The_Ad_Lab

Recent dada (drawing robot) developments

2012-01-06T12:38:00.002Z

I've just uploaded a few new updates to the dada project website. These are pre-2012 videos but I hadn't got around to editing / uploading them previously.

Dada is a collaborative project I'm working on with Justin Windle of Soulwire fame. The project had to sit on the backburner for awhile but over the last 6 or so months I've been making some good progress in getting our rescued robot arm up and working and writing some control software (the stuff that comes built in to commercial robots).

For those too lazy to follow the link here's one of the videos, showing a home made solution to self calibration and some grid drawing.

Palpating Gripper Video

2011-12-14T17:48:00.001Z

This is a video explaining the palpating gripper I have been developing as part of my work on augmenting robotic minimally invasive (keyhole) surgery with haptic (touch) feedback.

The basic premise of the work is that more tactile properties may be determined from an object if it can be actively explored using one or more fingers. To facilitate this sort of exploration inside the body I have been designing a robotic gripper that is simple enough to be manufactured for keyhole surgery but has enough dexterity to replicate some of the exploratory hand motions of a surgeon.

This work has been accepted for publication at IEEE Haptics Symposium 2012.

PhD Thesis Online

2011-11-30T15:57:00.000Z

I've finally put my PhD thesis online with open access. The title of the work is: "Robust and Intelligent Control Approaches for Biologically Inspired Motion Generation with an Anthropomorphic Robot Arm".

The work attempts to find ways of modelling human motion patterns mathematically and then getting a robot arm to obey those mathematic rules in a safe and efficient manner. A good chunk of these rules dealt with producing optimal motion (in terms of 'effort') that could also deal with the robot having a imperfect model of its own body (for example, we didn't model the friction in the gearboxes). All the control is done dynamically (in terms of forces and torques) rather than kinematically (in terms of positions and angles). This is more difficult but gives more control over the robot.

The below figure shows one of the early results in the thesis, where the robot's reaching motion (to a target height) is based largely on effort minimisation and ends up appearing very human. The person in the image is only included for comparison, the robot isn't copying him.

You can view or download the full pdf of the thesis here.

Paper Accepted for Haptic Symposium

2011-11-23T11:48:00.002Z

My research on a novel miniture robot gripper for tele-operated palpation has been accepted for presentation at Haptics Symposium 2012 in Vancouver.

Haptics Symposium Logo

Palpation is defined in the Oxford English dictionary as "[to] examine (a part of the body) by touch, especially for medical purposes".

My submitted paper involved a bio-inspired approach to electromechanical device design, where the finger motions of surgeons were studied during exploratory scenarios in order to set a number of functional objectives for the device. The other design requirements were set by the proposed application of minimally invasive surgery.

Dada Robot - First Drawing

2011-10-28T19:29:00.002+01:00

Many years ago I salvaged an ex-industrial robot that was being thrown out of the University research lab I was working in. A crime for sure but I could see why they were getting rid of it. The robot was a collection of metal and motors but little more. No electronics, no power supply, no software. A mere shell of a machine.

Over the last few years I've been nuturing it back to health, building and coding replacement hardware and software. I had to take a break from working on dada (as the robot is known) for quite some time, as I got very stuck on a tricky stepper motor control problem. Recently though I discovered an excellent Arduino library (Accelstepper) that more or less solved the problem for me. Enough so at least that a few weeks ago I got the robot to draw its first picture, which is rather abstract. Here's the sped-up video:

More on dada, including a scanned image of the final picture, and explanation of what is going on, can be found on dada's own site http://dada.soulwire.co.uk/

The dada project is a collaboration with Justin Windle.

Puppet Place Open Day Video

2011-10-04T11:12:00.002+01:00

Here's a video from a recent 'open doors' day in Puppet Place, the studio I rent with other members of the creative technology collective RustySquid.

A bunch of the stuff on show was from people who work in the studio, though we had a good number of guest pieces too. You can find out more about each piece by clicking on it in the video.

Keen eyes will spot the Haptic Lotus at 0:42, which was present for hands on demos. Because I couldn't blindfold people or black out the lights as usual (far too much stuff to trip over) I had people follow me around while holding the Lotus. It fully blossomed when they approached the tea and cake stand. Pretty much everyone, robots included, likes tea and cake.

Writing for Guerilla Science

2011-09-28T15:29:00.000+01:00

Here's a link to an article I wrote for Guerilla Science on the haptic lotus installation I did with them at Secret Garden Party this summer.

The article will be stored in their archives here: http://guerillascience.co.uk/archives/2490

UbiComp 2011 Best Paper Prize

2011-09-22T16:58:00.000+01:00

This week a paper on the Haptic Lotus was awarded Best Paper prize at the prestigious Ubiquitous Computing conference (UbiComp) in China. There were over 300 papers presented at the conference so we (the authors) are very happy about this.

The paper "Haptic Reassurance in the Pitch Black for an Immersive Theatre Experience" was presented by my collaborator Janet van der Linden of the Open University. It may be downloaded here.

Here is a video of the talk by Janet.

View more videos from ubicomp2011

Haptic Lotus at Secret Garden Party

2011-08-09T18:15:00.003+01:00

A couple of weekends ago I took the mobile Haptic Lotus rig (and a couple of assistants) to the Secret Garden Party festival, at the request of Guerilla Science, an organisation that brings science to music festivals.

Over the course of 4 or so hours we created an interactive installation where festival goers could use the haptic device and sound effects to be guided to target cannisters containing sweets. We had about 40 people pass through the installation, many in fancy dress:

I've demo-ed the Lotus at conferences before, but a music festival, where people are just passing through while looking for a good time, or something unusual, is quite a different experience. One thing we tried was getting people to race each other in the dark. That was fun!

Here's the blurb for my Thursday evening slot (which featured in the festival program):

THURSDAY: ASCENT

17:00-22:00 Blind Robot’s Bluff: Adam Spiers Navigate through darkness with the Haptic Lotus, a cybernetic instrument that manoeuvres through space with engineered grace. Use the unfolding petals to guide you to your destination, and ponder the meaning of light in the dark.

More information on the event can be found on the Question website with some extra pictures in the Guerilla Science Flickr album.

Designing in the Wild Talk

2011-08-09T17:40:00.000+01:00

I've only just discovered this online talk by Haptic Lotus collaborator Prof. Yvonne Rogers, despite it being given at Stanford University in February 2011. The talk discusses interface design in unstructured settings, as opposed to typical laboratory settings.

"Abstract: (February 25, 2011) Yvonne Rogers discusses how "designing in the wild" is causing a new rise in discoveries and a new direction in computer science. She illustrates how these discoveries can be achieved along without the tensions and challenges that can arise when giving up control."

Yvonne's description of The Question (which featured the Haptic Lotus) is presented at around 42:00

http://www.talkminer.com/viewtalk.jsp?videoid=0t3gYfZMpKg&q=

Much of my past and current research has been based on concepts that originated at Stanford, so it is nice to know that my own work is making its way back there in some form.

Fractal Gallery

2011-08-05T12:38:00.000+01:00

Nothing makes me feel more productive than creating an experiment / process that can run in the background while I do other stuff. TBH, I usually end up spending so long tuining the background process to work perfectly that I lose any time that I might of gained. Or otherwise I just watch the background process and lose the point of the whole thing.

That aside, I've been leaving my fractal code running in the background while writing emails etc. and this has led to some nice images. Rather than creating a new post for each of these, I've started a static Fractal Gallery page, where I'm going to be adding new images as necessary (either when finding cool stuff, or developing the code / maths further).

Initial Mandlebrot renderings

2011-08-03T14:10:00.001+01:00

I recently picked up a copy of the excellent book 'The Beauty of Fractals' for just 20p from a library sale, inspired I've had another go at rendering a fractal function. This time the classic mandlebrot set.

Here's a small portion near the upper complex limit, this rendered slowly in Matlab while I went for lunch:

I grabbed the basic psuedo code from Wikipedia, though I noticed some bugs in this during implementation. I've updated the Wikipedia code to get rid of these. The wiki code doesn't shade inside the set (the green parts), but this is just related to the magnitude of the real + complex co-ordinates squared.

If people want the Matlab code then leave a comment and I'll post it.

PhD finished - delayed post

2011-08-03T13:59:00.000+01:00

This is a very delayed post but I've now graduated from my PhD. The Viva was actually on 27th May and I graduated (pic below) on 18th July. This means that I'm now officially a doctor of robotics. My R2D2 obsessed, childhood self would be proud :-)

My examiners were Prof. David Stoten (University of Bristol) and Prof. Giorgio Metta (University of Genoa), the viva lasted under 2 hours and I passed with minor corrections.

No, I didn't wear the box for the ceremony...

Very Simple Fractal

2011-05-17T14:59:00.001+01:00

On my way to geek martyrdom (PhD viva approaching) I'm finding myself becoming increasingly interested in fractal functions.

Here's my first attempt at coding a fractal in Matlab, which was done on my lunchbreak today.

It's based on a tiny part of the Mandelbrot set, which I've still not fully read into yet (I'm impatient!).

Here's the code, I told you it was simple! So simple in fact that it..soon...becomes.....pretty..........slow.............

clc         % clear command window
clf         % clear figure

z_old = 0-0i;   % Some random value to initialise z_old

for (seed = 0.01:0.005:0.2) % For all these values

    disp(seed)   % Display seed (not the right term)

    z0 = -seed - 0.54i; % The juicy bit
    z = 0;              % Start here

    rndclr=[rand, rand, rand]; % random line colour

    for (i = 1:1:50)   % number of iterations per seed
        z = z^2 + z0;   % iteration for the nation
        %disp(z);

        figure(1)
        hold on     % don't delete old lines
        title(i)    % display iteration
        plot(z,'.','color',[0,0.1,0]); % draw a point

        if (i>1) % if point has a predecessor, connect them together
            line([real(z),real(z_old)],[imag(z),imag(z_old)],'Linesmoothing','on','color',rndclr)
        end

        z_old = z; % Store last point

    end
end

3D Graph, meet 3D Printer

2011-05-06T20:48:00.000+01:00

So awhile back I ran a stand on robotics and my PhD resarch at a Bristol University public engagement event Changing Perspectives.

One of the most visually assertive parts of my research in robotic movment have been the 3 dimensional plots I use to represent effort considerations in reaching motions. The idea is that the workspace of the robot makes up 2 axis on the graph, while the other axis represents the effort (a combination of graviational and muscular considerations). When planning movements to vertical targets, the robot can aim to keep it's trajectory in the lower parts of the graph, thus reducing effort during movement, as in casual human motion.

Some people find the concept of a 3D graph quite hard to grasp, which is fair enough, so I decided that a nice way to engage the public would be to make the graph tangible. Hence I had it 3D printed.

To make it more inutitive I then created a contour 'heat' map of the simulation, which I projected onto the surface. This meant that points of high effort were highlighted with 'hot' colours, while low regions were coloured with colder shades of blue. Really this could of done with some projection mapping, but I didn't have much time.

Finally, I simulated the robot moving accross the surface in real-time to give the whole thing some motion and context. Unfortunately I was too busy chatting to the visitors to get a video of the projection on the graph, so here's the raw video:

The Question in Disability Now

2011-05-06T20:21:00.000+01:00

Despite many things happening in the last few months (such as handing in my thesis), I've been very poor at updating this blog.

Here's a link to an article on The Question I just discovered in the magazine Disability Now. The Question was a collaborative piece I did with Extant last summer, where we developed the Haptic Lotus.

Here's a snippet from the full story:

Arguably one of Extant’s most breathtaking (and currently on-going) works to date, The Question (2009/2010) utilises the Live Art concept with open arms. It has everything: the tactile audience experience, the walk-through installation, the use of audio and live performers.

Generative Triangle Patterns

2011-03-14T12:41:00.000Z

Inspired by the creations of my friend Soulwire, I spent a couple of hours last night coding up a simple algorithm that generates patterns from joined equilateral triangles. A random variable acts on the hypoteneuse of the triangles in 10% of cases, making the triangles shrink in size and lean, occasionally.

I've written it in Matlab for now (great for prototyping algorithms) but will probably switch to something more visually elegant (e.g. Processing / Open Frameworks) later.

It needs work but here are some initial images. Click to view larger.

Dynamixel Master / Slave network with Matlab

2011-03-11T17:21:00.001Z

Following my last post I've now got two dynamixels working on the same network with Matlab. The flexibility of these servos means that one can be used just as a position sensor. This lets you do some cool stuff, like this simple tracking controller, where one servo follows the other. This is known as a master / slave network. The moving one is the slave as it obeys the master.

To make this work you need to set the ID of each dynamixel differently. This is obvious, but without the Dynamixel Wizard from Robotis (which didn't work on my machine) I had a hard time trying to figure out how to make this happen. In the end I discovered that by using the following command with an ID of 254 you can broadcast a new ID to every servo on the network.

(calllib('dynamixel','dxl_write_byte',254,3,new_ID))

So, just connect one servo to the network and broadcast it a new ID!

The Matlab source code for the master slave demo can be downloaded here.

IMPORTANT! - You won't feel the forces from the slave servo on the master. Do not stick your finger or anything else in the way to check!

Simple Dynamixel / Matlab Example Code

2011-03-07T13:39:00.002Z

Recently I started working with a some Dynamixel RX-28 servos from Robotis. Unlike standard hobby servos, these actuators can provide position, current and velocity feedback and also have various modes of control, including compliance. They also work on a RX485 network, meaning that they can be chained together. These features make the servos a popular choice for building small humanoids, such as the Bioloid (also from Robotis).

Though a MATLAB API is available, I found the on-line examples lacking somewhat, especially when all I wanted to do was drive the servo and log its position. The following code does just that, moving the servo 90 degrees clockwise and anti-clockwise, then displaying a log of the 'present position' and 'moving' registers from the servo EEPROM.

The 'Moving' register is set to '1' when the servo is in motion. This is a bit buggy though as you need a delay in the code for it to read anything other than '1' and it doesn't exactly stop on time. Matlab isn't hard real-time so this pause seems to affect the data logging somewhat (the motion is actually really smooth, unlike what is shown above). Take the 'pause(0.01) out of the code below and you'll see what I mean

Note that you'll need to download and register the dynamixel API with Matlab before using this code.
Here are the instruction from ROBOTIS:
http://support.robotis.com/en/software/dynamixel_sdk/usb2dynamixel/windows/matlab.htm
These instructions from Agave Robotics are also useful
http://www.agaverobotics.com/products/servos/robotis/ax12/docs/Dynamixel-AX12-Matlab.pdf
Note that I had to change the 'open device' code from the examples given above. They just wouldn't work!

I hope this is useful to someone, I spent some time searching for an example like this but couldn't find one. Of course the dynamixel servos can do much more than this but this is a nice place to start.

The source code can be downloaded from Google Docs here.

Changing Perspectives

2011-02-24T13:14:00.000Z

My PhD research (on natural reaching in humanoid robots) is going to be presented at a University of Bristol public engagment event in late March featuring live acrobats from Circomedia!

Image from http://www.circomedia.com/

Here's the blurb:

Come along to a free, interactive exhibition for families. Watch aerial circus performers, learn about how they accomplish their extraordinary feats and discover how your body works with TV presenter Alice Roberts. Take part in body painting and talk to local researchers from the University of Bristol about cutting edge research – in anatomy and physiology, neuroscience, robotics and biomechanics – happening in your city.

More information to follow. Here is the website of the event:

http://www.bris.ac.uk/changingperspectives/projects/experience/

Falcon Grip Delivery

2011-02-23T11:51:00.001Z

Here is a shot of the extra Novint Falcon grips I received this morning from the Novint Advanced Products Group.

Spare ball grips for the Novint Falcon

The detachable grip on the Novint Falcon cries out for customisation, but the active electronics in the grip mean the the Falcon (in the background) won't function unless a grip is attached. I'm planning on hacking the electronics from these spare grips so that I can use my falcon with grips that are more specific to my research.

Watch this space!

Wabi Sabi DJ set

2011-02-05T15:02:00.000Z

Nothing to do with robots in this post, but last night I DJ'd at this night in Bristol...

and had a great time :-)

10 minute robot update

2011-01-28T17:43:00.000Z

Moving house and thesis writing means I haven't had any time to work on my 3D scanning robot lately. Anyway, here's a video I put on YouTube almost 2 weeks ago of some 1dof movement with 3D visualisation in processing. The communication is done via serial.

Soapbox Seminar

2011-01-28T17:14:00.004Z

I've been invited to give a talk at the Soap Box seminar series in University of Bristol's School of Geographical Sciences on 3rd Feb.

Here's the blurb:

Non-industrial robotics is a highly multidisciplinary branch of research which has the ability to catch public attention, mainly due to science fiction examples of advanced, thinking machines. But how do real robots compare to the popular concept? In this talk I shall be introducing the field of robotics by presenting some examples of the current state of the art. I'm also hoping to provide some food for thought, via the possible implications of robots in future society and the perceptions of robots by humans.

Though the talk is an introduction to robots in general, due to some email miscommunication my talk has ended up being titled 'Why robots probably won't take over the world!'

Everyone is welcome to attend.

Haptics Demo Video

2011-01-05T12:08:00.001Z

Haptics is quite a difficult thing to describe to people without actually getting them to try out a system. This video was created to aid a talk on telehaptics, with the intention of showing the relationship between a haptic device (in the real world) and a simulated tactile and graphic object (in a virtual world).

The device is a Novint Falcon and the simulation is a demo from Chai 3D. I filmed the falcon while running the simulation and took a screen capture of the whole thing. An artifact of this was the horizontal compression.

Of course, a video will never beat getting someone's hands on a real device, but it should help the explanation.

30 and 40 minute robot

2010-12-09T11:03:00.000Z

I'm posting two stages at once because the photo upload tool on blogger was broken the other day. Anyway, here is the progress on the '10 minute robot'.

He now has a bracket mount for the tilt servo. I actually wasted 30 minutes trying to make this out of steel before realising that my lab's workshop hand-drill wasn't up to it. After giving up on that bit it only took 10 minutes to make this aluminium bracket out of scrap.

And here's a pan servo. Both degrees of freedom have been aligned with the sensor's center of rotation. Of course, mechanical offsets can be dealt with mathematically via trigonometry, but right now I wanted to solve this problem mechanically rather than in code.

20 minute robot

2010-12-01T18:30:00.000Z

Yesterday's '10 minute robot' with another 10 minutes work.

Now he's got pitch rotation instead of yaw. I've used an angle bracket to keep the center of rotation in-line with the center of the IR sensor (his eyes). It doens't look as cool as his original neck, but it's more functional in terms of sensing.

Beats reading web comics for procrastination!

10 minute robot

2010-11-30T19:24:00.000Z

I couldn't resist posting this little guy that I built in about 10 minutes today. A bit of creative procrastination away from the thesis.

It's almost a genuine robot as it consists of a sensor and an actuator, though an inability to manipulate it's environmet does exclude him from some definitions.

I'm not wiring up or programming him until the thesis is handed in!

The Question in 'Philosophy Now'

2010-11-11T16:18:00.000Z

I just found an article on The Question in the magazine Philosophy Now.

Here's a bit about the Lotus:

"Whilst the current haptic device, designed by humanoid technology engineer Adam Spiers, is a excellent step in the direction of delivering a similar theatrical experience to both blind and sighted participants, I have a sneaking suspicion that blind participants may have gained more from the experience than I."

This is an interesting point. On one hand the lack of light in the Question meant that sighted audience members were certainly deprvied of their primary navigational sense. On the other hand the familiarity of blind audience members with a lack of sight meant that the Lotus didn't always offer the same level of navigational benefits and encouragment as for sighted audience members.

The article was written by Sue Rolfe, who studied Philosophy under Martin Milligan. The plot of The Question was based on 'On Blindness' a book of letters between philosophers Bryan McGee and Martin Milligan, debating the nature of blindness with regard to one's experience and knowledge of the world.

The full Philosophy Now article is available here.

Haptic Lotus in the Guardian

2010-11-11T15:36:00.000Z

The Question and the Haptic Lotus have been mentioned in today's Guardian newspaper G2 article titled:

'The player: videoless games can reveal skills we didn't know we had.
The Question and the iPhone game Papa Sangre can teach us things that video games can't'

In the article the journalist describes the Question (my collaboration with Extant) as her 'standout theatre experience of the year.' She also compares it with the audio only iPhone game Papa Sangre.

You can read the full article here.

Surgical Tele-Haptics Job

2010-11-10T15:57:00.000Z

I've been very poor at updating this blog recently, mainly on account of the rush to get my a complete draft of my PhD thesis to my supervisor before starting work as a research associate at Bristol robotics laboratory.

The Novint Falcon haptic inteface

This new project is looking at integrating the sense of touch into robot assisted larposcopic (keyhole) surgery. So a surgeon who is remotely controlling a medical robot will be able to feel what is inside the patient that they are working on, rather than just relying on the images provided by an endoscope for diagnosis and surgery.

From now on I'll be working a great deal with haptic technologies. Already I've been plesently surprised by the accessibility of haptics, with the Novint falcon haptics interface costing only £200 and being supported by the Chai 3D open source C++ libraries (including dynamics engines for both rigid and deformable bodies). Using only these two elements I've already got a fully enabled haptics suite that I can start my research with. This is in stark constrast to the 3 months I spent at the start of my PhD writing drivers to get my very expensive robot to move at all.

Chai 3D screenshot

Of course, I'm still working on the PhD...

Humanoids 2010

2010-09-17T11:47:00.002+01:00

My paper for the IEEE Humanoids 2010 conference has been accepted for publication.

The paper looks at using neural networks to observe and learn a small number of human reaching motions that have been scaled to a robot body. The neural network is then able to generalise these examples for new requirements, so the robot can generate new human-like trajectories on the fly.

Below is a word cloud of the paper, which was generated by Wordle.

This was the most recent piece of work I completed for my PhD on human motion synthesis for manipulator robots.

The Question DVD

2010-08-20T11:35:00.000+01:00

A DVD has been produced on The Question, my collaboration with Extant, the Open University and Battersea Arts Center. Here is a condensed / trailer version of the film:

The widescreen format of this clip seems to be struggling with my blog theme. If you are only seeing half the video click here to watch it on YouTube.

The DVD features the planning of the installation, details on the team, the haptic lotus device and audience experience. The DVD was produced by Braunarts and is available by contacting Extant.

Thesis progress

2010-08-12T11:58:00.001+01:00

About a month ago I started writing my PhD thesis. I don't tend to blog too much about my PhD research so to give everyone a flavour of what I've been working on for the last few years here is a wordle word cloud of the 50 pages I've written so far:

Note that wordle doesn't include equations in the word cloud. There are quite a few of those in my work...

Until the thesis is handed in I'm trying to stay away from creative projects and other distractions, so this blog is probably going to be a bit quiet for awhile...

The Question conference acceptance

2010-07-12T12:01:00.000+01:00

Our submissions on 'The Question' have been accepted to the following conferences:

* DRHA2010 (Digital Resources for Humanities and Arts)

* MobileHCI2010 (Mobile Human Computer Interaction)

We may be doing a scaled down version of the installation (complete with Haptic Lotus) for the DRHA conference (in Brunel University). I'm sure that some hands-on technology will be accompanying the MobileHCI presentation (in Lisbon).

Both conferences are taking place in the first week of September.

Haptic Lotus in Wired

2010-07-01T11:33:00.002+01:00

Technology magazine Wired have published an online article on The Question and the Haptic Lotus in their News and Culture section.

Written by one of the first attendees of the installation, the article speaks very favourable of the project and the haptic navigation device which I designed (with Paul O'Dowd and David McGoran) for the unique project.

"The Lotus device really does work, guiding you around rooms (and into the occasional wall). You have to work harder, but it's ultimately very satisfying to construct your own reality and story, using experiences that you yourself have to uncover and assemble."

An infra-red video of the reporter navigating the pitch black space accompanies the article.

The Question goes live

2010-06-15T10:59:00.001+01:00

After a week of setting up, Extant's 'The Question' is now live, with performances running throughout the week. This project has been in the pipeline for several years so it's pretty satisfying to finally see the fruits of all the work and late nights.

My contribution to this project was the design of a unique navigation system that would assist people in finding their way around the pitch black installation. Below is an image of some 'haptic lotus' devices, waiting to be fitted to particpants entering the installation. These devices are one half of the navigation system that I designed, with Daivd McGoran and Paul O'Dowd, for this project.

I don't want to give away too much information on the project until the end of the week (i.e. I don't want to ruin it for any of the participants), so expect more details on the technology then.

Open University Front Page News

2010-06-13T11:26:00.000+01:00

Extant's, 'The Question' and the Haptic Lotus have both been featured on the main news page of the Open University.

Go to news item

Front page articles only stay on the front page for a few days and I was a bit late picking this up. You can now read the full article in the news repository.

The project goes live on Monday 14th June 2010.

Distinguished Research Seminar Video

2010-05-19T20:38:00.000+01:00

I finally got my act together and ripped the streaming video of my lecture at the University of Wales. For anyone who is interested in the details of my PhD research, or wants another explanation of the Operational Space Formulation, well this video may help.

Operational Space Control, Robotics Seminar from Ad Spiers on Vimeo.

Unfortunately the connection to the server dropped out about 10minutes before I finished talking, but all the maths get a bit heavy after that so maybe it was for the best.

The Question Interview Video

2010-05-13T11:09:00.001+01:00

I neglected to mention that recently the website for the haptic theatre project went live. Renamed 'The Question' this project is something rather unique I've been working on with Extant, a visually impaired theatre company based in London. The project aims to create an immersive theatre experience set in a pitch black environment. More details are available on the site.

A video is being made as part of the project and during the last steering meeting most of the team was interviewed. Here I am talking about the technical side of the project and this unique application of haptic navigation technology.

The Question - Team Interviews from Alex Eisenberg on Vimeo.

As Maria says we've all been working quite independantly up until recently and things are really starting to get interesting now. However the final deadline approaches and there is still lots to be done. Watch this space!

Milk Pixel Arts Trail videos

2010-05-12T15:39:00.000+01:00

Last weekend a highly improved Milk Pixel featured on the Southbank Bristol Arts Trail. The system was installated in the studio of the Creative Glass Guild, a brightly lit white-walled space filled with colourful glasswork. As Milk Pixel works best in the dark was necessary to build an enclosure. Being on a tight (i.e. non-existing budget) can be fun sometimes as a tent was quickly cobbled together out of a £15 Gazebo and a roll of cheap 'Halloween' fabric.

The system was working on some new 'autonomous', semi-random code whereby it would automatically change between different modes of responsiveness, sometimes overlaying colours onto it's video/motion/sound derived patterns while at other times ignoring what was happening in the tent and just doing it's own thing (i.e. displaying and moving pretty colours around). The idea was that:

1. The audience never actually knew what the system was doing
2. No two visits to the tent were the same

As I result we got some interesting behaviours out of both the system and the audience! Some of the most interesting comments went something like "It seemed to be watching me walk around, then it got bored and did something else".

Here's a video of the sort of interaction you get with the system, as you can see it's alot of fun (ignore the flickering, my camera went weird at the weekend, it doesn't actually flicker in real life):

I couldn't resist making a timelapse of the dissamembly:

Perhaps the most rewarding comments came from about 4 different people who all compared Milk Pixel to some of the installation work by Brian Eno and all said we should aim for more exposure in larger venues. Obviously, we were flattered!

Milk Pixel on arts trail this weekend

2010-05-06T11:08:00.003+01:00

An improved version of Milk Pixel interactive digital art installation will be featuring on Southbank Bristol Arts trail this Saturday and Sunday (8th-9th May) between 10am-4pm.

Since the Arnolfini installation we've managed to improve the structure of the system, iron out the (flickering and latency) bugs in the code and automate the software (which will save me curating the peice like last time for two exhausting days). This should all improve the experience of watching or interacting with the system.

We will be installing the system in the Creative Glass Guild, (No 16. Whitehouse Street, Bedminster, Bristol BS3 4AY) where there will also be a number of other artists showing paintings, drawings ceramics and glass sculptures.

There was an embedded Google Street View Map of the location here but I removed it as it was confusing my browser. A map of the other venues on the trail can be found here.

Entry is of course free so if you're are in Bristol come and have a look and a play (don't forget it's an interactive piece). Feel free to take photos / videos. One of my biggest kicks at first installation was seeing so many people taking photos of the system then finding some of the images and videos online via flickr and youtube. So share your media (leave a comment on this blog if you like to tell us where it is) and make us happy.

Distinguished Research Seminar Series

2010-04-22T18:29:00.002+01:00

Tomorrow afternoon I'll be speaking at University of Wales' Robotic Intelligence Laboratory as part of their invited seminar series. My talk will be on the subject of my PhD: Biologically Inspired Reaching Techniques for Humanoid Robots.

The talk will be streamed through the virtual research centre in personal robotics though I'm afraid you have to be a member of the research centre to watch it. I'll see if there is someway I can get a recording of the stream to post online.

ACC publication

2010-03-12T18:34:00.001Z

A paper I submitted to the 2010 American Control Conference (ACC) has been accepted for presentation and publication in the conference proceedings.

The paper is titled "An Optimal Sliding Mode Controller Applied to Human Motion Synthesis with Robotic Implementation" and describes a new type of nonlinear controller that I developed with my PhD supervisors Dr. Guido Herrmann and Professor Chris Melhuish.

Milk Pixel in Realtime magazine

2010-03-11T14:04:00.001Z

Milk Pixel has been featured in issue #95 of the Australian contemporary arts magazine Real Time. The article 'Coders, Crafters and Crooks' is a report on the Craftivism and Uncraftivism events at the Arnolfini (many videos of which are now available on the uncraftivism wiki). Here's what it says about us:

"Flickering from across the room was Milk Pixel built by the Bristol Robotics Lab, an inspired re-use project incorporating LEDs into two-litre plastic milk bottles. The 64 bottle/pixel array continuously responded to sound performances and moving image in unexpected collaborations and improvisations."

Interestingly the picture chosen to head the article (shown above) was one I took of Jason and Paul (from Potential Indifference) debugging MilkPixel a day or so before the event. It's nice to think that the editors thought that the hands-on sorting of a tanlge of ribbon cable and recycled junk represented the craftivism movement to such a degree.

The Article was written by Melinda Rackham, an Emerging Artforms Curator and Adjunct Professor at RMIT University.

Just for the record, MilkPixel no longer flickers, we fixed that bug :-)

Haptic Theatre Update

2010-03-11T13:37:00.001Z

An online update of the collaborative project I'm working on with Extant (Britain's only professional performing arts company of visually impaired people), has appeared on the News Flash section of the Extant website.

The project involves "creating an immersive dramatic environment that invited audience members will explore using a specially designed hand held Haptic device. Currently the team of project partners, artists and engineers are working on areas of script development, sound and set design, and technical construction of the device and its support system, along with sensory trigger mechanisms to connect different elements of the installation".
For more details please visit http://www.extant.org.uk/question.html

Potential Indifference

2010-02-27T15:34:00.003Z

Quite recently my application to get Milk Pixel included on the Southbank Bristol Arts Trail was accepted. Great stuff! As the application form was intended only for a single person or group it was necessary to create a name for myself and the three other guys that built Milk Pixel.

And so it my great pleasure to officially anounce our Digital Art collective: Potential Indifference. Those in the know will realise that this is quite similar to the official description of Voltage. The second reason for this name is that this is how our work may be viewed, we sit somewhere between engineering and art but not sure if we really impress people from either discipline...

Potential Indifference consists of:

Ad Spiers (Me), Paul O'Dowd, Thomas Burton and Jason Welsby

I used Soulwire's brilliant Glitch Generator to generate the glitches in the Potential Indifference logo. Lots of fun to be had with that thing.

The Southbank Bristol Arts trail will take place on the weekend of 8th & 9th May 2010. More details to follow about where to find Milk Pixel.

Jen Hui Liao's Self-Portrait Machine

2010-02-16T14:09:00.001Z

A very original take on a drawing robot discovered on we make money not art. Rather than the robot simply drawing your portrait the robot actually moves your own hands around so that you are guided to produce the portrait yourself.

Here's the blurb: "The project started with the observation that nearly everything that surrounds us has been created by machines. Our personal identities are represented by the products of the man-machine relationship. The Self-Portrait Machine encapsulates this man-machine relationship. By co-operating with the machine, a self-portrait is generated. It is self-drawn but from an external viewpoint through controlled movement and limited possibility. Our choice of how we are represented is limited to what the machine will allow."

I particularly like the fact that the user (or used) has a pen in each hand, particularly unnatural...

CandleBot Finished!

2010-02-16T11:42:00.001Z

After a solid Geekend of coding, CandleBot (a phospholuminescent drawing robot) is finished, well, my part of it is at least...
From it's humble beginings as an open loop perlin noise → joint angles system (which made some nice random curves) CandleBot has developed to this system capable of interfacing to any serial comms to draw trajectories. Here is a video of a few shapes communicated from processing.

Candlebot was developed to it's current stage as a platform for prototyping the low-level embedded motion controllers of Dada, a larger and more ambitious mini industrial robot that will also be used for drawing. CandleBot is now on it's way to Justin Windle (Soulwire) who will be taking care of the high level coding on the PC/Mac side that is necessary to get the robot to drawing something more worthwhile. In the mean time I'll be adding the extra embedded layers of code necessary to get the CandleBot drawing code working on Dada.

Many Arduinos!

2010-02-15T19:37:00.000Z

Here's part of the Arduino Pro Mini order I recieved last week from Cool Components.

I'm often ridiculed by my techy colleagues for continually describing the benefits of Arduino for rapid prototyping (over PIC for example). This is clearly another step in my obviously healthy obsession with this less-geeky, more user friendly platform.

I can't tell you what project all these chips are for (non-disclosure agreement) but it involves many Arduinos :-)

Return of CandleBot

2010-02-01T11:33:00.000Z

About a year ago I starting working with Justin Windle (aka Soulwire) on a drawing robot project, 'Dada'. Which aimed to refurbish a defunct industrial robot for creative purposes. Progress has been slow for a number of reasons but I recently realised that it would be much easier to develop my embedded drawing algorithms on a smaller and easier to control robot. Hence, CandleBot (originally called CanvasBot) has been dusted off and recently equipped with Inverse Kinematics and a Smoothing algorithm (which I developed on Sunday). It's working quite nicely as this picture of the robot drawing a house shows:

For more details visit the Dada project website, where details of the algorithms, videos and future drawings will be posted : http://dada.soulwire.co.uk/

Milk Pixel at the Arnolfini

2009-12-15T11:11:00.004Z

After a week of stress and late nights, Milk Pixel was up and running in the Arnolfini during Saturday and Sunday's uncurated open event unCraftivism. We kept the project more or less under wraps until the day so reactions were very interesting. Here are some pictures:

Milk Pixel is essentially a giant, interactive, 8x8 Red Green Blue LED array with each led pixel placed inside a plastic milk bottle. The textured plastic of the bottles diffuses the lights from the leds nicely to give some interesting colour combination.

The patterns of colours are generated from webcam and microphone input as well as number of manual controls. This means that the system responds to motion and sound. During the weekend the array was feeding off live musicians, projected films, games of tambourelli (badminton with tambourines) and anyone who happened to walk by during quiet moments. The Audio Visual driver software was written entierly in Processing. In the above photo the green parts of the array reflect movments of the brass instrument and player.

Here is the system with myself (center), Paul O'Dowd (left) and Thomas Burton (right). Jason Welsby is another memeber of the team that isn't in the photo.

Oh, and here's a video of it watching a movie while listening to a band. There are still some glitches that need to be ironed out so the representation of the audio / visual input is quite abstract at the moment...

If you were at craftivism and have any pictures of Milk Pixel I'd love to see them, leave a comment below...

Multiple LED pulsing via a 555 timer

2009-10-25T15:18:00.012Z

UPDATE - The bug in the last schematic has been corrected. R2 had been incorrectly connected to Pin 7 and GND instead of Pin 7 and Pin 2.

I noticed awhile back that there were a few people in a few forums asking for simple ways to make LEDs pulse. During the summer I designed a circuit that pulsed a number of LEDs as part of a fancy dress costume. I was told that it looked great :-) Anyway, here is the circuit. It uses a single 555 timer in astable configuration to create a square wave. On the high part of the wave it triggers one LED, on the low part it triggers the other LED. The big capacitors cause the fading by charging and discharging the square wave into something more analog than digital.

Note: This is Version 3 of this circuit. A lot of people sent me messages saying that they were having a few issues building the circuit. There were a few problems with the previous schematics. The first was that the line connecting pin 2 and 6 could of been misinterpreted as also connecting to pin 7. I've now colour coded that line and put junction indicators (black dots) to show when two wires should be connected together. I recently realised that while making this correction I accidently connected R2 to GND instead of Pin 2. This is now fixed.
The other error was that the dotted line part had the led connected to ground after the capacitor instead of before it. As necro_nemisis pointed out this meant that LED1 was on a direct path from 5V to ground. I dread to think of all the dead leds that drawing mistake was responsible for!

Sorry it takes me so long to do corrections...

The effect is quite nice and you can add more capacitors in series to get several LEDs to light up in a chain. Here's a video where I had 4 sets of LEDs running from one 555 timer (shown at the end).

In addition, here's a photograph of how I wire up the 555 timer IC on some stripboard (with the strips running vertically from top to bottom). The only cut tracks are under the 555 chip. Note there is a red cable hidden from view behind the left capacitor which connects the other red cables together. I would only use this picture as a reference for the IC wiring, rather than the caps, as it is hard to see which track the capacitors are connected to.

Milk Pixel

2009-10-02T11:49:00.006+01:00

Following the last post we (myself and some colleagues from BRL) have decided to attempt to create a low-cost, low-complexity, interactive installation for the Craftivism open event at the Arnolfini.
The project is to be called Milk Pixel. Reasons for the name will become evident in time. We don't want to release too many details of what we are up to at the moment, but details will be appearing on the Craftisism wiki closer to the event (11 - 13 December).

Open Event @ Arnolfini

2009-09-23T13:26:00.003+01:00

I was recently approached by Rui Guerra of the V2 Institute for the Unstable Media who was looking for participants for an Open Event, 'Craftivism', to be held at the Arnolfini (Bristol) in December.

Rui has given everyone a huge amount of freedom in what they want to host as part of the event and my group (consisting of myself and other researchers from BRL) is no exception. Will keep posting as I know more.

The Enactive Torch was presented at V2 by my colleague Tom Froese in February 2008.

RiderSpoke

2009-09-23T13:00:00.004+01:00

I recently took part in Rider Spoke which is currently being held in Bristol (with the Arnolfini as the hub) an event that combines Ubiquitous computing with cycling. As a cyclist and geek I was in.

Here is a blurb from the Blast Theory website:

'The audience can take part either either on their own bike or borrow one supplied by Blast Theory. Following a short introduction and a safety briefing you head out into the streets with a handheld computer mounted on the handlebars. You are given a question and invited to look for an appropriate hiding place where you will record your answer. The screen of the device acts primarily as a positioning system, showing where you are and whether there are any hiding places nearby. The interface employs imagery drawn from Mexican votive painting, sailor tattoos and heraldry: swallows flutter across the screen to show available hiding places, prefab houses indicate places where others have hidden.'

I thought the game was enjoyable but it could of done with some context, and I seemed to come across quite a dark set of questions and answers compared to my girlfriend, which probably affected my enjoyment of the experience. We tried the game on it's first few days after opening (such things book up quickly in Bristol) but it would be nice to try it again at the end of the week when more answers have been recorded.

The novely of having a little Nokia computer on your handlebars is very cool too (though it's only held onto it's bracket with velcro - I was convinced it would fall off or get stolen).

Paper in Springer Book

2009-09-17T11:12:00.003+01:00

My first PhD paper "Robotic Implementation of Realistic Reaching Motion Using a Sliding Mode/Operational Space Controller" has been published the Springer book beries 'Lecture Notes in Computer Science' and may be found on Google Scholar (though I don't know if can be downloaded outside an institution with a Springer License).

If you would really like to read it (the paper, not the book) drop me a line and I can email you a copy.

Conference Tour

2009-09-15T10:21:00.007+01:00

I recently (well, relatively recently) returned from two robotics conferences where I presented some work from my PhD in synthesising human motion for robotic application.

At the International Conference of Social Robotics in Incheon, South Korea, I presented a paper titled 'Implementation of Realistic Reaching Motion Using a Sliding Mode/Operational Space Controller' abstract. This work described a controller that mimics the shoulder and elbow motions of a human for 2-dimensional reaching motion and then uses a sliding mode controller to allow this method to be applied to practical systems. This paper is to be published in the Springer proceedings 'Advances in Robotics'.

At TAROS (Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems), which was held in Londonderry, Northen Ireland, I presented an extension of the above paper which augmented the robot's concept of posture 'effort' to include limits of motion abstract. This is analogous to the discomfort felt by a human when stretching muscles or holding uncomfortable poses. Again the benefit of this work lies in the application to physical robots, where the limits of motion prevent mechanical damage to the system.

At both conferences my work was recieved well and there were some very interesting comments and suggestions. Of course it was also a pleasure to visit South Korea and Northern Ireland both as a tourist and as a robotics researcher. The image below was taken from the drinks reception at the Derry robotics lab and shows a research platform modified to distribute party snacks.

I don't think I can host .pdfs on blogspot otherwise I would make the papers available for download. Here are the full references if you wish to do your own search:

Spiers, A., Herrmann, G., Melhuish, C., Pipe, A. and Lenz, A. (2009) Robotic Implementation of Realistic Reaching Motion Using a Sliding Mode/Operational Space Controller. In: S. Ge, U. Witkowski, D., Kim, J., Kim, U., Rückert, D., Sandberg, M., Wahde, C., Cho, J. Cabibihan, Y. Pan, eds. In: Advances in Robotics - FIRA RoboWorld Congress 2009, Incheon 16th-20th August 2009. Heidelberg: Springer, 1980, pp. 230-238.

Spiers, A., Melhuish, C. and Herrmann, G. (2009) Implementing 'Discomfort' in Operational Space: Practical Application of a Human Motion Inspired Robot Controller. In: 10th Anniversary of TAROS - Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems, Londonderry 31st August – 3rd September 2009.

Atari Punk Console - AdLab version

2009-07-01T12:00:00.004+01:00

I've been rubbish at blogging recently as I finished this project quite a few weeks back but hadn't got round to making a decent video of it yet. This is my version of the infamous 'Atari Punk Console', a noisy little beast that uses two simple square wave generators to produce all manner of glitchy weirdness in the worlds simplest (probably) synth.

I didn't like the sound of the original circuit two much so probed about a bit and ended up with this circuit bent version with a bit more flexibility and enough knobs for a rasta colour scheme.

The left toggle produces continuous or interrmittent tones via the black 'punch button'. The right toggle adjusts tone and the red button changes the waveform from square to, er, weird. Two body contacts on the back add some 'wobble' to the sound. Red and yellow are the two standard dials while yellow uncovers hidden sounds. A full video and circuit diagram will be posted eventually...probably. For now here is a video of breadboard prototype which shows where these sounds actually come from.

'DADA' blog launched

2009-06-30T13:18:00.006+01:00

DADA is a collaborative project between myself and Justin Windle, a feelance Interactive Designer and Developer who's work is often based on generative illustrations that merge hand drawn elements with computer generated structure.

DADA stands for 'Dynamic Autonomous Drawing Agent' and is the name given to a project that aims to construct a robot capable of drawing in a variety of media. The hardware platform is a recycled 3dof pick and place robot that was custom built for Thames Water some years ago.

Following retierment the robot was donated to the University of Reading who extracted various elements of the system, leaving a body with motors but no power or control. Luckily I happened to be in the right place and the right time and intercepted the robot before it arrived at its final destination, the skip. That was over 4 years ago and since that time the robot has sat immobile under various tables until this project came along.

While Justin works on creating the images that the robot will eventually draw I am working on turning the currently broken and incomplete shell of a machine into something capable of drawing the images that will merge the robot's mechanistic form and purpose with the organic nature of generative art that Justin creates.

The project's blog can be found at http://dada.soulwire.co.uk/about

Music on MySpace

2009-03-18T11:18:00.003Z

I've started a myspace for the music I've been making using Ableton live and my custom midi controller. At the moment there is only one song on the site but I'll add more as I finish them (don't expect any updates soon though).

www.myspace.com/snrpeludo

I got called 'Peludo' once in Belize, made me laugh, hence the name.

PhD topic in 'The Engineer'

2009-03-11T12:13:00.005Z

An Article by my co-supervisor, Prof. Chris Melhuish, has been featured in The Engineer. The article highlights some of the issues in humanoid robot control that we are trying to achieve at BRL and features a picture of the BERT robot that I work with. Unfortunately the article cannot be read online.

While searching for an online copy of the new article I discovered that last July a description of my PhD research, written by my supervisor Dr Guido Herrmann, was also published in the same magazine:

'There are two levels to the control project,' said Herrmann. 'In the first, the robot operates like a machine in a production line. You can tell a robot to move a cup from a height of 0m to 0.4m, for instance. The second, operating on top of the machine motion, is a controller to create movement that is very human-like.

'The best way for a human to move is to minimise the muscle effort, and that's what we want to implement in robots. So we must measure that in humans and model it for our robots.'

The full July article can be read here:
http://www.theengineer.co.uk/Articles/300582/A+feel+for+the+future.htm

Sensory Augmentation Workshop

2009-02-05T12:32:00.004Z

I will be demonstrating the latest Enactive Torch (ET3) at the Key Issues in Sensory Augmentation Workshop at the University of Sussex (26-27th March).

The event aims to bring together researchers from various fields in order to address the following three questions:

Are there rigorous techniques that can characterise the subjective experience of using sensory augmentation technology?

How can empirical experiments with sensory augmentation devices be used to further philosophical and psychological enquiry into cognition and perception?

What technologies are available for building sensory augmentation devices?

I will also be helping to run a technical workshop on constructing your own sensory augmentation device using my favourite open-source platform, the Arduino

This event is free to attend though you must follow the participation instructions on the e-sense project page.

Ad!dict Inspiration Book

2008-11-18T10:31:00.004Z

The Enactive Torch, is being featured in a book: 'Ad!dict Inspiration' book #29: 'in.tangiable.scape.s'

Here is the blurb: Addictlab's 29th Inspiration book comes out next week! Called In.Tangible.Scape.s, it's about emerging technologies and the vision of creative people from all over the world on that topic. Supported by IMEC, and collaborations from MOMA NY, Design Incubator centre Singapore, Domus Academy Italy, and many more...

The book is a beautifully presented collection of some very interesting and eclectic work across creative design, fashion and technology and we are very pleased to be included. Click here to preview the book (the article is on page 71 of the electronic preview or page 69 of the book).

Canvas Robot Video

2008-09-19T17:19:00.002+01:00

Here is a short video of the Canvas Robot.

I hope to put something better up (where the traces are visible) in the near future.

Canvas Robot at the Watershed

2008-09-17T11:18:00.006+01:00

Demo-ed my drawing robot (which has yet to be named) at the Creative Technology Network's ‘Real Robots’ event at the Watershed in Bristol.

The main theme of the event was the Heart Robot project though members BRL were invited to bring along a robotic prop as a conversation starter.

I used the opportunity to demonstrate my recently completed canvas robot prototype. The robot uses a light source manipulated by a simple robot to draw fading patterns onto a photo-luminescent canvas. The Robot and canvas are fully self contained so can (and are usually) hung on a wall like a regular picture. The Robot is shown to the right of the photograph below.

The robot, and the fading images it produces can be interpreted in a number of ways though the transience of symbols is the main theme. In particular this robot relates to the graffiti trend of tagging where writers cover an urban landscape in hastily drawn / written tag. These tags are usually illegible and rarely persist in the memory.
This was my first experience of presenting work that is purely aesthetic and the reception was mixed. Some attendees seemed to be disappointed by the simplicity of the device while others described the machine as 'beautiful'.

Acknowledgement must be made to Peter Bennett, Richard Crouch and the rest of the 2003 undergrad swarm robot project at Reading Uni who used light to draw on a glow in the dark surface years before I built this project.

Venus Fly Trap Timelaps

2008-08-22T09:27:00.004+01:00

Bought a small venus fly trap awhile back and was amazed at how incredibly fast it seemed to grow. Set up a camera to take a photo every 20 minutes over 15 days and this is the animated result.

The two tendrils at the end of the video also grew in mouths but over a much longer period of time (they have still not opened 20 days after I finished shooting the above video).

Poster Competiton

2008-07-10T11:36:00.004+01:00

Presented my PhD work (which is mostly conceptual at this stage) at a showcase of current research at University of Bristol's faculty of engineering. The judges were suitably impressed and awarded me 2nd prize for my efforts (not bad considering there were 65 competitors from all branches of engineering and computer science).

Elumotion Arm

2008-06-17T11:43:00.005+01:00

Started work a few weeks ago on controlling an anthropomorphic upper limb manufactured by Elumotion. At the moment I'm just using it as a hardware test bed in anticipation of working on a full humanoid torso however the anthropomorphic nature of the device means that certain motions can make you feel rather uneasy. This is the Uncanny Valley principle in action as one could say the arm looks like part of a 'moving corpse'.

Insect Braitenberg Vehicle

2008-06-06T10:17:00.004+01:00

A few days ago I observed an insect behaving like a simple mobile robot (Braitenberg vehicle) with a line-avoiding algorithm. I ran and got my camera and the video below is the result.

Obviously Braitenberg designed his thought-experiment vehicles with insect behaviors in mind, a light stimulus to the right eye drives the left locomotor (wing / set of legs) to result in a moth that is attracted to light (or a 'photovore' in the case of the robotic vehicles).

By simple modification of this algorithm you can produce a creature that prefers darkness and can be made to follow a dark line on a light background (the dark line reflects less light into its sensors).

This insect appeared to be avoiding dark lines which makes sense as insects like light. But do insects really apply these rules to their perception of the environment on such a local level? The geek in me cries out for formalised experiments!

Unfortunately the best example (where it stayed in a circle for around 20 seconds) isn't on film (as it was what inspired me to get the camera).

It has crossed my mind that perhaps it doesn't like wet ink... some of the occasions where the insect stays in a circle for a while might disprove this but then it walks over some of the older lines quite happily.

I'd be very interested to hear people's opinions about this video...

Ad in a book (new and used)

2008-06-03T10:19:00.006+01:00

Have just discovered that one of my papers has been published in a book available from Amazon for $180 -$539 (here is the link). The editor was the chair at a conference on Augmented Cognition that I presented at in 2005.

Here is the blurb:

"Bringing together a comprehensive and diverse collection of research, theory, and thought, this volume builds a foundation for the new field of Augmented Cognition research and development. The first section introduces general Augmented Cognition methods and techniques, including physiological and neurophysiological measures such as EEG and fNIR; adaptive techniques; and sensors and algorithms for cognitive state estimation. The second section discusses Augmented Cognition applications such as simulation and training, intent-driven user interfaces, closed-loop command and control systems, then goes on to explore lessons learned to date, and future directions in Augmented Cognition-enabled HCI."

Animatronics

2008-04-21T10:19:00.004+01:00

Attended a very interesting meeting regarding a new EPSRC funded robotics outreach project. At the meeting were some Hollywood animatronics guys who among other things were responsible for the ABC-Warrior (below) from Judge Dread and the robot (Robbie?) from Lost in Space.

Though my work on human motion deals with asthetics to some degree it is quite a new twist to think of robots as only having to look good on camera. That requirement aside these guys are great at what they do (though I think the massive budgets help somewhat!).

BRL Project Description

2008-04-10T23:08:00.002+01:00

A description of my PhD research project has been added to the Bristol Robotics Lab project pages website.

I like to keep this blog (mostly) seperated from my PhD so head to 'ANDy' to read about what I'm lucky enough to get paid to work on.

Keyboard Hack

2008-03-31T11:24:00.005+01:00

Chopped up a broken M-Audio Keystation USB keyboard to make an effects box.

The keyboard had been dumped at the local tip and after taking it home I discovered it was because the keys didn't work. The pitch, modulation and volume controls all provided midi signals though and make a nice physical interface for music software. Much more enjoyable that moving sliders around with a mouse. Thanks to Pete for software advice.

Test_Lab Presentation Online

2008-03-03T11:00:00.004Z

Tom's talk on the Enactive Torch at Test_Lab (see previous post) has been put online as a streaming video. Here is the link: http://live.v2.nl/multimodel.ram

Tom starts talking at arond 2:04:40 and I'm once again described as a 'mad scientist'...

Test_Lab

2008-02-20T10:36:00.005Z

Tomorrow the Enactive Torch is going to be demonstrated at V2 Test_Lab in Rotterdam by my collegue Tom Froese.

Here's a blurb for the event from V2:

'Test_Lab: Multimodal will demonstrate and discuss new methods and technologies to stimulate senses that are not commonly incorporated in artistic concepts, and will introduce innovative ways to integrate sensory experiences in art and media. In doing so, Test_Lab: Multimodal reveals the obstacles faced, and achievements made, in contemporary aRt&D that aims to enhance the sensorial richness of art and media experiences in (technologically) integrated ways.'

Unfortunately commitments to my PhD and funding issues means that I won't be attending this event.

Switch Experiments

2008-02-19T10:56:00.003Z

Scratched at a jam session organised by members of Skyline Dossier a reading-based band that I highly recommend.

Still trying to figure out how to get good sound out of a turntable in a practice room. As usual feedback and reverb raised their unwanted heads.

Haptic Torch PCBs

2008-02-12T12:37:00.000Z

A small run of Haptic Torch PCBs have been produced for student projects at Reading University. The Haptic Torch was my undergraduate final year project and precursor to the Enactive torch.

Apologies for the poor photograph, my camera phone is a little dated...

Clifton Cathedral

2008-02-01T11:15:00.000Z

Shot this timelapse footage of Clifton Cathedral in Bristol. Am still experimenting with timelapse but think I'm gradually getting the hang of it.

Posture & Balance Study

2008-01-26T19:02:00.000Z

Recently returned from a short course on the study of Posture and Balance in humans. Gave me some good ideas about how to generate a few rules in order to improve movement in robots.

The course was held at the University of Birmingham (which has a very nice campus) in the Department of Psychology. Interesting, as once again I see my research permeating more disciplines.

Masque of the Red Death

2008-01-09T14:42:00.000Z

1st post of 2009!

During the winter holidays I went to see the Punchdrunk theatre company's promenade performance piece 'The Masque of the Red Death'. Truely incredible. A theatre piece where the audience is free to roam numerous creepy in macabre rooms in Battersea Arts Centre (too many to explore in a single evening) while actors appear and dissappear, moving through the crowd as if they weren't there. On entry you are given a beaked plauge mask and told not to speak, the effect is brilliant as you find yourself in a room filled with other anomous 'ghosts' that only a disturbed character can see. Get tickets if you can. Very inspirational.

Sleep Research

2007-12-13T15:31:00.000Z

Helped with initial conceptual design of a system to assist with sleep research in a care home for the elderly.

The system will log the amount of time each individual patient spends inside a particular room emitting a certain wavelength of light. This data will later be correlated to the patient's sleep pattern (measured with a different device) to determine if sleep is affected by the light.

This work is part of PhD research by Lloyd Morgan at the University of Surrey.

Enactive Torch recieves funding

2007-12-12T10:17:00.001Z

The Enactive Torch has recieved 'pump priming funds' from Sussex University's Centre for Research in Cognitive Science (COGS).

These funds will enable the construction of multiple torches and will also permit a more formal and extensive set of experiments with the device.

New Logo

2007-12-12T10:12:00.000Z

New logos have been designed (using Inkscape) for the artistic adventures of the AdLab. One version can be seen in the Navigation bar on the right hand side of this page.

Watch this space for stickerpack news.

Do No Harm! (or as little as possible)

2007-12-06T16:44:00.000Z

Looking at 'human-friendly' robots (i.e. the type that won't crush you against a wall by accident). Found an interesting paper which included the following image:

I can already see the tabloid headline "Robots developed to smash heads!".

The paper is called 'Approaching Asimov’s 1st Law' so someone has a sense of humour!

Uncanny Valley

2007-12-04T10:31:00.000Z

Recently started reading Issac Asimov again. Knowing a bit more about robotics now it's interesting to see that some of the issues he raises in Caves of Steel (of disgust and distrust of an overly lifelike humanoid robot) can be regarded as a precursor to Masahiro Mori's Uncanny Valley. In this idea a designer must be careful not to create a robot that is unnervingly almost real (i.e. by not blinking or being cold to the touch).

I do wonder if I'll ever have to may some of the socio-robotics problems that Asimov is famous for. Of course his sacred first law of robotics (...a robot can never harm a human...) was broken when the US started making Talons.

New Media on Enactive Torch

2007-11-29T17:54:00.000Z

Our Enactive '07 Oral presentation has been added to the Enactive Torch Website.

Go direct to the Audio stream by clicking here

To view the presented paper: 'Towards a Phenomenological Pragmatics of Enactive Perception' click here

Enactive '07

2007-11-28T23:07:00.000Z

Recently returned from the Enactive Interfaces / Enaction in Arts conference in Grenoble (France) where me and Tom presented our paper on the Enactive Torch. Met some very interesting people and our work was well recieved.

Also at the conference was Peter Bennet who also studied Cybernetics at Reading with me and Tom.

Enactive Torch Experiments

2007-11-13T17:02:00.000Z

Experiments are planned for this Friday with the improved Enactive torch.

A logo has also been designed. The left side of the image shows the Braille representation of 'ET'.

Enactive Torch Website

2007-11-11T19:35:00.000Z

The Enactive Torch now has a dedicated website: www.enactivetorch.wordpress.com

As well as being generally informative the device aims to provide a point of contact for researchers who may be interested in using the enactive torch in their own studies of perception and sensory substitution.

Vicon Motion Capture

2007-11-08T16:28:00.001Z

Have been looking into the Vicon Motion Capture System I'll be using. Looks like its going to be fun, interesting and then very difficult (if their software doesn't do what we want).

Enactive Torch phase 2

2007-11-08T10:10:00.000Z

Work on the enactive torch modifications is going well the problem of oscillations between readings now fixed. This has been a consistant problem until now and it still requires some work. In the enactive torch these oscillations have severly impaired the creation of the extra sense as the environment is suddenly uncertain. This is also true in the haptic torch were I was previously informed (by a blind person) that this was a serious bug that would stop them using the system.

I'm hoping to get some trials recorded this weekend but as always the problem lies in somehow getting people to an unfamiliar environment.

Warwick Lecture

2007-11-07T10:01:00.000Z

Went to see a public lecture by my old boss Kevin Warwick yesteday. As opposed to talking about Robots taking over the world he's now talking about the implant projects and placing mixed raw neural tissue (from unborn rats) onto microelectrode arrays to create biological neural networks. It all sounds very sci-fi and the audience loved it but to be honest neurophysiologists have been doing MEA work like this for decades so I've yet to be sold.

At the end some undergraduates were asking Kevin an implant question which he handed over to me. So now I'm helping these guys with their project (and I thought I'd left the field)

PhD Started

2007-11-01T10:22:00.000Z

Have started my PhD at The University of Bristol.

It appears that I'll be dividing my time between the Control Lab at the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Bristol Robotics Lab.

Goodbye Reactor

2007-10-17T09:09:00.000+01:00

Today is my last day working on Remote Handling at the Joint European Torus (JET). I've certainly learned alot about large scale applied robotics in this very unique environment. The size, precision, man-in-the-loop feedback, Human-machine-interfaces and large forces involved in the systems here are much greater than anything I'd come across while working at a University (something to do with funding perhaps).

In the words of my current boss 'they struggeled to keep me stimulated' which is why its onwards to the PhD...

Interestingly the anthropomorphic robot here (you can see it with its arms folded in the above image) has a limited range of abilities (though much greater than any robot I'd seen elsewhere) so tools are specially designed and adapted to be used by this system. In my PhD I'll be doing the opposite and attempting to get a humanoid robot to move like a human and therefore be able to use human tools.

Mail Strike Cancelled

2007-10-17T09:04:00.000+01:00

New sensor finally here! Seems to work but analogue voltage response appears to be non-linear, a little bit annoying but shouldn't take that long to figure out.

I have 1 evening to integrate it into the enactive torch before moving out of my house and into desk-less limbo. The race is on!

Another good definition

2007-10-16T13:48:00.001+01:00

"Enactive knowledge is neither symbolic nor iconic. It is direct, in the sense that it is natural and intuitive, based on experience and the perceptual consequences of motor acts" [from the Enactive07 website.]

Enactive Knowledge

2007-10-12T12:58:00.000+01:00

Found a great definition of Enactive Knowledge.

I'm still learning about Enaction in preparation for the upcoming Enactive 07 conference. It appears that such devices as the Haptic Torch are Enactive Systems due to the physical motion used by the user to identify scenery. I've always thought this to be better than a system that simply presents all obstacle information to the user without any sort of feedback. All you end up with is redundant and unwanted information that confuses the user and makes it harder to identify important features.

New Enactive Rig

2007-10-12T12:21:00.000+01:00

Dreamed up some improvements to the Enactive Rig and modelled it in Catia. Looks like it should work. Time and money are of course the deciding factors. Would hate to spend money on getting this thing manufactured then leave it sitting on a desk because I'm too busy with PhD.

Need to get priorities right that's for sure!

DS Homebrew

2007-10-10T13:35:00.000+01:00

Discovered this great gadget awhile ago (but quiet at work today so I discovered it a bit more). Its a RoboDS which seems to be the pre-built application of the DSerial2 cart.

Was thinking of getting into arduino as PICs are a pain to source and the MPLAB environment isn't as friendly as processing. This might sway me though as the DS would make a great development platform (its already got sound, a screen for debugging and a touch screen for an interface!) Not sure how much memory you have to play with but an SD adaptor in the other (front) game slot could solve this for $40 (and I already have a DS - bonus!).

Of course the temptation to play Zelda when things are getting bad would require some hefty will power. It would also be rather gutting to see both screens permenantly blank out after accidently pouring in 10V.