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A Robot To Follow "Mother" And Another To Block Her 109

Posted by timothy from the unless-these-are-fake dept.
fireflash writes: "Some folks at MIT have had a bit of fun with robots. 'Mr. Mallard' and 'Roboguard' are robots that follow a homing beacon and guard hallways, respectively. Wouldn't you like to be followed around by a mess of wires and boards whilst attempting to pass through a hallway guarded by another? Sounds like the ultimate in home security to me :-)."
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A Robot To Follow "Mother" And Another To Block Her More

A Robot To Follow "Mother" And Another To Block Her

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  • Um... (Score:3, Funny)

    by sandidge ( 150265 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @09:08AM (#2502220)
    I don't mean to be cruel, but I really don't think Roboguard is going to be keeping me from going anywhere. Just one swift kick and I'd be adding a few extra Legos to my collection.

    • Re:Um... (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Silicon Avatar ( 30968 )
      Well, then, they'll just take their broken robot BACK home, build larger lego pieces of out solid metal, put him/her/it back together again. The next time you try to go into your porn magazine store and you see this guy guarding you because you are underage, let's see you kick him/her/it THEN! :)
    • True, one Roboguard wouldn't be too hard to escape from, but imagine a Beowulf cluster of them! (sorry, couldn't help it) If this thing was armed and came equipped with face recognition capability, you could create yourself a nice little security system. It might be tough to explain to the police why your toy shot your inlaws when they came to visit, though! :)
    • ...umm.. I think if they implemented them for security, they'd be a bit more study...

      Maybe even armed :)

    • Yeah, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 )
      Consider the practical side of such a thing following toddlers around the house. Parents might by sold on something like this if it had a map of the house programmed in and warned if Kiddo was heading for the basement stairs or out in the back yard, etc. Think baby monitor with video and maybe even something like a local GPS. :-)
  • And next you tell us that the robots run MIT/Cesium 4.02. Somehow I lost confidence in MIT :-)

  • Mirror (Score:4, Informative)

    by Erasei ( 315737 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @09:09AM (#2502225) Homepage
    This is probably going to be needed real soon.. google mirror [google.com]

    • Re:Mirror (Score:2, Insightful)

      by angio ( 33504 )
      Please don't use the google mirror.
      We've changed some of the links in the
      main page, and updated it a bit to
      point out things like the 173 megabyte
      download. If you use the google mirror,
      it will actually hurt our servers more
      than it will help. Ironic, that.

      -Dave

  • Finally! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Masem ( 1171 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @09:12AM (#2502236)
    I've always wanted to play a full-size, real-life game of Daleks! (or Robots! or whatever title you remember it as!) As long as they can only move in ordinal directions, I'm set!

    (or insert 'Berserk' or 'Robotron/Llamatron' to your heart's desire... :-)

  • even cooler robots (Score:4, Interesting)

    by guidobot ( 526671 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @09:14AM (#2502245)
    An even more interesting robot is the one at CMU [post-gazette.com] that walks around talking to people & showing facial expressions [bbc.co.uk]... these roboguard robots don't seem all that advanced, especially after seeing robot museum guides, nurses, and lots of other cool robots [cmu.edu].
    • The researchers tested Vikia
      out on passers-by. The robot would sense a person, turn its
      face towards them and ask
      them to stop and answer a
      question.

      Wonder how they did that, focus on the person being adressed. From my experience, as long as the face on the TV screen looks into the camera,
      it appears to be looking stratight at you, even i you stand to the very side of the screen.

      So, it'll be like in the old days, when I had a cross-eyed professor. Whenever he asked a question to the audience, he got more than one answer.
      • Well, perhaps it actually turned the flat screen monitor rather than the image of the head. That said... It always bugs me when they do this on Star Trek. The captain is having a conversation with someone on the main view screen and the someone on the screen looks around the room to different characters at an angle that makes sense to the viewpoint of the camera but would look silly to the character the someone is supposed to be addressing.
  • roboguard [vub.ac.be] google mirror [google.com]

    but this project is incorporating wireless ethernet system into it...
  • It would be unfortunate if one of these robots ran amok and killed human beings. No doubt the DoD is investigating this technology in the hope of finding some military application.

    I imagine if these things could be made much smaller, and consume less power, then they could be ideal to use as battlefield spies. Simply strap a cheap webcam on the top, add a cheap PC and an 802.11b network card and away you go!

    • Re:I hope they are programmed to obey Asimov's law (Score:5, Funny)

      by msheppard ( 150231 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @09:31AM (#2502302) Homepage Journal
      It would be very complicated to make a robot for the battlefield that obeys Asimov's laws.

      The zeroth law does allow them to kill people to save other people, but for modern battles you're gonna have to teach them religon to get them to kill some people.

      "The entertainment of the many outweighs the safty of the few, or the one"

      M@
    • By God, I don't see the wonder of these wonder weapons. Killing by remote control, nothing is reaffirmed. The day is quickly coming where our troops will be safely hidden in a bunker somewhere while we wipe out the enemy with a joystick.

      But, what will this prove? Sure, we could kill a few more bad guys... But If the cause isn't worth dieing for, is it really worth killing for? Will this help make the world a better place, or will this just provide a way for the few to control the many?

      --ST

      • there will still be risk involved... imagine one of the enemy's remote-controlled robots dropping a bomb on that joystick bunker.
        the risk will be reduced, but will still be there.

        besides, the ultimate goal has never been to kill people, but to remove their ability to resist you and/or achieve their nefarious goals.
    • A cool killer robot right now that the Pentagon is using is the Predator with a hellfire missle.
    • I can't remember the exact quote, but the commandant of the military academy to which Bart is exiled says something like the following at commencement:
      Wars of the future will be fought by very, very small robots. As we look to that future, your purpose is clear: to clean and maintain those robots.

      Frankly, I say screw the DoD. I want a legion of killbots to do my dark and nefarious bidding. And frankly, bringing this back on-topic, I'm pretty sure that if the robot ran amok and started killing human beings, all we'd have to do is disassemble him and give his pieces to a five-year-old. The kid will convert the parts into a cute little Lego house, and that's that.

      Of course, if the Lego house ran amok and started killing people, then I'd start to get worried...

  • Next up, pusher and shover robots. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Narcopolo ( 77135 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @09:29AM (#2502294)

    The shover robot pushes people around, and the pusher robot shoves bread down their throats.

    Are there stairs in your house? [somethingawful.com]

  • Big File Warning (Score:3, Informative)

    by shut_up_man ( 450725 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @09:35AM (#2502315) Homepage
    Holy crap, that Roboguard demo is... 173MB? Maybe they should put a size warning on that one, although my work's currently paying for my bandwidth, meh.

    shut up man
    • If someone has this file could you please reencode in divx and post it on a p2p network like WinMX [winmx.com]?

      I think we should set up temporary meriors for big files that will be /.'ed. Name it something like:
      [SLASHDOT_the date_story]filename.

  • I'll take two, with the optional mild electrical stimulation/motivation modules, please. :-)
  • How about data compression? A three min video clip that is 177 megs? This better be good.

    • How about data compression? A three min video clip that is 177 megs? This better be good.

      This is a typical oversight when designing stuff mostly for internal consumption. They obviously were not planning for people to try to see the file via a dialup or something.

      This fits in with the dot-bomb executives who wanted their website optimized for 1280 x 1024 or something, which is what they had in their office. Which was more clueless since those dotbomb websites were designed for public use.

  • The concept behind Mr Mallard is a good idea...a robot that can follow its "mother". Now, if they could just teach my son that, I would have many fewer panic filled afternoons in the mall...

  • make 'em fight (Score:4, Funny)

    by AssFace ( 118098 ) <{stenz77} {at} {gmail.com}> on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @09:51AM (#2502366) Homepage Journal
    I don't care about protection - just put one in the hallway who's only mission is to get through the door at the end.
    then put the other one who's only job it is to guard the door... well, right be the door.

    then program them to scream when parts of them fall off.
    and give them lasers.
    everybody love lasters. just like that tv show.
  • Wouldn't you like to be followed around by a mess of wires and boards whilst attempting to pass through a hallway guarded by another? Sounds like the ultimate in home security to me

    Erm... no. Cats, dude. They sound like robot cats.

  • I think someone should stop MIT...they're obviously trying to set up a live version of Impossible Mission. Remember, it's all fun and games until someone gets ionized.

  • Kickbot, a robot you can kick (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    So if you guys like Nick, Jaeyon, Godfrey and Magda's robots, you should check out Kickbot, a robot Chris and I made for the same class that was designed to be kicked. (These were for Rodney Brooks' Embodied Intelligence class)

    check out this link for details Kickbot Homepage [mit.edu]

    And if Chris' connection gets slashdotted the final paper with all of the cool pictures can be seen at Paper Mirror PDF (1.4MB) [mit.edu]

  • Real 3-D pacman. Eat donuts left on tables by unsuspecting students, hassle the teachers until they give you that percentage point, even mount a camera on it and do some more exotic kind of exploring...
  • Chewbacca: ROOOOOAR!!!!

    (hallway patrol droid stops, does a reverse 180, and scoots away squeaking.)
  • Question: Do You Have Stairs In Your House?

    Space Robot Bonanza [somethingawful.com]
  • If MIT can't figure out how to keep a site slashdotted, we're all in trouble.

  • Fridge guard (Score:2, Funny)

    by BLAMM! ( 301082 )
    Great! All I have to do now is put the blocker in front of my fridge and I might have a chance of staying on my diet. At the very least I'll get some exercise trying to out maneuver it!

  • no robots! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Kengineer ( 246142 )
    Do not trust the pusher robot!

    He is malfunctioning!

    Do you have stairs in your house?

    - kengineer
  • Gee all that time and effort just to model the behavior I see in the hallway of my house with my dogs everyday...

    =tkk
  • What I would like is a larger version of Mr Mallard, capable of carrying a case of beer.
    Or perhaps it could be designed as a beer barrel, with the logics and sensors in a half-sphere on top...
    it could have three wheels.. and roll around following me on my hovering desert barge..
    Just a thought.

  • Roboguard, slasdotting, comments from inside (Score:3, Informative)

    by angio ( 33504 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @11:52AM (#2503012) Homepage
    Some comments from another student in Nick and Jaeyoun's group:
    • Sorry about the slashdotting. Small server configuration error that's been fixed now. Browse away.
    • Roboguard and friends were a class project; it wasn't DARPA or NSF funded, it was all for fun and a good grade. :) Our research group [mit.edu] does networks and mobile systems research for our day jobs...
    • The Cricket Project [mit.edu] that was used in the "Mother" robot is part of our real research.
    • Much of the robotics research at MIT happens in the AI Lab [mit.edu], so if you're curious about robotics, browse over there and see the things that the Humanoid Robotics Group [mit.edu] is doing. Very cool stuff.
    -Dave
  • There are a ton of robots on the Mindstorms site [lego.com] and on robots.net [robots.net] that are much more sophisticated.
  • Back in the '80s, I worked on a DOS port of an Apple II game called "Robot Odyssey" where there were "guard 'bots" that guarded certain items. In order to win, you had to program a robot with digital logic circuits to bypass the guards, or solve a puzzle.

    The game was way cool, but too hard for the casual gamer. I understand the game was even used in electronics classes to teach digital logic.

    Here [aol.com] [members.aol.com] is a site where you can see screenshots or download copies of the Apple II and DOS version.

    I recall that the DOS version only worked on 8086/286 machines with color monitor and joystick.
  • Jezus, I think it's about time to consider the attitude "I don't give a shit what those sellouts at the Media Lab are doing now."

    Instead of researching the difficult and unglamorous stuff which will result in the next wave of technological progress, they're playing with parrots, training their dogs over the internet, and making cutesy robots which have no use beyond getting Omni magazine and dumbed-down "isn't-science-neat"-type shows to give them publicity. Maybe this results in grants... but I can't imagine MIT alums would be so dumb as to think this is the sort of work that deserves their funding. But I worry that I am overestimating their wisdom, probably because of the mystique of MIT. The Media Lab is now the "Let the Media Stroke our Egos" lab.

    Now think how you would react if you read that work like this had instead been done at SUNY Bingamton or some other or the University of Kentucky (two decent schools). Like every other sane person, you would think they're just wanking. The only reason why we don't think that of the Media Lab is because we think "oh, it's MIT, so there must be something important behind this that they don't explain in their media relations." I hate to tell you this, but there isn't.

    Mind you, I'm not saying we shouldn't allow these self-righteous wankers to do their work. Self-righteous wanking is something I think should and must live on in academia. What I oppose is treating these wankers as anything but what they are, as though they had a halo around them.

    spork

  • I wonder if they can run LegOS? Oops, did I say LegOS.

    Sorry, LEGO, my bad! Please don't sue me.
  • folks:

    the page in question describes two final projects for an introductory mit graduate class on robotics (i was the ta). while the students in question did very well, their robots aren't "research" any more than a napkin sketch of some fruit is "art". don't worry -- you'll still be able to get in your door when you get home.

    and, just for the record, they're not at the media lab. damn negroponte and his imperialist media empire!

  • Class project... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ChristianBaekkelund ( 99069 ) <`ude.tim' `ta' `ocard'> on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @04:58PM (#2504626) Homepage
    Um, it's worth noting that this was merely one class project at one class at MIT by a couple students.

    If this is Slashdot-worthy, then there are nearly thousands of Slashdot-worthy pages in the MIT domain alone.

    For starters, every other final project for the Embodied Intelligence class for every term recently. That should be around 200 Slashdot pages right there... :)

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