PhD topic in 'The Engineer'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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).