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Robotics Software Linux

Mark Tilden, Robosapiens Inventor Interviewed 55

Posted by CowboyNeal from the robot-parade dept.
An anonymous reader writes "You-Review.Net has an interview with Mark Tilden, the inventor of the Robosapiens line of products. In this interview, Mr Tilden reveals more information about the RSMedia bot, which will be the world's first walking, talking, MP3 playing, ARM9 powered programmable Linux computer (with a Subwoofer, just incase). No news yet on the GPL status of this beast."
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Mark Tilden, Robosapiens Inventor Interviewed More

Mark Tilden, Robosapiens Inventor Interviewed

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  • Interesting Future (Score:4, Interesting)

    by db32 ( 862117 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @07:28AM (#14633927) Journal
    These kinds of things are always interesting to look at. Currently the cost of most of the more interesting robot systems are rather prohibitive to the poor geek tinkerer, but I expect that will change in the next few years. I recently started an radio controlled tank project and got into looking at some of the the various robot sites around for parts and was surprised to see what kinds of things are available and what has been done even at the garage hobby level. I can't wait until some of the more advanced robot technologies become a little more available to the garage hobbyist, I imagine we will really start to see the creative uses come out then. On a side note, is that picture a little frightening to anyone else?
    • So how will this compare to stuff you can do with things like Mindstorms?

      To me it looks like Mindstorms without the ability to change the form of the product, BUT WITH A SUBWOOFER!!11
      • No way! The pixels of mindstorms are wayyy to big!

        To me it feels like lego duplo soem years ago...
      • I am waiting for the next step in this sort of thing beyond the mindstorm kits. I have, however, seen some terribly impressive mindstorm robots. I think my favorite of all time was the rubics cube solving robot. 3 pincher type things and some cameras...it took snapshots of three sides and then proceded to solve the cube with its 3 rotating pinchers. Its rather humbling to see a kids toy solve that thing by itself so quickly when I have seen adults take hours or fail altogether.
    • This is something that has annoyed me a lot. I think here should be a company that rented this robots (I kind of got the idea for the Asimov books U.S. Robotics).

      Imagine if you could rent one of these robots to try it for some time (said two months) and program them. Of course you should be able to save your programs outside (in a memory or something). Also a simulation program for the computer could be nice, that way you could make your programs on the simulator and then test them on the robot.

      I have alway

    • Re:Interesting Future (Score:4, Insightful)

      by c ( 8461 ) <beauregardcp@gmail.com> on Friday February 03, 2006 @08:17AM (#14634087)
      Currently the cost of most of the more interesting robot systems are rather prohibitive to the poor geek tinkerer, but I expect that will change in the next few years.


      Fifteen years ago, Mark Tilden was building interesting robots using components from dead tape players and dollar store solar calculators.


      Somehow, he managed to parlay this stuff into a job with NASA...


      If you think you need to spend a large chunk of change to do neat stuff with robots, you definitely need to do more research...


      c.

      • Re:Interesting Future (Score:4, Informative)

        by montyzooooma ( 853414 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @08:28AM (#14634135)
        http://www.britishrobotics.com/ [britishrobotics.com]

        This is a web shop that sells robot bits and kits. Worth a look if only as inspiration.

      • I don't think its soley a function of money. However, fabrication of custom parts certainly does require more money. The first *early tech thing* are often built without huge cash expenditures. There is a trade off between intimate knowledge of the subject and cash required. I can build things with legos, but fabricating the lego itself is a considerably more expensive process. Fabricating the legos also takes considerably more engineering knowledge in what pieces you should make as well. Having a buc
      • AFAIK the practice of using a high-percentage of recycled obsolete electronics in building robots is often called JunkBots [solarbotics.com]. The word taken from the book title of Junkbots, Bugbots, and Bots on Wheels.

        The other word used is BEAM (Biology Electronics Aesthetics Mechanics [lanl.gov]) from Mark Tilden's early efforts [solarbotics.net] (circa 1990-4) from isn't explicited junk / recycled focused.

      • Fifteen years ago he was also running the Hardware Design Laboratory at the University of Waterloo. (I should know; I was his intern/high-school co-op student for a few months. Now I'm a novelist. Strange world.) He used the HDL as a high-tech play area. It's true that Mark never spent a lot on his research/toys, but going in to work in that kind of environment every day probably helped quite a bit. It's all about the context; when your workplace is fun-friendly, it's a lot easier for your fun to become you

      • His first ones were 20 years ago.... also made some interesting motor-driven
        water guns from parts of broken printers....

  • for the love of god (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This afternoon, I played some Magic: The Gathering for the first time in two years or so. Some of my college aged friends and I sat around, doing nothing but playing with our decks, fiddling, trading, remembering old favorites [oshkoshmagic.com], checking to see about old rules, and making plans to go get our old decks from our parents houses and, more importantly, make new ones using sweet cards [starcitygames.com].

    Then I realized what I massively pathetic dork I was. Then I went to "read a book" for five pages or so in order to make myself fee
  • I just want to point out that there is a typo in the article.

    This device is called "Robosapien". It should be "Robosapiens", as the article and the summary write it, since it is based on "Homo sapiens", but alas, this is not the case.

    If I had a chance to interview the creator of the product I would have asked him about this.

    • Re:Note: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Kaptain_Korolev ( 848551 )
      Mark TIlden isn't the Roboticist he believes himself to be. His work on BEAM robotics was very very over hyped by himself. The same can be said for Robosapien (sic) which is a superb toy but not a useful robotics platform. Tilden is a superb maker of toys and cramming lots of functionality into a low price point but in terms of producing revolutionary robotics he is not up there with the likes of Rodney Brooks.

  • Broom-Bot (Score:4, Funny)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) * on Friday February 03, 2006 @07:48AM (#14633987)
    What next? Will the Pea-Bot get mated with a Roomba and do something more useful than carry around cans of beer?

    Yes, it will carry your beer and your chips to you and then it vacuums up mess you make. A drunkards dream if I ever did see one.

  • The Bride (Score:3, Funny)

    by gurutc ( 613652 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @07:53AM (#14634003)
    Will have a tweeter?
  • That's smart. Aibo [bbc.co.uk] will be jealous if it's larger than his.

  • Rubbed me the wrong way (Score:5, Insightful)

    by autophile ( 640621 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @08:26AM (#14634126)
    Maybe the guy is a supergenius and is allowed to answer like that, but his answers just rubbed me the wrong way. The interview seemed to be of the form:

    Q: Serious question?

    A: That depends on what the meaning of the word "question" is. That's the question, whether 'tis nobler... And speaking of "depends", did you know that 3% of old people in Korea wear Depends? Short, informationless answer. :(

    I was hoping for something more thoughtful and substantial rather than flippant stream-of-consciousness.

    But that's just one guy's opinion.

    --Rob
    • I had lunch with Tilden once, and he rubbed me the wrong way too. He's definitely a smart guy, but he had a lot of P.T. Barnum in him too.

      I was impressed, though, with his attitude toward tinkerers and hackers of his toys. They go out of their way to make the toys hackable and interesting to folks to want to take them apart. For example, they used much nicer motors in the bio bugs than really necessary so that hobbyists who were frustrated with the unavailability of cheap, high quality motors could buy th

    • >>I was hoping for something more thoughtful and substantial rather than flippant stream-of-consciousness.

      Mark then revealed his new project: Bongbot. A walking waterpipe that plays Pink Floyd mp3s and dispenses Hostess cupcakes. He was just finishing up an all-night testing session.
    • A good example of Patent system abuse is Mark Tilden's patent for "nervous networks". It amounted to duplicating the functionality of a washing-machine control cam using inverters in a ring with resistor-capacitor delays in between. All the values had to be hand-tweaked from what I could gather.

      He's got more than a little of the "showman" in him. His whole BEAM robotics competition encouraged kids to beef up their 'bots with lots of BS. One gimmic he used was to include the circuit from a musical gree

  • Have you guys seen the new lego Mindstorms that are supposed to come out in Fall? They have some really cool stuff on them, not the least of which is Bluetooth connectivity. Seems like some logic could be written for beer fetching ability, and just in time for football season next year.

    I also realize that many of you will say, "Are you ill? Any slashdotter worth his salt would build his own robot..." So sue me.

  • RSMedia Bot (Score:4, Funny)

    by goofyheadedpunk ( 807517 ) <goofyheadedpunk&gmail,com> on Friday February 03, 2006 @08:39AM (#14634194)
    Okay, I know I'm not the only one. How many of you read "RSMedia Bot" as RMSedia Bot" and thought, "Oh no, some crazy bastard has done it. Some crazy bastard has made the Free Software Foundation an army of RMSedia Bots to stomp out the use of proprietary software the world over. They'll be unstoppable! Wait... Oh God no! It has a subwuffer! We'll be forced to listen to the Free Software Song [gnu.org] as well? The humanity!"
  • I think the RSMediabot would sell like hotcakes if it had a less voltron-like, more humanoid body and it had a face that could look like it was singing. How sweet would it be to have a tiny Elvis that you could say "Hey Elvis, sing us a song!" and then he'd put on a show. Every once in a while, he could even say "Look how big that lamp is, man! That's hu-u-uge!"
  • Our LUG (kwlug.org) got 3 robots (the new robosapien, raptor and dog) from this guy. We all put our names in a hat and raffled them off. This was all thanks to the fact that one active member of the LUG knows the guy personally.
  • I've been an avid solarbotic fan for a year or so now. I'm kind of making a jump from software to hardware and the physical world. We should be teaching how to do electronics, play with robots, innovate with limited resources and the like in school along the lines of playing. Unfortunatly, too many standardized tests and controlled lesson plans get in the way.
  • So RSMedia is a walking, talking, reconfigurable MP3 player running a Linix kernel.

    They're talking about some "Linix" kernel. Must be good.
  • yes, all the robosapiens stuff looks so cool and serious... until you read 67 pre-programmed functions: pick-up, throw, kick, dance, kung-fu, fart, belch, rap and more; 3 demonstration modes. [64.254.158.14]; after that, it looks a bit childish
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I seen demonstrations before (and I think it still holds) that it is easier to build stable locomotion with a robot that has one leg than two. In fact two legs is the most difficult case. So from one perspective robots would be better without being humanoid, on the other hand it is the more difficult problem and could end up with much better engineering knowledge if tackled.
    • You're stating Commander Data is useless? ;-)
      Seriously, sufficently advanced robots of this form could be very practical. But probably only in a small nich market. Robobutlers for example, could benefit from human locomotion, since houses are designed to be navigated by humans.
      Humanoid robots won't be around (in the way microwave ovens are around) for a significant amount of time, since they need better artificial muscles and todays artificial muscles are too bulky (Shape memory alloys use too much power,

  • He's in *HONG KONG*?!? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Mark Tilden is wandering around in Hong Kong?!? My god, he must be giving the natives heart attacks! He's a huge man, well over six feet tall, and quite wide-shouldered: he can probably see for blocks even in huge crowds! If he made me feel small (I'm 5'9", 230 lbs), the guys in Hong Kong must really be shocked when they waaaay up at him.

    Fortunately, he's a gentle giant: he's friendly, if a bit flippant and off the wall, and he's clever and inventive as well. Buy him a drink someday if you get the chance: o

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