If blind men are placed in a room with an elephant, each of them will be able to feel and describe different parts of the animal, but seeing the whole is difficult for all of them. What then would happen when hundreds of robotic masters are gathered together in a spot to discuss the present and future of the robotics industry
The reason for coming to a congress like FIRA 09 is more than catching up with tightly scheduled sessions from one hall to another. The real point of flying across the ocean to attend an international congress is to find a hidden gem, that extra 2 percent of the information that the masters need to complete the whole picture. Moseying through a table conversation during a coffee break, for example, is one of the ways to taste that unique spice of the international congress.
Professor of Education Vs. Professor of Engineering
“I have a different point of view because I am a professor of Education while many others here are faculty of Engineering,” Dr. Igor Verner from Israel said. “I teach students at TECHNION-- the Israel Institute of Technology, to become teachers of technology and robotics.” Professor Verner’s focus of studying is more about how humans and robots will interact in the future within the evolution of robotic functions, rather than focusing on the trends of the evolutionary inventions itself.
Sitting across from Dr. Verner, Dr. David J. Ahlgren from Connecticut spoke on behalf of the Engineering Department at Trinity College. “Instead of inventing technology for the beauty of technology, we must look at human needs,” said Professor Ahlgren. “Not necessarily the needs of humans,” Professor Verner added a comment. “When you are a kid, you just learn. You don’t think about what you need. Thus we must look to human interaction with robots today.” Professor Ahlgren then noted, “Indeed, kids today are fully exposed to digital equipment in the process of growing. Literally, how many kids are growing up with video games Is this really the best way to raise human kids” By hearing an engaging discussion, it was clear that such a congress is very crucial to help decide to what extent we are going to integrate robots into our society.
The number of students who want to master engineering or natural science is decreasing, especially in Europe. Is this because digital kids today are rather interested in taking full advantage of the high-tech devices that are already made than being motivated to go through all the hassle of building ones on their own
In Hartford, Connecticut, an annual Trinity College Fire-Fighting Home Robot Contest is held to motivate students to become challengers. Which proverb do we remind of ourselves once we are challenged to overcome something that is too great Two heads are better than one.
Dr. Ahlgren proposed a project guidance approach that aims to achieve high team capacity in building robots during his speech. "In the United States, a big effort of education is exploring knowledge through experience. Experience of learning drives theory. In this sense, the students have to be active in finding what they need to know in order to further complete their project. After you learn, you want to build. Once you face the difficult tasks, you want to team up. This is the circle."One from an Education perspective and the other in the Engineering aspect, both professors have shown a vigorous engaging discussion over the break.
What’s Really New Meet Frontiers
Collecting an extra piece of the whole picture during the coffee break was a gain, but the extraordinary presentation was a blast!
“I thought Seth Hutchinson's plenary session was one of the most remarkable presentations. He covered rigorous techniques for using computer vision as critical drivers of control algorithms,” commented Professor Donald Wunsch from the Missouri University of Science and Technology.
Although the earliest work of visual servo control dates back to the 1980s, a few of the performance problems are still faced both in position-based and image-based methods. “Recent studies suggest more advanced methods which will soon enable robots to react in an instance of demand,” Professor Hutchinson stated as he presented supporting visual aids.
A Robot with Human Perception is On Its Way Too
Once flawless vision-based robots are completed, perhaps a function that enables the robot to filter out information to find the most relevant object in a situation might come in handy. Professor Seth Hutchinson’s study thus quite matched the professor’s study from Germany.
Agnieszka Wykowska is a professor of psychology at Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich. Here psychologists, professors, scientists, and engineers form a cluster to find the common path of collaboration in order to be able to understand cognition for technology systems. She said, “Humans have developed various mechanisms to optimize their interaction with the environment. Optimization of action planning requires efficient selection of action-relevant features. Selection might also depend on the environmental context in which action takes place.”
Professor Igor Verner from Israel noted, “The most outstanding lecture I have heard at FIRA 09 was this psychiatrist from Germany who showed the experimental paradigm of a perceptual visual search task and pointing movement.”
Would a robot be able to find a girl with a green scarf in an environment which also included a red light, red t-shirts, and boys with red hats Where is a time machine when we need it
Different perspectives on robotics are like those blind men describing an elephant. Each one focuses on one aspect of robotics but the whole picture can only be seen by putting them all together. FIRA RoboWorld Congress 2009, in this sense, succeeded to put the whole picture together by talking and showing both what is real and what can be dreamt.
