Robots at the Science Museum 2 (+few other things there)

No text (other than this sentence) but just a collection of photos from a recent visit to the Science Museum, London.

All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon

Robots at the Science Museum

The Science Museum has a fantastic Exhibition on Robots running between 8th February till 3rd September 2017 - well worth a look.

Science Museum's video of highlights

Collections of photos from the exhibition.

Automaton

Figure 1

Figures 1 and 2 are of the James Cox and John Joseph Merlin 1773 The Silver Swan usually found at The Bowes Museum .

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 3 is the intricate Automaton Spider (c1604)


A couple of Movie Stars

Figure 4: Replica of 'Maria' Metropolis 1927

Figure 5: Endoskeleton from the Terminator 2: Judgement Bay, 1992

Humanoids

Figure 6: Eric the Robot - http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/plan_your_visit/exhibitions/eric 

The heads

Figure 7: The eyes follow you when you are queuing

Figure 8: Inkha, 2002

Figure 9: First head of Cog, 1999 http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/humanoid-robotics-group/cog/overview.html

Figure 10: Lucy 2001-2006 by Steve Grand 

Companions

Figure 11: Trumpet Playing Robot, Toyota, 2004

Figure 12: YuMi Collaborative robot, ABB 2015

Figure 13: Baxter Collaborative Robot, ReThink Robots, 2015

Educational Robots

Figure 14: Kaspar, University of Hertfordshire, 2005

Figure 15: Zeno R25, 2013

Figure 16: iCub, Italian Institute of Technology, 2004

All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon

Ubtech Alpha 2 is alive and dancing

Alpha2 is the next stage on from the more readily available Ubtech Alpha 1s, funded through a recent crowd sourcing project. At the moment all I have done is the set it up with an iPad and tried out a few voice commands. It does dance on the slightly creepy command "Dance for me", personally, I am not sure of it saying "master".

So far it looks good and there is plenty to investigate. 





All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon

Cozmo - Wall-E has a rival

I suspect someone from Anki was watching Wall-E (not the first to notice that see verge article http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/27/12007772/anki-cozmo-robot-ai-toy-wall-e-pixar) when they designed Cozmo it sounds, looks a bit like and has cuteness of Wall-E; but resembles the little cleaning robot M-O (which it is hard not to like); all crossed with a cute bulldozer. That is two ‘cutes’ in one sentence – this is a robot has this in abundance. From saying your name, to excitedly tapping the blocks, to victory dances when it wins a game. This is a smart little robot full of a lot of features that are revealed over the days you play with it.

The video from the manufacturer, Anki, above gives some idea of the technical aspects of it.

Anki have already produced an open-source SDK https://developer.anki.com/en-gb that is Python-based.

Powering up Cozmo for the first time and connecting to the App is relatively easy and quickly you are into playing with it (I am trying not to say him or her). 

It is not, at the time of writing, available in the UK; I ordered mine from amazom.com and it arrived within two weeks. 



My personal view is Cozmo is worth the price (I paid $179.99 + shipping, etc), the Anki team behind have made this a small robot that packs in a lot of user experience. You want to play with it, and hear it say your name or watch it win or lose in a game with you. I am looking forward to trying to program it - but maybe first I will just go and have another game of tapping the blocks, or through AR watch it picking up the blocks from its perspective, or...

SDK
Installation guide - http://cozmosdk.anki.com/docs/initial.html


All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon