daughter, Maya by the hand and began exploration into
robotics terra incognito — the DRC Expo.
At the expo, we wandered from booth to booth. I
talked to engineer after robot building engineer. I talked to
the engineers that built the DRC robots. I talked to NASA’s
engineers about their robots. I talked to a man with a life-size white robot parrot on his shoulder that squawked and
tried to bite my finger. I saw a robot automobile driver that
could theoretically drive any car and might just kill the
Google car long before it arrives in showroom floors.
My daughter and I walked the long central expo
corridor which highlighted DARPA, as well as many robots,
engineers, and inventors over the century. I saw and
chatted with friends and associates that I knew from the
Riverside Robotics Expo that our local club puts on every
year. I stopped with my daughter so that she could “be the
robot” and perform a few of the robotics challenges herself
with a manually controlled robot hand.
Some of the bigger names that were there at the expo
included: MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Lockheed Martin, Cornell,
SRI, National Geographic, the R2 Builder’s Group (R2D2
replicas ARE big in my eyes), GE, iRobot, IEEE, and a gaggle
of kids and mentors from the FIRST robotics organization.
NASA Created a Fembot and
“Her” Name is Valkyrie
As I was making my way from booth to booth
absorbing every nuance of leading-edge robotics
technology, I found myself at NASA’s exhibit. As I was
watching an engineer demonstrate a disembodied robot
hand with a silent beauty and fluid motion, I saw out of
the corner of my eye a large humanoid robot standing just
a few feet away from me. I started to question the
engineer in the booth about this large-as-life human-looking machine.
I took a closer look at the six foot tall human-esque
android. It kind of looked like an astronaut in a space suit
— with a thong and an Iron Man-like light pulsing blue in its
chest. I did a double take. “She” definitely looked like a
female astronaut wearing a space suit.
Now, I build robots as a hobby and part-time business,
and the pride of my robotic creations is my fembot Robot
Betty9 made from a plastic mannequin, a dozen overpriced
servos, and an EZ Robot microcontroller. So, when I saw
that NASA built a fembot, my jaw dropped to my chest. I
stared at the lovely robotoid lady for a few seconds, and
finally, in front of everyone, I burst out laughing! NASA had
built a curvaceous feminine humanoid. As the NASA
engineer explained, “You see, we ran out of room to put
the ball screw motors, and so extended the chest cavity.
We’ve gotten a bit of flak for that.”
Strange Looking
Robot Contenders
Throughout the day, I went back and forth from the
expo and into the grandstands to witness the actual DRC
competition. The competing robots came in many humanlike shapes and sizes. From Tokyo, Team HRP2’s robot was a
super hero-like Transformer robot, while some robots — for
example, Tartan Rescue — appeared more like mechanical
gorillas. Team Aero’s robot had four legs, and I remember
at least one robot being able to roll around on its wheeled
“shins” and then stand up to walk when needed.
Team Grit’s robot, Cog-Burn — with its pencil-like
appendages — resembled a walking stick insect. Some of
the robots looked like gentle astronauts, while others
resembled perilous killer robots from your worst
nightmares. Various robots took a few slips and falls
though. (More on that later.)
Introduction to DARPA and
the DARPA Challenges
By taking a few minutes to read about DARPA from
their website at darpa.mil — aside from the obvious DoD
(Department of Defense) weaponry goals — I learned a few
new things.
The birth of DARPA goes back to 1957 with the launch
60 SERVO 08.2015