O... M... Robots!

www.explodingdog.com

Yesterday I went to the University and met with a team of international students who all feel this way about robots. The team is working on something called a RoboCup - a competition between different Universities across the world to stimulate research in robotics.

Generally RoboCup is a football (soccer) competition, where the teams submit a number of robots who can play football against each other. And I'm not talking about remote-controlled robots either - I'm talking about fully autonomous machines that can play a game. They have to be able to move around, avoid obstacles, recognize the ball and the net, and attempt to score a goal on the other team. The following video is the finals from RoboCup2010. It looks a little boring at first, but trust me - watch it, and you'll get into it. You start rooting for the robots to score - doesn't even matter what team, it's just exciting to see a machine trying so hard to perform a task that we take for granted - like kicking a ball.

They look so silly and clumsy at first, but you have to keep in mind that these are fully autonomous humanoid bots. The competition started in '97, and they had several really great battles of bots that just look like boxes on wheels. They're fast and agile and can shoot the ball to different corners of the net, but they don't look like humans. The humanoid ones have only started appearing within the past few years, so all things considered - this is progress!

The goal of the RoboCup is to have a team of humanoid bots win a football match against a team of human players by 2050. The first such challenge was solved in '97 when Deep Blue won a game of chess against Kasparov - the world's best chess player. So... with only 14 years since the competition started and with 39 years to go, I think it's definitely possible. And to be honest, I'm kind of excited to see a team of fully autonomous humanoids beat the crap out of Spain. :-P
(no offence, Spain, but while I'm on German soil - DFB FTW!!)

RoboCup has many different competitions, and as much fun as it is building robots for games - the more practical competition is with service robots, which is what the team is working on this year. The idea is to have a robot perform a service task within a given time. Something as simple as "bring me a cup of tea", is actually an extremely complex task for a robot to complete. We don't even think about these daily routines when we perform them, but for a robot, millions of lines of code have to be written to go from room A to room B, locate the kettle, locate the water, pick up the kettle, get the water into the kettle, etc, etc, etc... And if I can have any part in contributing to a robot that will one day fetch me tea, I'll spend the rest of my waking hours writing that code.

Caution Level !

Before the meeting I went to the robot lab where my professor had introduced me to the team and the robots the day before. As I entered the lab, a monotone female voice inquired, "Where would you like me to go?", and after a short pause confirmed, "Moving to Room A". I looked to the side and saw the robot slowly roll towards a designated location. I felt a bit out of place - everyone is sitting behind their laptops, lines of debugging code streaming across their screens, different simulations running, and boards filled with formulae I don't understand covered the walls. I quietly sat down on the side and started looking around - trying to take in what was going on. After a while a girl came up to me and offered me some tea. I said I would love some, and followed her to the kitchen area. "So, you're really into robots?", she asked. "Oh yeah!", I replied, smiling ear to ear. "I noticed that yesterday when you first came into the lab.", she said, "You looked so happy." And I was. I was beaming with excitement just being in the same room with a real robot. The possibility that I could contribute to the code would send shivers down my spine. And the idea that I could potentially learn how to do this on my own and start building my own bots in my spare time just about made my head explode. I asked if it would be okay for me to take a couple of pictures of the robot to share with my friends back home, so... here it is... The Roobooooot:

The meeting we had was to discuss something called the ROS (Robot Operating System). This is a collection of libraries that interface from code - to hardware. Basically any robot that is in commercial use today uses this operating system to run and perform its tasks. We were briefed on what the OS is and what it does, and our first task was to go home and install it on our laptops (check). Next meeting is on Monday and we're going to start with basic tasks and coding some algorithms to solve these tasks. If anyone has any ideas and recommendations for what kind of tasks I could work on - I'll definitely try to incorporate them into my project. This is not for a class, and not for credit - this is just a group of people who are all passionate about robotics and wish to contribute to the research.

Apparently the ROS can be installed on a lot of different hardware, and I plan on saving up some money and buying components to build a robot of my own. Something small, perhaps a toy car with a mop that would clean my floors... or an arm that would open my curtains in the morning... who knows... the possibilities are endless... ^__^