Garage Gurus
David Anderson, director of the Geophysical Imaging Laboratory at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, got hooked on robots in the 1980s when he built Lego robotics toys with his sons. Today he's one of the top designers in the Dallas Personal Robotics Group, according to the club's president, John Drummond. "He's been making the coolest robots for a long time," Drummond says.
Anderson's last robot project, the SR04, a squat, three-wheeled device, autonomously maneuvers through courses and uses a grabber arm to complete an objective such as picking up a soda can.
Anderson is currently working on making robots that are more adaptable to their environment. Success in this endeavor represents a Holy Grail of sorts in the robotics community, and it is essentially what DARPA is aiming for with its Grand Challenge. Typically, most robots function only in very controlled situations. An unplanned variable thrown into a robot's path--a carelessly discarded shoe, say--can wreck the robot's game plan. "I want to move robots off the contest course and into the real world," Anderson says.
His current project--a two-wheeled, self-balancing mobile unit called the NBot--has had some success in navigating unfamiliar terrain and was even able to scoot itself safely
down a steep access road in the Rocky Mountains. Anderson hopes that NBot may move the
robotics community closer to the creation of autonomous and sturdy two-wheeled vehicles
that run outside the lab.
Anderson, male and middle-aged, is part of the robotics old guard. Seattle Robotics Society members Ryan Wistort, Genevieve Picard, and Gabrielle Lemieux represent a new wave of enthusiasts.
Wistort, a 21-year-old junior at the University of Washington, got into robotics when he was 15. His crowning achievement to date is Charlotte, a spiderlike device that earned him a prize at the 2002 Intel Science and Engineering Fair. He's currently working on a robot that will travel underground to inspect power cables for breaks and signs of wear.
Picard, 16, and Lemieux, 17, help run the Titan Robotics Club at International High School in Bellevue, Washington. The club has racked up awards in regional and nationwide competitions. (Membership typically floats at around 30 members--not bad for a high school with an enrollment of 250 students.)
Each year the team works on an entry for a nationwide student robotics competition, in response to a task assigned by the contest's organizing committee. The most recent challenge involved building a robot that could pick up balls from one basket, transport them across the room, and deposit them in another basket.
Picard says her interest in robotics grew from a longstanding involvement with technology. For her, robotics was "an egg to be cracked," she says. "Once I saw the robotics club, it opened everything up."
Are these young women worried about being labeled geeks? Definitely not. "My sisters always tease me about how nerdy I am," Lemieux says. "But I'm totally proud of it, so it doesn't bother me."
Your Robotic Future
Where will all this experimentation lead? Various groups are working on home health-care robots that could assist the elderly by performing basic chores and providing companionship, says Ronald Arkin, Ph.D., a professor at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.
To that end, Arkin's robotics research delves into everything from sensor technology and software to the psychological implications of man's interaction with evolved machines. "It's not enough to have great robots," Arkin says. "They have to work together with people."
It's hard not to get intoxicated imagining a robotic future, but scientists such as Arkin caution against getting carried away. Recent gains achieved by the robot community are incremental, not exponential. Still, robots are undeniably claiming a bigger place in the world, even if the robots themselves are small--for now.
Tilden says that seeing a 24-foot inflatable Robosapien on display at Macy's flagship New York store gave him new ambitions for his 14-inch creation. "We have to build something larger," he muses. "But at least this one can date Barbie."
