There are many companies and government officials in Korea who are pushing for a ubiquitous age, complete with robot servants and sensorequipped coffee cups. The coffee cups may still be only a dream, but researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a self-assembled robot kit that can connect to a network connection and use sensors to perform a variety of tasks that each person can define on their own.
Ubiquitous future which includes a networked army of robotic servants can be had today for approximately US$350 per robot.
The Telepresence Robot Kit (TeRK), a joint effort unveiled last summer between the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute and Charmed Labs, is an attempt to build a workable and adaptable robot brain which can be fitted with a variety of different attachments for any number of different uses.
Possible robots are only limited by the imagination, but to give beginners a head start associate professor of robotics Illah Nourbakhsh and members of his Community Robotics, Education, and Technology Empowerment (CREATE) Lab have created a series of recipes for robot building.
Their goal is to make highly capable robots accessible and affordable for college and pre-college students, and anyone interested in robots.
The robots can take many forms, from a three-wheeled model with a mounted camera to a flower loaded with infrared sensors.
They can be easily customized and their ability to wirelessly link to the Internet allows users to control and monitor their robots' actions from any Internet-connected computer in the world.
The new tools that make this possible are a single piece of hardware and a set of recipes that people follow to build their robots.
Unlike other educational robot kits on the market, TeRK is not sold as a complete set of parts.
The CREATE Lab's recipes allow for a variety of robots to be built with parts commonly available through hardware and hobbyist outlets.
At the heart of each TeRK robot is a unique controller called Qwerk that combines a computer with the software and electronics necessary to control the robot's motors, cameras and other devices.
Qwerk, developed by the CREATE Lab and Charmed Labs of Austin, Texas, also connects the robot automatically and wirelessly to the Internet so it can be controlled by any Internet-connected computer.
"The Internet connection means the robots are much more global," Nourbakhsh said. Not only can the robot be operated remotely at any location with a wireless Internet connection, but it can also send photos or video, respond to RSS feeds, or access the Internet to find information. That combination opens a wide range ofpossibilities. "We're hoping people notice that the sky's the limit," he added.
Among the TeRK recipes already available is a small, wheeled robot with a video camera that people might use to keep an eye on their home or pet while they are at work or school. Another recipe under develo pment includes environmental sensors for air quality and sound pollution.
A less conventional recipe will produce a robotic, sixpetaled flower that can open and close based on its user' moods or use its petals to play a game of catch.
"We want robots that don't just subscribe to geeky notions of what robots should be," Nourbakhsh said. One recipe under development, for instance, can control a stuffed teddy bear.
"Once people have followed a recipe and become acquainted with robots, they can build on their experience," said Emily Hamner, a senior research associate in the CREATE Lab. "Not only can they customize the recipes to their liking, they can also design new robot types using the Qwerk controller."
Qwerk itself is a full-fledged computer with a Linux operating system that can use any computer language. It features a field programmable gate array (FPGA) to control motors, servos, cameras, amplifiers and other devices. It also accepts USB peripheral devices, such as Web cameras and GPS receivers.
"We leveraged several low-cost, yet high-performance components that were originally developed for the consumer electronics industry when we designed Qwerk," said Rich LeGrand, president of Charmed Labs.
"The result is a cost-effective robot controller with impressive capabilities." Building such a capable robot only five years ago would have been all but impossible, Nourbakhsh said. Using the Internet to provide telepresence on a routine basis, he explained, is practical today because of widespread broadband Internet access and the ubiquity of wireless hotspots in both public and residential settings.
TeRK was developed over the past year and a half with support from Google, Intel and Microsoft. It's already being used in a variety of college courses, middle school classes and community outreach programs.
In addition to Nourbakhsh and Hamner, the CREATE team includes graduate student Tom Lauwers, research programmer Christopher Bartley and design researcher Carl DiSalvo.
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university with a distinctive mix of programs in engineering, computer science, robotics, business, public policy, fine arts and the humanities.
More than 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students receive an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation.
A small student- to-faculty ratio provides an opportunity for close interaction between students and professors. While technology is pervasive on its 144-acre campus, Carnegie Mellon is also distinctive among leading research universities for the worldrenowned programs in its College of Fine Arts.
Charmed Labs LLC (CL) is a small company in Austin, Texas, which focuses on providing advanced embedded solutions for educational use.
CL's products have been used by students in university labs and by hobbyists worldwide, and particularly by thousands of middle school and high school students as part of the Botball educational robotics program.
CL's engineers come from the consumer electronics industry and apply the same low-cost/high-volume design techniques toward advanced educational solutions, so they may become available to larger audiences.
