the mathematics behind the implemented algorithms. Although some sections tend to be a bit heavy on the math, the authors often suggest that readers can skip over these descriptions and jump straight to the section that describes the API. I would encourage anyone who wants to take full advantage of the library to read through the entire book including the mathematical descriptions; you don't need to know how an internal combustion engine works to drive a car but if you want to build a better car then you do.

The book starts by discussing basic image processing (image smoothing, resizing, thresholding, etc.) and eventually moves on to talk about gradients, transforms (Hough, Discrete Fourier, and Discrete Cosine Transforms,) integral images and histograms. These basic tools can be used to implement advanced algorithms for contour extraction and matching as well as image segmentation and tracking. In the latter chapters, the focus changes to camera calibration and 3D vision. There is also a brief introduction to Machine Learning for classification and clustering (K-means, naïve Bayes classifier, binary decision trees, and boosting.) The authors conclude the book with their overview of where they hope to take OpenCV over the next few years implementing many state of the art algorithms and providing better documentation. Since this is an open source project, everyone is encouraged to make a contribution either by implementing new algorithms, fixing bugs, or optimizing the current implementation.

Learning OpenCV is a must have book for everyone working on computer vision.

This news come from United Kingdom, from www.ecs.soton.ac.uk:

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.’

This news come from washingtonpost.com

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.

Earlier today I received the following video sent to me by one of my contacts deep inside DARPA. The video shows the top secret military robot that has been in development for at least 10 years; it is a collaborative effort among MIT, CMU, and Stanford universities. The video shows a live trial of the robot (notice the clearly visible machine gun.) Rumor has it that these robots are nearing completion and several will be deployed in IRAQ in early 2009.

www.roboticslearning.com, this site provide good robotics learning and practice for your children. Look at the gallery preview, the children are happy with their practice..

About www.roboticslearning.com: (more…)

Robotics is going pupular with kids…
A news say that robots may help kids for their social skills:

THURSDAY, Aug. 7 (HealthDay News) — Many children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) interact more easily with mechanical devices than with humans, according to new reports.

Researchers at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering, who have presented their finding at various conferences in the United States and in Europe this summer, found that Socially Assisted Robotics (SAR) that blow bubbles, toot horns and even make facial expressions appear to increase the child’s speech and interaction levels.

“I am gratified by these preliminary results,” Maja Mataric, a professor at the USC Interaction Laboratory, said in a news releases issued by the university. “I believe that Socially Assistive Robotics has a part to play in helping families, both the affected children and their parents and siblings.”

The initial study, reported in a June Conference on Interaction Design for Children with Special Needs in Chicago, paired an ASD child with a colorful bubble-blowing wheeled robot that either operated on its own or blew bubbles when the child pushed a button.

(more…)

News for FIRST robotics competition - Boston regional:

News source bizjournals.com

The FIRST Robotics Competition Boston regional event kicks off today at Boston University’s Agganis Arena.

Teams practiced at the Commonwealth Ave arena yesterday. Two alliances — either red or blue — composed of three randomly selected high school teams each, squared off before a sparse but raucous crowd made up of other teams.

This year’s competition requires the robots to knock a giant rubber ball off a bridge spanning an oval track, carry it counter-clockwise around the track and either launch the ball over the bridge or pass it under it each time they pass a certain point on the track.

Some squat robots used beetle-like pincers to scoop up and carry the ball, with a launching or punching mechanism to get it over the bridge. One robot had a boxing glove attached to a telescopic arm to knock the ball from the bridge.

Other, taller robots used long arms with robotic hands or claws to grab the ball and drop it over the bridge. The robot controlled by the team from BU Academy used such a robot, RoboRed, named after the school’s terrier mascot. Robo Red is a tower on wheels with an craning arm and a claw to grab the ball. (more…)

KINGDOM CITY, Mo. - Robots have invaded the North Callaway High School.

The good thing is that they were invited.

Math teacher Kevin O’Neal was inspired by his brother, who works in robotics maintenance, to create a new robotics and automation program at the high school level. The class is taught as part of an after school program that meets every Tuesday and Thursday in the industrial technology department of the school.

?This is my first year doing this so I’m just getting my feet wet,? O’Neal said. ?It allows the kids to explore different concepts of applied mathematics that they have learned in the classroom in a way that is hands-on.?

The students in the program use their knowledge of mathematics, combined with a unique system of building blocks and computerized motors to build automated machines.

?What we do is we use LEGO robotics kits that we can use to build many different types of things depending on what we want the robot to do,? O’Neal said. (more…)

Robosapien Version 2 is the next generation of Robosapien technology and personality from Wowwee. This new member of the robotic family comes with more advanced dynamic motion, interactive sensors, new program functions, speech capability, and a personality all his own. It’s clear from the start that he enjoys bowling, dancing, and having conversations.

Movement
RobosapienV2 is able to walk forward in four different styles, or gaits. He normally uses his IR vision and touch sensors built into his feet and hands to avoid obstacles, but if put into bulldozer mode, he will walk forward or backward and try to push his way through anything.

Beyond controlling him manually with the included remote controller, RobosapienV2 can explore his environment independently in free roam mode. You can also direct his movements by using the remote’s targeting feature–just point the beam to a spot on the floor and he will walk toward it.

RobosapienV2 has been designed with a full range of motion. He can turn his head just like humans. So, too, can he turn at the hips and can move them forward and back and from side to side. RobosapienV2 can move each arm independently, and his hands can grab, pick up, and throw light objects, such as the included bowling balls and pins. He even comes preprogrammed with a selection of dance moves. (more…)

The Robonova I offers educators, students and robotic hobbyists a complete robot package. The advanced and stable Robonova I can walk, run, do flips, cartwheels, dance moves and once programmed, is ready to compete in any Robo One Class “J” competition. This kit version of the Robonova I allows you to enjoy building your new friend from the ground up. The Robonova I kit was designed for easy assembly in six to eight hours using only a screwdriver. On the other hand, if you prefer instant gratification, you can choose the Robonova I in a pre-built, ready-to-walk version.

Built Tough
The custom gold anodized metal servo brackets serve as a strong and lightweight exoskeleton. Robonova I also features durable plastic body case components that protect the control board and battery from damage. (more…)

Wowwee’s Roboreptile is an often startling robotic toy that, once you get the hang of its wonky controls, is actually pretty fun. Like other Wowwee robots, there’s a preprogrammed animation that goes off when it is first powered up. It’s impressive: growling, snapping jaws and a whipping tail. In short, Roboreptile looks like something out of the future and moves like something out of the past.

The Roboreptile has infrared “vision” sensors where its eyes would be and stereo “hearing” sensors on the sides of its face. Its sounds, though a bit tinny, are menacing. During a tail swipe, it lets out a sort of Eagle cry, harkening back to the shared avian/reptile ancestry.

Controlling the Monster
Controlling the Roboreptile with the remote is a bit of a strain. First, because the remote uses an infrared beam and the pick-up sensor is located in its head. You won’t be able to control it from far away, and it’s difficult to control while walking away from you. (more…)