advanced industrial controllers.
One feature that makes these
robots such a value is the vast amount
of course material available for both
the Boe-Bots and Stamps. Their books
are well written and are acclaimed by
educators around the world. For those
who don’t enjoy assembling kits,
Parallax offers their latest of the
Scribbler series: the very affordable S3
(shown in Figure 5) that assists in
teaching students everything from
Blockly programming to Spin in a GUI
environment. The hacker’s port allows
the addition of numerous
interconnected devices.
Robots at CES 2017
Outside of huge (and expensive)
OLED televisions and various
entertainment devices, robots and
artificial intelligence seem to have
created the most buzz within the
show’s thousands of vendor booths
this year. Of all the new ‘must have’
gadgets on display, robots and other
appliances (touted as robots) drew the
most crowds. Many of these products
would not have been called robots
just a few years ago.
On the CNET site
( www.cnet.com) and their excellent
coverage of this year’s CES, they made
a very concise opinion of what so
many attendees at the show were
thinking. “At CES 2017, you have to
ask: What makes a robot a robot? An
abundance of drones, driverless cars,
and smart home devices equipped
with voice assistants have blurred the
definition of the word robot.”
I asked that very question in last
month’s column when I discussed
how robots have changed over the
years — from the evil humanoid
characters in Karel Capek’s play, RUR,
to Unimation’s first industrial robot, to
the myriad of all types of today’s
robots. It is that wide variety of robots
designed for the home and personal
use that make a trip to CES so
memorable. These types of robots will
only continue to grow as inventors
and entrepreneurs keep enticing us
with new robotic products that each
of us just have to own.
Amazon’s Alexa and
Robots
The Amazon Echo, Dot, and Tap
have been available for two years
now, and have made quite a showing
with robots. Many of the robot and
other technology exhibits at CES
touted the use of the Amazon Echo
and Alexa for control of their
products. Amazon now has over
7,000 third-party integrations or skill
sets available as apps.
In the beginning,
the Echo and its siblings
were a bit baffling to
early users and were
more of show-off pieces
of technology than truly
useful devices.
In recent times, the
original Dot and its
newest version have
found themselves
attached to mobile
robots as control
devices, utilizing many
of those available apps.
My article from last July
discussed some of my
(and other
experimenters) early
Alexa robot control
attempts.
The Future of Service
and Personal Robots
On their website, TechRepublic
( www.techrepublic.com) wrote
about “CES 2017: Robots of the
Future.” They stated, “By 2018, the
International Robotics Foundation
predicts that 35 million service robots
will be sold.” These are not industrial
and military robots sold to
manufacturing businesses, hospitals,
and governmental groups, but are
‘service’ robots that are intended for
home, consumer, and commercial
business use. The article continued,
“And by 2020, $83 billion will be
spent on these robots, according to a
report by Intel.” They asked three very
important questions in the article:
“So, who makes them? What can they
do? And when will they be ready?”
Let’s take a look at some of the
robots at this year’s CES.
Ewaybot MoRo
The Chinese robotics company,
Ewaybot showed off its new flagship
robot, MoRo at CES. Founded by
three Chinese students from Harvard
and Carnegie Mellon University, it was
a major draw at the
show for many
serious robotics
experimenters and
reporters from
robotics journals. At
an estimated cost of
$30,000, their
‘flagship’ product
seems to be more of
a robot yacht. Their
literature touts the
robot being a
member of your
family, but it is more
appropriate in a
university or industrial
laboratory
environment as
shown in Figure 6.
MoRo stands a
bit under four feet
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April2017_ThenandNow_Whats-New-in-Robotics.
Advances in robots and robotics over the years.
SERVO 04.2017 61
Figure 5.
The Parallax
Scribbler 3
kit ready to
use.
Figure 6. Ewaybot's MoRo shown
in a simulated laboratory
environment.