Weebots: Driveable Robots For Babies Who Need Them 72
toygeek writes "Babies, as you may have noticed if you own one, like to get into all sorts of mischief, and studies show that exploring and interacting with the world is important for cognitive development. Babies who can't move around as well may not develop at the same rate as babies who can, which is why researchers from Ithaca College in New York are working on a way to fuse babies with robots to give mobility to all babies, even those with conditions that may delay independent mobility, like Down syndrome, spina bifida, or cerebral palsy."
LOL ... (Score:5, Funny)
Well, I for one welcome our new cyborg-baby overlords.
And the grow up to become... (Score:2)
fuse ? (Score:1)
fuse babies with robots ? er, ahem ?
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I stopped reading as soon as I saw the phrase "a way to fuse babies with robots". Nothing the rest of the summary or the article could say could possibly be more rad.
Coming soon... (Score:3)
Cherubs! [doomwiki.org]
Re:Coming soon... (Score:4, Funny)
For a taste of just how freaky these can be... [youtube.com]
Weebles (Score:3)
Image of one of these (Score:1)
Cyborg baby [wordpress.com].
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He sounds like a psychopath. This is the "geek positive" show people are raving about? Seriously?
Oh, and "telepresence" goes back decades, little boy. Term coined in 1980. Depicted in fiction in 1942 by Heinlein ("Waldo")
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Saw a play a few months ago called "The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow" that played with the same theme (though in this case it wasn't crippling fear of accidents, but just bog-standard agoraphobia). Interesting play, though I felt it suffered a bit from mood whiplash (there were a number of hilarious comedy scenes, and a number of soul-crushingly depressing scenes, all stuck together randomly ;)).
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Baby destroyer. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Baby destroyer. (Score:5, Funny)
Spoken like someone who doesn't have kids.
Take the word baby out of the equation.
Some asshole woke me 6 times last night screaming there head off.
My roommate is always shitting his pants and laughing at me.
Some guy just peed into my computer*.
Evil, evil, evil
Next time a parent talks about all the crap they do for their baby, try to think of it as someone else besides a baby.
*When my son was just learning how to walk, he stood up, dropped his diaper and just peed through the vent on the side of the computer, barely missing the power supply.
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The difference being that babies aren't capable (and aren't expected to be capable) of knowing better. Adults are, which makes their behavior evil even if they don't intend it to be. It's very rare (some would even argue impossible) for someone to actually intend to commit evil as such, but people can think evil actions are good (usually because of some kind of ignorance).
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H.G. Wells wrote excellently about the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_of_the_Gods_and_How_It_Came_to_Earth [wikipedia.org] (although giant sizes babies and future adults are only actors in the coming new giant sized world in the book).
They missed the most important thing (Score:3)
If the baby is really going to learn, they need something to run that robot in to. The key feature of the robot, if it an extension of the physical self, is to provide proper (not too harsh, not too soft) feedback when the baby runs into something that wants to block its attempts at doing something... like overprotective parents.
Kidding aside, the earliest learning that takes place is the simplest form of "this works, that doesn't" which is why kids spend so much time hitting things against other things just to see what happens. Recreating that experience in a mobility-limited child is not easy, but also very important.
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To be fair, some things do "magically" get out of their way like curtains, pets, most other humans, soft furniture like pillows, etc. When you are 10 months old, these are mostly indistinguishable so it's a real chore to remember what moves and what doesn't. Isn't watching babies learn just the coolest thing?
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Well, I can't say I find it very cool. But then I suppose it could be, if you put curtains, pets, other humans, soft furniture like pillows in a room... and then hid heavy objects in/behind a few of these. Yeah, that would amuse me.
Especially with one of these robot babies, given the increased mobility of some sort of motorized transport, and the decreased mental function of some sort of retardation. Watching one of those little tykes on wheels bang repeatedly head first into a metal anvil hidden inside a p
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For babies who need them (Score:2)
Am I the only one who read the title and thought "Okay, there's no need to get personal..."
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My thought was "EVERY baby needs a driveable robot!"
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No, but what got me was the first sentence, though. "Babies, as you may have noticed if you own one".
OWN ONE? I hate to break it to Toy Geek and timothy, but it's illegal to own humans these days.
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It's only a matter of time (Score:1)
Before the rest of us are using these a la Wall-E...
Computer control reduces sloshing. (Score:1)
Wee bots to help babies, nice. Can never start potty training too early.
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Can never start potty training too early.
Good luck potty training a baby who can't walk. Once they're old enough to walk, THEN they're old enough to patty train. In my kids' cases, it was about 6 months of age.
Shell People? (Score:4, Interesting)
One step closer to sentient spacecraft? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ship_Who_Sang [wikipedia.org]
Hello (Score:2)
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You don't own a baby, they own you.
Yeah, sure. Keep telling yourself that, whatever helps you sleep at night. Infant circumcision wouldn't exist if you truly thought that the babies even owned themselves... Let alone their unethical parents.
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When I read that I wondered if thinking of babies as chattels or property helps American parents rationalise their mutilation. Would circumcision would be less prevalent in the USA if parents knew that some of the doctors who cut babies are sadistic fetishists and paedophiles who get their sexual thrills from the act?
http://www.circumcisionandhiv.com/2011/04/uk-doctor-struck-off-the-medical-registry-for-taking-circumcision-fetish-too-far.html [circumcisionandhiv.com]
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While the intention of the researchers is no doubt a kind one, this is actually a terrible idea. Infants with mobility delays should be using physical therapy at every possible opportunity to overcome the mobility issues, not be given a crutch that decreases their chances and desire to move on their own. If the child ultimately proves unable to overcome the issues, then so be it. Providing a detour at such an early age is a huge disadvantage, even if it sounds noble to the layperson.
Shut the fuck up and read the article before commenting.
"It's turning out to be difficult for some babies to sit up enough to control the WeebBot by leaning, but in at least one case, a fifteen month old boy with cerebral palsy was able to learn to control a WeeBot, after which he started to develop crawling skills on his own."
As featured on the upcoming season of Dr. Who (Score:2)
Darbaby
DARBABY
DARBABY
Outrageously bad use of technology (Score:5, Interesting)
I love robots. I work in robotics. This is not an anti-robot rant. This is a rant about using technolgy inappropriately.
I know the develpers mean well, but it is clear the developers know nothing about neurology and child development. Kids with mobility problems don't need a machine that removes the need for them to develop. Kids with mobility development issues need 10X to 100X or maybe 1000X the mobility inputs. It needs to be broken down into smaller constituent components and trained intensively. Kids that can't creep, need to crawl. Kids that can't crawl, need to be patterned. Kids with mobility issues need 10X-1000X *MORE* movement inputs, not less movement input. If they can't do it themselves, then pattern them. A kid that can't creep by the normal age needs to spend nearly every waking hour crawling, wriggling, being patterned. When they can creep, they need to creep miles every day until the mid-brain comes together in good, cross-body coordinated creeping. Knee-walking needs to be eliminated so that they are forced to creep. That is the only way to fix the mid-brain injuries and other neurological injuries that these kids have. The brain grows by use. The brain shrinks by dis-use. Got that?
A robot that removes the need for them to move their legs is almost criminally stupid. It would be much better to build a robot that helps pattern the kids by putting the muscles through the correct natural movements.
This project is the poster child for why engineers need to gets their noses out of technology once in a while and understand some other part of the world's knowledge base. Anyone who knows anything about neurological development can see this is a well-meaning but naive disaster that is equivalent to injecting poison into these kids' nervous systems.
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Did you read the article? If you did you would have seen the part that says "It's turning out to be difficult for some babies to sit up enough to control the WeebBot by leaning, but in at least one case, a fifteen month old boy with cerebral palsy was able to learn to control a WeeBot, after which he started to develop crawling skills on his own."
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As a parent of a child with L4 Spina Bifida I have to agree with you.
I would MUCH rather see these guys working on neuro-spinal implants that would allow my baby girl's frayed spinal cord to be properly connected to all it's end points. Or on bio-engineering cellular lattices that would do the same thing. They should be focused on FIXING the problems, not going around them with silly solutions that cause more problems in the long run.
I want my baby to walk on her own two feet. Not be shuttled around on s
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I'd mod you up if I had points. My oldest daughter never did learn to crawl; she discovered at about two months that she could cross a room by rolling, so she rolled everywhen until she she started learning to stand, which was about the normal time. If we'd stuck her in one of these robots she may well have never learned to walk.
Future fighter pilots (Score:1)
Growth? (Score:2)
Or of how exactly fit these kinds of robot aids need to be?
I know lots of cases where parents end up never using clothing bought for their kid because the kid outgrew them.
I'm betting that these medical aids are a tad more expensive than children's clothing.
Are we supposed to rent them?
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Did you read the article? If you did you'd see that it was a standard platform that could accept any baby seat placed on top of it.
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It looks like the chair is easily replaceable. Snap off the old, put on a bigger one until they reach the point that the entire device is the chair.
3D printed magic arms (Score:3)
This cyborg baby article reminds me of another that I saw recently: a child with a muscle condition can move her arms with the help of some exoskeleton support whose parts were printed out with a 3D printer:
http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/08/3d-printed-magic-arms-give-a-little-girl-use-of-her-limbs/ [engadget.com]
Old idea... (Score:1)
Why ? (Score:2)
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That only works with legitimate disabilities.
Re:Why ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Are there still babies being born with Down syndrome and Spina Bifida ? I though tests of those (and others) were performed on all pregnant women, resulting in abortion in those cases.
There are numerous couples around the world who have tried and tried to have a baby and never succeeded. For them, when finding out that their 20-week-old fetus may have a birth defect wouldn't change their mind about keeping the baby. Also some religious folks don't like these checks, so they see it as fate that they get a baby with disabilities (and they care for and love them the same as a normal baby).
I'm guess you've never been pregnant - despite what the right-wing says, getting an abortion even if your baby has defects, is very very traumatic and really not desired for many pregenant women. The bond that develops is a tough one to break - even if you know life will be difficult for the baby.
Also, when my daughter was born, she had to be checked to see if she had spina bifuda - she didn't but we were worried for some time... medical science is not quite there yet on detection and prevention.
The best intentions (Score:2)
And thus, this well intentioned invention will lead to the future envisioned in Disney's "Wall-E".
Frankly, I've never seen a more depressing movie in my life. I hope they save these Weebots for only the kids that really need them. Anything else is a lazy, slippery slope.
Necron69
Huh? Is this only for babies?? (Score:1)
Illegal in Canada (Score:2)
As Canada is the only nation on the planet insane enough to ban walkers (with possession carrying a harsher penalty than negligent driving), these would likely fall under the ban of infant mobility devices.
omg (Score:2)
> a way to fuse babies with robots
Do not, I repeat, DO NOT put frickin' lasers on their heads!! :-o