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BOT STATE

OF THE ART

Robot engineers and enthusiasts discuss what’s currently holding their attention.

BY GARETH BRANWYN

To gather thumbnail sketches of what’s going on in amateur and pro- fessional robotics, we asked some of our favorite robot builders, suppliers, and researchers a simple question: What’s the most exciting thing for you in robotics right now? Here’s what they had to say.

A

I-Wei Huang Crabfu Steam Works, creator of steam-powered and radio-controlled robots and walking and flying machines ( crabfu.com)

What I love most about building robots is trying to achieve a hint of the illusion of life. I try and make people feel something for a heap of hardware. The easiest and fastest way to do this is with humor. That’s why most of my contraptions are cute, wonky, odd, with no real purpose except to (hopefully) make people smile.

Recent developments in robotics show machines getting more fluid, organic in their motions. But I think more effort should be devoted to this art of illusion. I’ve been awarded five medals at RoboGames, and received several golds for Best of Show, with very simple contraptions. They won out against much more sophisticated robots because they conveyed a characterful impression that stuck with the audience (and the judges). They’re laughable, literally. And people respond to that.

Ken Gracey Vice president of microcontroller and robot kit manufacturer Parallax, Inc. ( parallax.com) Without a doubt, the state of the art in robot- ics right now is Dean Goedde’s AttoPilot ( attopilot.com). We’ve all seen lots of hobby and

54 Make: Volume 19

B

Fig. A: Crabfu Steam Works’ characterful Swashbots
are designed to elicit an emotional response.
Fig. B: Dean Goedde’s AttoPilot turns almost any
R/C model plane into an unmanned aerial vehicle
(UAV).

educational autopilot variants, but this one is based on complete scientific integration of all sensors into PID control loops (see makezine.com/go/pid). As a scientist from Intel, Goedde has taken the right approach with this product, starting from the mapping of Google Earth coordinates, to the storage of this data on an SD card, to the plugin for his AttoPilot.

There’s a reason all the right people are talking to Goedde about this product. When he throws an airplane up into the sky and turns off its transmitter, you really understand the importance of this achievement.

Mark Tilden Inventor of BEAM robotics, creator of Robosapien, and robot designer for Wow Wee ( wowwee.com) For me, the coolest thing in robotics currently is inexpensive gearboxes and servos. They’ve allowed a whole generation of Robo-One (robo-one. com) Frankensteins to quickly evolve into affordable, sophisticated humanoids created for the sole