Servo - March 2012

Then

and

NOW

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What Can Your Robot Do?

by Tom Carroll

Have you ever been standing beside your recently completed robotic creation — maybe at your robot club’s exhibition or just out in your front yard —and somebody comes by and asks “What can your robot do?” You smile and tell them you’ve designed your robot to go over to your fridge, open its door, and retrieve a can of Pepsi and bring it over to you.

“Is that a hard task for a robot to accomplish?” they ask.

“Well,” you tell them, “I’m using this Microsoft Kinect as my robot’s eyes and ...” “That thing can act like eyes? My kid has one of those with his Xbox video game. Is it that smart?” You begin to tell them about your software and the SLAM programming techniques, and how the Kinect

FIGURE 1. Basic Basic by James Coan.

utilizes its two types of cameras and three microphones to see a person, and analyze and create a map from your easy chair to the kitchen and fridge.

They quickly change the subject ... “Uhhh, is that all it can do?” “Well, no. It can navigate around my house and see different ...” “Hey, that’s nice. Umm, I noticed that you’ve got a nice green lawn, there. Well, I’ve go to go. See you around.” They walk off ...

FIGURE 2. The Altair computer in Popular Electronics.

Quite often, this is the average person’s opinion or view of a robot or of people who build robots. Most people do not have a clue about the complex capabilities required by a robot to do even the simplest task.

I’ve written about how robots are built and what it takes to build one. I’ve even discussed how hobby robotics has changed over the years, but when it comes to that inevitable question — “What can your robot do?” — some people get a bit guarded and defensive about their pride and joy’s capabilities. Probably the best answer to that question is simply, “Well, it makes me happy.”