RepRap project, the beginning of an adventure …

The RepRap project; an open source 3D printer, with all the technologies including inside it is a magnificent piece of technology to learn and study deeply. A combination of chemistry, physics, computer science, robotic technology and etc. Something that is produced by prosumers for prosumers(or even consumers as you don’t have to develop it further). A good that belongs to the non-rival(or even anti-rival), non extendable part of the production world. A product of CBPP in the public domain which in 5 years since Adrian came up with the idea, has managed to build a strong community in many different countries all around the world, dedicated developers around it and last but not least three functioning versions of 3D printers. I am honored to say that I am leading this project at Robotica Osloensis. Our first objective is to study and learn the RepRap concept and later take part in the development of this artifact. More updates on this project later.

Music composing by artificial intelligence, why not ???

Do we need to be able to put our creativity(art) in mathematical model to make a robot that can write symphonies ??? I DON'T THINK SO !!! Let's review what we do when writing a symphony ? We go to art school and Listen to thousands of music symphonies and try and fail many times and at the end we come up with our own symphony. A robot is not necessarily an Iron man walking around and pressing buttons. A robot specified to write symphony can be a code(intelligent system), crawling over all possible music tones & symphonies(available in its database). The code can later use this huge cached database and make combinations of them which are ear-catching and run surveys on test subjects(human subjects or other codes that can detect if a song is tolerable by our ears or not) and find out which of them are best and which to dump(some kind of genetic algorithm type) ...

It sounds crazy but what I am talking about here is not sci-fiction. This is today ...

Food Printing, future cooks would not wear hats ...

I had always mentioned Food Printing in my discussions with my fellow robotic calssmates at university. I even mentioned this in our team essay in a course I took at university of Oslo(INF5780 - Open source, open collaboration and innovation), where we wrote an essay about Open Source 3D Printing technologies and RepRap was the focus. Today while surfing on Internet for different open source 3D printing technologies available, I suddenly came across another open source 3D printing platform called Fab@Home which some French students are trying to develop a materials platform for printing food on the Fab@Home. Read more about it here.

Should there be a limit in producing artificial intelligence ?

NYtimes in an article has discussed the above issue that if there should be a limit for research in creating new and advance types of AI ? The article title is that "Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man".

My comment - "No doubt machine can outsmart humans if we can make a very good mathematical model of the problems they are supposed to solve. Look at calculator as one of the very early examples. A calculator does outsmart human in performing the exact task which it is defined for it.
The better we become at modeling world problems in machine design/language, the smarter machines would get. But the point is we do press the first button in this scenario, but it might not be so easy to control the result ..."

Vacum cleaning robot, a start for robots at our homes :-)

Climbing robot, brain storming

This project is an ongoing rapid prototype which is under development by Puya Afsharian & me …

Requirements :

4 x step motor
4 x El. Magnet
1 x Arduino
1 x Thin Aluminium plate

Components :

Magnet #1
Magnet #2
Magnet #3

Motor #1-1
Motor #1-2
Motor #2-1
Motor #2-2

Algorithm & states :

• Initial state :
  Mag. 1,2,3 -> ON
  Motor 11,12,21,22 -> OFF
• Lift state :
  Mag3 -> OFF
  Mag 1,2 -> ON
  Motor 12, 22 -> CCW ON
  Mag3 -> ON
• Move Up Right state :
  Mag2 -> OFF
  Motor 11 CW ON MAX
  Motor 12  CW ON -> Vertical(Parallel with chassis)
  Mag 2 -> ON
• Move Up Left state :
  Mag1 -> OFF
  Motor 21 CW ON MAX
  Motor 12  CW ON -> Vertical(Parallel with chassis)
  Mag 1 -> ON

and again to Lift state

SolidWorks® Flow Simulation: Learn how you can leverage design configurations in Flow Simulation

Intresting topic on SolidWorks about Simulation :

https://forum.solidworks.com/community/solidworks_simulation/flow_simulation/blog/2010/05/04/leverage-design-configurations-in-flow-simulation

want Arduino to wait for a special input ?

x=0
while (x==0) {
x=digitalRead(some pin)
}

RepRap

I am currently writing a report about RepRap at a course I take at university of Oslo(IFI), called INF5078(Open source, open collaboration and innovation). I will post my report here later.

What is RepRap ?
Knock yourself out : http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page & maybe even join :-)

Smart idea :-) MakerLegoBot ...

I love the idea ... it is Lego, you can break the problem into small Lego parts which are easily detectable and measurable :-) It's just perfect to make a 3D maker out of the idea, which is of course done here :-)

Beer Robot, just something we miss :-D

http://standardmadness.com/gear/wife-rendered-obsolete-awesome-robot-now-fetches-beer-for-you

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How to import 3D design from Solidworks to Blender

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Tutorials/Render/Import/SolidWorks

a possible future robot ...

Today I heard from a friend how cheap it is to buy a Non-Contact IR Infrared Digital Thermometer Laser Point from ebay(Hong Kong of course). Suddenly something came to my mind that I can de-assemble one of these products and use it as one of the abilities of a robot that could be going around in hospitals & doing stuffs instead of people. One of these abilities could be measuring the body temperature of the patients without even touching them(waking them up). I have checked & the accuracy of these thermometer is around ± 2% which makes it acceptable(???), but of course now I am talking about a prototype. A final model should be using one of the most accurate thermometers in the market as long as it has responsibilities for people's life.
yet another useful link, but same accuracy : http://www.metrisinst.com/products/details?id=315

Robotic arm kit

Latley I was looking for a robot kit to buy. Something that can give me some ideas about actual functional systems and solutions and at the same time something that can be the foundation of a later project. Most of the ktis were either too easy or not much fun, but now I have found something COOOOOOOOL :-D
I am going to buy the "OWI-007PC Robotic Arm Kit + IBM PC Interface" from OWIROBOTS.com. It is a cool robotic arm which can be assembled and later controlled by remote control. This arm can also connect to the computer and re-programmed as they calim :

It's usefulness as an education tool can be extended to explore other robotic technologies like speech recognition, speech control, automation and animatronics using our OWI-007 Robotic Arm Trainer accessories.

There is also another version called OWI-535 that looks even better ;-)



P.S. : Well we bought the robot arms and we had a party for junior robotic students at university of Oslo, institute for informatics :-) Here are the pictures : http://robotica.ifi.uio.no/wp/?p=207

Learning from the gecko's tail

Bio inspired Roboitc talk from TED.com ... SHOULD SEE

Super Crawler

Super Crawler was our summer project to build a robot in summer 2009. The project was delayed according to practical problems we faced. It is still an on going project and is schelued to be finished by the end of summer 2010. The new team which works on the project is 2 of us from summer 2009 plus a new fresh team from Robotica Osloensis student robotic community.
You can learn more about Super Crawler by clicking here.

Walloid

Walloid is my master thesis at university of Oslo. A climbing robot that can climb the walls and walk on the roof. The final aim of Walloid is to be a prototype for a real world model that can replace human workers, where it is too dangerous for mankind to operate. The actual thought was to make it even water proof with swimming abilities to make it the best candidate for oil fields in the middle of the sea, in a way that it can swim between different platforms, checks on oil pipes on the way and eventually fix the problems.

Walloid will have several versions which every version would try to reach some expected goals. The version names(C#S#) are the short version of C(limbing)#S(wimming)#. Well the swimming part will not be a part of my master thesis and Walloid C2S0 is the goal for my master project.

• Walloid C1S0 : A remote controlled(through my navigation program) functional walking(on the floor and not the walls or roof) robot.
• Walloid C2S0 : A smart climbing robot which takes its steps autonomously and is controlled totally by the navigation program(monitor its environment by sensors & cameras).
• Walloid C3S0 : A smart climbing robot with image processing abilities.
• Walloid C3S1 : A smart climbing robot with abilities to perform in underwater condition.
• Walloid C3S2 : A waterproof smart climbing robot with swimming abilities.

As said my master project would not exceed Walloid C2S0 and the rest of the plan either will be a hobby/Phd/or even a dream job at an oil field company here in Norway :-)

Wish me lots of luck ...

Shahab.

The latest version of the LittleDog Robot

SHOULD SEE ...

Shahaboid, First post

Hi,
My name is Shahab, a master student of Robotic science. Shahaboid is a combination of my name + oid, which makes shahab-oid. This will be my weblog, where I will write about robotics science.

I hope you enjoy surfing here :-)

Shahab.