#robotics Logs

Feb 13 2015

12:08 caveman so instead of building a robot, we take advantage of existing animals. except that we hook their brains up with some hardware to make them obedient slaves
12:09 caveman and hopefully away from animals rights trolls
12:11 deshipu caveman: we have cyber-cocroaches
12:11 deshipu caveman: and moths
12:12 deshipu caveman: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/09/120907-cyborg-cockroaches-video-science-remote-control-robots-bugs/
12:12 deshipu caveman: but we can control the brains of the animals easier, without any electronics at all -- just train them
12:12 deshipu and we've been doing that for ages
12:12 deshipu it works very well
12:15 deshipu caveman: and for menial, boring tasks that don't require any particular skills you can use students
12:15 deshipu works well since ages too
12:16 ace4016 much cheaper :P
12:16 deshipu and you don't have to take so much care for them
12:16 deshipu also, easy to replace
12:19 caveman that cocroach is big
12:20 caveman yeah. but i think if we control dogs by electronics we can use them in a better way
12:22 deshipu caveman: like what?
12:22 deshipu dogs will do whatever you want them to do anyways
12:23 deshipu and with their natural senses they will do it way better
12:24 caveman deshipu: like tell a dog to run in a straight line, then press a button in its mouth by which it starts firing bullets using some gun mounted off its shoulder
12:24 ace4016 they can be trained to do that :P
12:25 caveman isn't it kinda too error prune the current way?
12:25 deshipu caveman: in ww2 there were anti-tank dogs setting up explosives
12:25 deshipu also, dolphins
12:25 deshipu caveman: I'm sure whatever hardware you put there would be even more error-prone
12:26 deshipu the advantage of robots over animals is not the absolute control, it's the longer maintenance cycle
12:27 deshipu and you would still need to care for a brain-washed dog, even more than a regular one
12:29 deshipu also, a human would be much cheaper to train to do the same thing
12:29 caveman how about decoding human brain signal to extract their passwords and all secrets
12:30 caveman even better, extract the signals to give them different bodies
12:30 deshipu cheaper to just beat them until they tell you
12:30 caveman heh
12:31 deshipu but yeah, there is a lot of work done on "decoding the brain signal"
12:31 deshipu mostly for interfacing with machines directly
12:33 deshipu I think the current status is that we can make a cube rotate one direction or the other by imagining it doing so
12:34 deshipu but we have to focus very hard on it
12:35 caveman wut serious? how?
12:35 caveman oh wait you mean like mechanical connection between brain and cube?
12:35 caveman electrical
12:37 deshipu a helmet with electrodes
12:39 deshipu wow, there is even a consumer product https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTvXtaOSfuo
12:40 deshipu but I think this is mostly reading the muscle activity
12:49 caveman deshipu: that's cool
12:50 deshipu there was even a hobby project to do it with IR sensors
14:28 katsmeow-afk Hello Barbie, an Internet-connected version of the doll that has real conversations with kids using ToyTalk's PullString technology.....allows writers to create branching dialogue based on what children will potentially actually say, and collects kids' replies in the cloud for the writers to study
14:29 katsmeow-afk http://www.fastcompany.com/3042430/most-creative-people/using-toytalk-technology-new-hello-barbie-will-have-real-conversations-
14:29 deshipu scary shit
14:42 katsmeow-afk Cortana's UI now expresses 18 different emotions. Siri remains detached and aloof
14:42 katsmeow-afk great, emotional toasters coming soon to Walmart :-/
14:48 armyofevilrobots and collects kids' replies in the cloud for the writers to study -> Queue lawsuits in 3..2..1..
15:13 katsmeow-afk Bertha, a 7,000-ton drilling device - as long as a football field, as tall as a five-story building ... designed to bore a 2-mile tunnel beneath Seattle's downtown .. causing the ground above to settle <<== great example of where 100 smaller robotic tunnelers would have been better and cheaper
15:16 katsmeow-afk "how?" you may ask ,, "easy" i would say, and then i'd add "you remove only the earth required to pour the concrete tube, in small self-supporting portions, replacing earth with concrete, and you do so under the same pressure as the existing water column"
15:18 katsmeow-afk that is, you inject the concrete under pressure into the small cavity each small robot leaves, you achive progress thru small parallelism
15:19 katsmeow-afk first one of you to dig a 10ft dia tunnel underground to bring ocean water to Kansas or Oklahoma for solar desalination, gets a brownie point
15:24 caveman i like how seattle is moving towards tunnels instead of all nasty bridges
15:37 armyofevilrobots sadly, just concrete is a good way to build a bad tunnel. You need rebar/reinforcement.
15:37 katsmeow-afk no, yo need to keep the dirt from collapsing while you build the well-designed permanent structure within
15:38 katsmeow-afk you can keep ahead of the permanent construction just by jammng *bricks* into the mud in the right way, but concrete is more easily injected
15:40 katsmeow-afk i am trying to point out if you build at surrounding pressure, and use injection methods, you can avoid earth settling issues,, you build the temp structure that stabilises a space for earth removeal and permananet construction
15:43 katsmeow-afk i am thinking a horizontal version of installing "curtain wall" dam cores after the dam is built
15:44 katsmeow-afk tweak for the various differences, etc
15:45 katsmeow-afk "ice walls" are also built vertically as temp cofferdams for ongoing permanent construction within them
15:55 deshipu katsmeow-afk: you know what, your idea sucks, teleportation would have been much more practical ;)
15:56 tsmeow-afk facepl
15:58 deshipu I suppose they already have the giant machine for making tunnels, so they decided to use that
15:58 katsmeow-afk no, they had to build it, and cost $millions just to get it down there
15:59 katsmeow-afk and as it's been sitting broken for a year or more, and it's causing earth settling, i think it's not perfect
15:59 katsmeow-afk plus, it does only one size, and making turns in the tunnel bore are not so easy
16:00 caveman i wonder how does Bertha compare against the tunnel digging machine used to make the Gotthard Base Tunnel
16:00 deshipu it's easier to build one big machine with enough power, than to put enough power into those smaller machines
16:00 caveman (swiss alps)
16:00 katsmeow-afk i think Bertha digs in mud, essentially under water, not hard rockface
17:00 caveman what a bright idea http://www.dronesforgood.ae/award/finalists/worlds-first-collision-resistant-drone-search-and-rescue
17:06 caveman did anyone from this channel partitipate in that 1mil USD challenge?
17:07 deshipu not that original an idea, there is that parrot quadcopter that is similar
17:07 deshipu and a number of other bumper designs
17:09 caveman parrot? that is horizontal right? like not in a sphere
17:10 deshipu two large wheels
17:11 deshipu effectively a cylinder
17:11 caveman yeah i saw it
17:11 deshipu close enough to a sphere
17:11 caveman parrot minidrone?
17:11 deshipu yeah
17:11 deshipu I like the other one, the jmping robot
17:13 caveman link? (if that's not too inconvenient for you)
17:14 caveman parrot jumping sumo?
17:16 caveman this guy does not recommend it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkVSt_sYpww
17:23 deshipu yeah, seems so
17:23 deshipu but I still like the idea
21:12 tws2172 Hello
21:14 Jak_o_Shadows hi