Tonight the IEEE Robotics team at NC State had a special meeting to share their experiences at the SoutheastCon robotics conference last week from April 9-12, and things do well for the past year, and things to improve, as well as future plans. The meeting was quite productive and they agreed to help me fill out my HRI research survey. I was pretty grateful.
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Earlier this semester, Dr. Gillan gave a talk about Haiku and Human Factors. During the talk, he presented several examples of Haiku for Human factors concepts and asked us to write one. I was not quite sure about the rules of Haiku poem, but I did write one about Human-Robot Interaction (HRI).
Cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally, Human interacts with machine or robots, It's multitudinal, dynamic, and fasinating. On April 9th, I visited the robot world in the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum. They have Rubik' cube robot, dancing robot, chess robot, drawing robot, arrow robot, talk robot, luggage picking robot, and piano robot. This was my first time seeing so many robots in person. I had a wonderful time there.
I am so thankful that the NC FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) regional is at the Dorton Arena in Raleigh, which is about 10 min drive from my school, NC State. I went there both on March 20 and 21.
I had already talked to many teams from the NC regional tournament last year and this years' SC regional, so it did not take me long to find the new teams that I had not contacted before. Again, I spent more time observing the teams and thinking about what research questions would be good for theoretical and practical purposes. Some volunteers and mentors talked to me about things that might be helpful for me to understand students' emotions, as well ass the team formation, and robot design. These are all interesting! Even though I did not prepare the structure to talk to the kids and mentors about a specific topic, but random conversation already gave me good ideas to think about. I wish I talked to them more. Besides, it was also fun to bring four Chinese friends to the event. They are all graduate students in NC State, majoring in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, and Plant Pathology. They had never experienced this kind of event in China either and were amazed by how young and how creative students were to build the robots in such a short time period. I heard of the HRI conference from my advisor Dr. Douglas Gillan on February 21. After reviewing the conference program on their website, I quickly decided to go by myself if no one else in our department is also going. It was quite expensive to go, but it turned out really worth the investment.
Three biggest gains from this conference. First, the conference gathered many of the most frontier research about human-robot interaction around the world, including US, Japan, and European countries. The diversity of the topics enlightened me to think more broadly, such as robotic furniture, robots in the museums, etc. Regarding my current research about human emotional responses to robots, I learned concepts structures and research designs and measurement from other researchers' work. This was also the most valuable part of going to the conference. On February 27 and 28, I drove to the 2015 Palmetto Regional FRC tournament in Myrtle Beach Convention center in South Carolina. In the past I have only been to robotics tournaments in North Carolina, so this was my first time visiting a tournament in SC. There were 66 teams participating, and several teams from NC, even from Australia. I was told that the South Carolina tournament was one of the largest in the east coastline. I was glad that I came.
In addition to talking to each team to get their permission to do research with them, I spent more time observing and brainstorming, trying to take advantage of the great opportunity being with so many teams right at the spot. One lesson learned: I was concerned that if I had talked to the teams too early, it might be impolite to interrupt their work since some were still preparing their robots, so I waited for a while. And then some teams left early somehow that I was not able to catch 7 teams at the tournament. That was a big loss and I need to do it faster since I found that most of the teams were very helpful and nice. This morning I found three exciting things. First, I found a local LEGO club called, Bricks 4 Kidz. They have LEGO lessons for in school, after school, summer campus, and birthday parties. They even have cooperation with a local McDonald for a family fun time at the first Thursday night every month. I need to check it out.
http://www.bricks4kidz.com/northcarolina-raleigh-wakeforest/ Second is a new movie coming up, called Spare Parts. The movies is said to be based on a true story, about a group of high school students participating in the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) and robotics competition tournament. This is the first FIRST movie ever. Definitely a must see. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3233418/ The third thing is another movie about an underwater robot film. I suspect it is similar to Spare Parts, but it does not matter, I also need to that that out. Our school, North Carolina State University, also has an underwater robotics team. I would like to see their work sometime. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/underwaterdreams Here is a list of robotics journals. It has a good analysis of the impact factors, but I appreciate that the author also pointed out that some other unlisted robotics journals may be a good fit for other some robotics topics too. The ones listed are more technique-based.
http://www.hizook.com/blog/2011/11/02/impact-factors-robotics-journals Today I also finished the movie Gravity. To be honest, I did not expect the movie to be so breathtaking. Just wanted to share a few things here:
First, the movie made me think about the purpose of life. Generally, people all enjoy a comfortable and easy life, but why would these people choose to go to space or live in an ice land? These places are definitely not suitable for humans to live. The bottom line is that they need the capability to survive in these places. But even with the full capacity, it is still quite harsh to survive there that Ryan hated space at a certain point. I finally watched this movie in early November 2014. It is a very interesting movie, but there are a few things that made me think:
First is the moral issue of the robots. What moral standards should robots hold when it comes to assisting humans? Should they do whatever the master told them to do or only do what is legal according to certain laws? Second is what factors in this movie that attracted Frank to the robot are. At the beginning, Frank really dislike the robot and refused to let it stay on. He was not cooperative at all. But at a certain point, the robot became his friend. He walked with the robot, talked to the robot, and made plans involving the robot, and even became dependent on the robot. When the robots' memory is a threat again Frank's safety, Frank tried everything to avoid erasing the robot's memory. Third is the customization of the robot. People can mass produce robots. They are identical. When the memory is removed from the robot, one robot is just as the same as any other robot. When Frank looked at a robot with the same appearance of his own serving other people, he paused a little bit. I figure that humans have a little bit of sense of exclusion. People do not want others to share what they have that are very personal or close. Unlike uniqueness of human, these robots are not customized. How do people handle this feeling of the same type of robot serving all other people? People might feel that themselves are not special. What then? I need to go back and watch again. I just read an interesting article about the way human treating technology is like treating religion by Daniel Fox. The author compared the concept of salvation with the way that technology helped conquer human disability. The most interesting point of the article is the debate between that perfection brings happiness or that imperfection brings happiness. I would say neither is right. In my opinion, anyone who aim for perfection or imperfection to bring happiness will be disappointed with unhappiness. This is just not the root of happiness.
I just found another robot movie that I have not seen, Wall·E (2008). Back in 2004 I heard a beautiful song called "My prayer - devotion" when I was still in college, and then maybe 1 year ago I saw an MV of "My prayer - devotion" with two cute robots. That MV was beautiful and touching. How did I not think that the MV was actually from a movie until today I came across it? I have accumulated several robot movies to watch and many human-robot interaction papers and books to read. Life is just too much fun that I wish I had more time without worrying the deadlines. Below is the trailer: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910970/ I would like to know what makes these robots cute and attractive.
When I was looking for a picture of human crying over a dead robot for my presentation, I saw a familiar picture of a robot girl. I do not even remember what the show's name was, but I am pretty sure that I have seen the TV series when I was very very young. I clicked the picture and found the show, whose name is Small Wonder. I could not help but watched 3 episodes. How cool is that! Great actors! People in 1980s already have a concept of having robot kids and servants. Totally amazed! And it is great memory to watch my childhood programs. At that time the TV series must be broadcast in Chinese, since I did not know English then.
http://smallwonderreviewed.blogspot.com/2014_01_01_archive.html There are many opportunities.
OMG! I just spotted another robot movie: Robot and Frank (2012). The trailer looks very cool! The service robot is likely to be in our future society in 50 years. Save it for now and look forward to watching it at my next break. Updated on November 27, 2014.
I watched this movie in early November 2014. It is a very interesting movie, but there are a few things that made me think: First is the moral issue of the robots. What moral standards should robots hold when it comes to assisting humans? Should they do whatever the master told them to do or only do what is legal according to certain laws? Second is what factors in this movie that attracted Frank to the robot are. At the beginning, Frank really dislike the robot and refused to let it stay on. He was not cooperative at all. But at a certain point, the robot became his friend. He walked with the robot, talked to the robot, and made plans involving the robot, and even became dependent on the robot. When the robots' memory is a threat again Frank's safety, Frank tried everything to avoid erasing the robot's memory. Third is the customization of the robot. People can mass produce robots. They are identical. When the memory is removed from the robot, one robot is just as the same as any other robot. When Frank looked at a robot with the same appearance of his own serving other people, he paused a little bit. I figure that humans have a little bit of sense of exclusion. People do not want others to share what they have that are very personal or close. Not like uniqueness of human, robots are not customized. How do people handle this feeling? "After years of testing, the FDA today approved a new type of prosthetic arm that its makers claim will bring a whole new level of control to amputees. Known as the "Luke" arm or DEKA Arm System, Segway inventor Dean Kamen has been involved in its development and unlike existing prosthetics, it can understand multiple commands at once, giving its wearers "near-natural" control of the limb. As demonstrated in the videos embedded after the break, tests show wearers can get back to easily performing tasks like using keys and locks, brushing their hair, removing papers from an envelope, or picking up an egg without breaking it. While we've seen demos using other mind control techniques, the one approved for sale does its magic with electromyogram (EMG) sensors activated by the wearer contracting muscles close to where the prosthesis is attached or on their feet, which an embedded computer translates into movement."
For more information, please click this link: http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/09/luke-bionic-arm-approved-by-fda/ Service robots have become increasingly popular in the modern society. They will become more popular in the next 50 years, or even 20 years.
This wearable robot suit is so intuitive. Very encouraging and promising! Japan is an amazing country for robots.
My research paper about human emotional responses to their tournament robots was accepted for publication at the HFES annual conference proceedings in October 2014.
When I found this movie in Dr. Varnado's lab, she told me that this is a sad story. While I was watching, I was deeply touched and amazed by the Steven Spielberg's imagination and how real the robots looked like human, yet still robots. It was a sad story that the robot boy David waited 2000 years for a fairy lady to make his dream of loving her mother come true for just one day. How precious is love! Definitely a "must watch" movie.
I also thought about a question: What makes artificial intelligence really different from human? When I talked to people about my research on human robot interaction, several people mentioned this movie "Her". People told me that this man fell in love with a program or something. I would like to find out.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/ This movie is awesome! I was amazed by how people can make LEGO building blocks do everything. The idea behind the movie is great too.
More and more service robots are entering human life. Imagine that in 30 years, we would have robot just like these at our home.
I really like the idea of the movie: "The spirit of robotics: See a need, and fill a need."
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