Of Robots and Holidays

Finally, I am posting an entry. It's been a long time. A very frustrating time. I have had my exams, my studies, my gym (we'll ignore that), and a summer project. So been busy. Still couldn't keep away from writing this. The reason i couldn't write for so long has been my summer project, one i have taken up with some close friends of mine.

The project was (and still is) on robotics.

Virtually every encyclopedia or textbook etymology of the word "robot" mentions the play R.U.R. Although the immediate worldwide success of the play immediately popularized the word (supplanting the earlier "automaton"), it was actually not Karel Capek but his brother Josef, also a respected Czech writer, who coined the word.

The Czech word robota means "drudgery" or "servitude"; a robotnik is a peasant or serf.
The word "robotics" was first used (in print) in Isaac Asimov's story Runaround (1942). In it, he referred to the 'three rules of robotics' that later became the Three Laws of Robotics in the short fiction collection I, Robot.

A robot may include a feedback-driven connection between sense and action, not under direct human control, although it may have a human override function. The action may take the form of electro-magnetic motors that move an arm, open and close grips, or propel the robot. The step by step control and feedback is provided by a computer program run on either an external or embedded computer or a microcontroller.

Robots are being used today to do the tasks that are too dirty, dangerous, difficult, repetitive or dull for humans. This usually takes the form of industrial robots used in manufacturing lines. Other applications include toxic waste cleanup, space exploration, mining, search and rescue, and mine finding. Manufacturing remains the primary market where robots are utilized. In particular, articulated robots, similar in motion capability to the human arm, are the most widely used. Applications include welding, painting and machine loading.

We (as in my friends and I) have had our own share of robots. It all started when yours truly decided to get his rear end out of his chair and do something useful during the summer holidays. This was 3 weeks before they actually started. Over here, the summer holidays are a whole 3 months long! So there is a lot of scope to develop and fine tune one's skills in a particular area. Inspired by Isaac Asimov's books (yes, i am a fan) and another cool book that my dear aunt bought for me(Robotics experiments for the evil genius)...I decided to do something in robotics. Ofcourse, a guy in checked pyjamas, a fat book and a t-shirt which says YAWN, is pretty easy to notice around here. And so, within a week, i found that five of my friends were interested in joining me We decided to form a group. We met a professor, who was kind enough to lend lab facilities and his expertise to us. Needless to say, he has been our friend, philosopher and guide till this date.

And so, it was all fixed. We were to start. Our first project was a robotic car (read fancy toy car with motors). It was supposed to move in the direction which had more light on it. It was a monday. So at 8 am all of us group in the lab and START. Within 30 seconds...we hit our first problem! Our various tasks included designing and creating a proper gear assembly to run motors using parts which can at best be described as part of a run-down tape-recorder. We had to figure out how to bread-board complex circuits. How to fix a portable power supply. How to mount the entire thing onto a mobile device. How to send pulses to the motor to basically...kick it into action (the lazy thing always slowed down!). many more. Each thing took us nearly ten days to solve(that was all six of us). We got laughed at by the workshop guys to have the sheer audacity to try some designs and use some parts. Friends asked us...hey..when will that thing move? do you want me to push it from the back? And in between...we were seriously wondering...are we doing things right?

But slowly, we got each part working. And within the first month, we were playing with it, teasing it, teaching it yoga and...ok...this is PG-rated. Nothing gave us more happiness than to see that little thing scurrying across the lab and bumping across all furniture, losing its nuts and bolts along the way. The point was not the robot, but that we developed a methodology to solve an engineering problem. We learnt to argue out different ways to solve an issue, to learn things totally not connected with each other and to connect them, to fiddle with resistors, to not panic when something went wrong and generally to just enjoy ourselves. We have moved on to bigger, better things and are currently doing some homework for our next project, but the confidence is there.

All i can say is that 45 days down the line (sheesh...it's been that long!) we are still going strong. We maybe going very slowly...but still going strong. Who knows...maybe a couple of years down the line, people will see us and have conversations like:
A: Hey look at those dudes!
B: Man, remember how they made that robot which looked like our German prof?
A: Scary thing bud!
B: I know...and the robot wasn't too good-looking either...

As an ultimate aim, I would love to make robots to benefit society. Not those big claw like things you see in a Hyundai factory..but socially viable robots. Robots which might help the visually impaired see, those unable to walk - walk, which give a new lease of life to others. Robots that maybe can explore and remove land mines, which can locate and rescue those trapped under a building. The possibilities are endless. What only remains is for us to think it up.

Robotics will probably continue its spread in offices and homes, replacing "dumb" appliances with smart robotic equivalents. Domestic robots capable of performing many household tasks, described in science fiction stories and coveted by the public in the 1960s, are likely to be eventually perfected. There is likely to be some degree of convergence between humans and robots. Some humans are already cyborgs with some body parts and even parts of the nervous system replaced by artificial analogues, such as Pacemakers. In many cases the same technology might be used both in robotics and in medicine. There in lies the future.