Matias and the Kondo KHR-1

On Friday the 15th, I attended the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory's seminar at 4 pm in the ECE conference room in FAB. A professor from Korea was there who is at PSU to learn from Prof Perkowski's methods. There were also two non-regulars, Mr Opsahi and Glen, who are retired, but still devoted to research and into engineering, computer science, and system science based areas from what I gathered. Also in attendance were the rest of Prof Perkowski's Masters and PhD students, Dmitiry, two I don't know, and Martin who works on emotional robots. Matias gave a presentation on his proposed thesis work. He is interested gesture as it is articulated through animation. The test platform for his software applications will be the Kondo KHR - 1 pictured to the right. Topics discussed included Lasseter animation theory, Laban Motion Analysis, the merits of stereo vision, and the possibility of using quaternion to represent joint movements. We also took a pole to see if people preferred humanoid robots, or ones that look more like muppets. Results seemed to point to the fact that it depends on the application, but also that some of us were weary of the replicants. 

I am trying to meet with some of the other members of the lab to get a broader picture of what is happening, and what is possible. I am gearing up for work on the Bohr head, and  am anticipating the need for help. By meeting people, I am learning more about the field and the lab, and am trying to establish a network. Today I met with Dimitriy Labunsky, a Master's student in ECE who is a part of Prof Perkowski's lab. He is working on a more advanced robot than the high school crew. This humanoid robot is being constructed out of aluminum sheeting, and the design is taking into account issues of balance and proportion.  He is interested in image recognition, and motion tracking. The image on the right is Dimitriy with the torso which is still in its early stages. This is a link to a robot similar to where he is trying to go that he showed me:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUxQB8YLxbg

some photos from inside the lab

meet the robots

I spent Sunday afternoon with Professor Perkowski, his high school crew, and their parents in a conference room in the ECE dept in the Fourth Ave Building. They had a lessen on fuzzy logic and discussed its basic relationship to quantum computing for robotic operations. I haven't been around this kind of stuff in a long time, and it was a little weird. It felt familiar and really foreign at the same time. I was drawing in my notebook at one point. Everyone was really friendly, and they are really bright kids. They are all working on robots for a play written by Sriddhar about Einstein, Bohr, and Schroedinger cat. I haven't read it yet, but it sounds interesting. So, after the lesson, there was a brief demonstration of the robots. I learned some basic logicstic problems, like powersupply issues. Also, design points, and I saw that things are operating off of a network of microcontrollers, mastered by C based software.

There seems to be a lot of ways I might be able to help them out. They want to have a summer program and get more people involved which requires a brochure. I might be able to help out with the content and design, etc. Also, they have a problem with the head of Niels Bohr, and I think this might be more my thing. Everyone seemed very excited and relieved at the idea of me taking that over. He is pictured on the right above. The head has at least 4 degrees of freedom I would need to account for -  eyes, head left & right,head up & down, jaw. I didn't have a lot of time to check him out, but enough to see that the proportions are definitely weird, and that this will probably be hard, but worth it. Below is Niells Bohr, the Nobel prize winning Physicist, famous for his work on atomic structures and quantum mechanics, and his, for now, faceless robotic replication.