“The interactive AL-installation consists of a microcosm (a bordered-off semicircular, physical space) inhabited by a colony of small robots (dynamic systems) much like autonomous, cybernetic vehicles. The robots are equipped with photocells—and so light becomes the main power source of this system—and sensors, which function like perceptual organs, and which allow them freedom of movement in the microcosm and the ability to perceive the movement and position of others. So movement processes and the movements of the active ‹life depend entirely on the intensity of the light being projected onto the colony of robots. This intensity responds to an interactive set-up, which creates indirect contact between the external viewer and the robots. A brainwave sensor, placed on the head of the interactant, measures his or her brain activity, which is then sent to the system and controls, in turn, the intensity of the projected light. Through an indirect interface and immaterial form of communication (brain activity), the internal and external world become reciprocal and inverted: the more intense or erratic the viewer’s brain activity, the less light strikes the robots and the more apathetic the behavior of the colony; or the weaker the brain impulses (the more relaxed the viewer), the more chaotic the movements of the robot colony become.” [medienkunstnetz.de]
Robots Tagged: animal
Paro
Paro is a therapeutic robot baby seal, intended to have a calming effect on and elicit emotional responses in patients of hospitals and nursing homes, similar to Animal-Assisted Therapy.
It was designed by Takanori Shibata of the Intelligent System Research Institute of Japan’s AIST beginning in 1993. It was first exhibited to the public in late 2001, and handmade versions have been sold commercially since 2004. Paro is based on harp seals Shibata saw in Canada, where he also recorded their cries that Paro uses.
The robot has touchsensors and responds to petting by moving its tail and opening and closing its eyes. It also responds to sounds and can learn its own name. It can show emotions such as surprise, happiness and anger. It produces sounds similar to a real baby seal and (unlike a real baby seal) is active during the day and goes to sleep at night.
AIST refers to Paro as a ”Mental Commitment Robots”, which they define as: “developed to interact with human beings and to make them feel emotional attachment to the robots. Rather than using objective measures, these robots trigger more subjective evaluations, evoking psychological impressions such as “cuteness” and comfort. Mental Commitment Robots are designed to provide 3 types of effects: psychological, such as relaxation and motivation, physiological, such as improvement in vital signs, and social effects such as instigating communication among inpatients and caregivers.”
Paro is at present also being used in Danish nursing homes.
Squee
Squee (named after “squirrel”) is an electronic robot squirrel. It contains four sense organs (two phototubes, two contact switches), three acting organs (a drive motor, a steering motor, and a motor which opens and closes the scoop or “hands”), and a small brain of half a dozen relays. It will hunt for a “nut”. The “nut” is a tennis ball designated by a member of the audience who steadily holds a flashlight above the ball, pointing the light at Squee. Then Squee approaches, picks up the “nut” in its “hands” (the scoop), stops paying attention to the steady light, sees in stead a light that goes on and off 120 times a second shining over its “nest”, takes the “nut” to its “nest”, there leaves the nuts, and then returns to hunting more “nuts”. [www.blinkenlights.com]
Genghis
Genghis was built at MIT in the mid-1980s to demonstrate the efficacy of using numerous small, light, mobile robots to reconnoitre the Martian surface. Genghis was famous for being made quickly and cheaply due to construction methods and was the prototype for the later autonomous “spider” robots Attila and Hannibal. Genghis weighs about 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds), contains 6 pyroelectric sensors for detecting animal life, and employs 12 motors to power its 6 independently operating legs.
Its six sensors picked up on the heat of a living creature, such as a person or a dog, and triggered the stalking mode. It would scramble to its feet and follow its prey, moving around furniture and climbing over obstacles to keep the prey in sight.
Genghis is now located in the National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C.
Elmer and Elsie
Grey Walter’s most famous work was his construction of some of the first electronic autonomous robots. He wanted to prove that rich connections between a small number of brain cells could give rise to very complex behaviors – essentially that the secret of how the brain worked lay in how it was wired.
His first robots, which he used to call Machina speculatrix and named Elmer and Elsie (ELectro MEchanical Robots, Light Sensitive), were constructed between 1948 and 1949 and were often described as tortoises due to their shape and slow rate of movement – and because they ‘taught’ about the secrets of organisation and life. The three-wheeled tortoise robots were capable of responding to light, by which they could find their way to a recharging station when they ran low on battery power. [Wikipedia]
The Senster
This large robot sculpture was equipped with directional sound sensors and radar and could respond by hydraulically moving its head towards the moving of sounding objects. With its neck fully extended it reached almost 5 meter in height.
The Senster is a key work in the history of robotic art. It was the first robot to use ‘hearing’ and ‘vision’ to interact with its visitors. It is also important in because of its animated appearance. Standing on its two legs the Sensters movements and its responses to its surroundings is strongly reminiscent of a large animal.
The Senster is one of the first in long line of animated robots, which use approximated human senses in the aim to create the feeling of standing in front of at thinking and feeling creature.
The Digesting Duck
The Digesting Duck was an automaton duck that could quack, flap its wings and gave the impression of having the digestive ability to drink wine and eat kernels of grain and turn the food into excrement.
The digestion sadly was only an illusion: The food was fed into the beak, only to be collected in an inner container. The excrement in turn were pushed out of another container in the belly of the duck.
The duck was allegedly made up of more than 4000 pieces.
A reproduction of Vaucansons duck can be seen at The Museum of Automatons in Grenoble, France.
