I coach a robotics team should I ask for Tesla to send us one of their general purpose robots so we can see if it can do the task that thousands of high school students are building robots to solve?
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I coach a robotics team should I ask for Tesla to send us one of their general purpose robots so we can see if it can do the task that thousands of high school students are building robots to solve?
It involves picking up balls and putting them in a basket.
Granted the tesla robot is too large and doesn't meet competition requirements, but it ought to be able to pick up plastic balls of various colors and sort them into baskets better than any robot built by HS students, yes?
That is a "general purpose robot" ... that's the idea.
The balls aren't even hard to hold for a robotic arm like say... strawberries. You can just grab them with a wide range of forces ... no sensitivity needed.
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F myrmepropagandist shared this topic
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Granted the tesla robot is too large and doesn't meet competition requirements, but it ought to be able to pick up plastic balls of various colors and sort them into baskets better than any robot built by HS students, yes?
That is a "general purpose robot" ... that's the idea.
The balls aren't even hard to hold for a robotic arm like say... strawberries. You can just grab them with a wide range of forces ... no sensitivity needed.
@futurebird I (mom of a planetary scientist who was on their HS robotics team) would pay money to see this.
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@futurebird I (mom of a planetary scientist who was on their HS robotics team) would pay money to see this.
I am trying to be open minded. not judgmental.
I am also curious if the robot can bend over and pick up an object on the ground or nah.
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Granted the tesla robot is too large and doesn't meet competition requirements, but it ought to be able to pick up plastic balls of various colors and sort them into baskets better than any robot built by HS students, yes?
That is a "general purpose robot" ... that's the idea.
The balls aren't even hard to hold for a robotic arm like say... strawberries. You can just grab them with a wide range of forces ... no sensitivity needed.
@futurebird If you haven’t seen this article already… it really reshaped my thinking on humanoid robots as well as a lot of other “AI problems.” Need the right sensors, and the right kind of training data…
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@futurebird If you haven’t seen this article already… it really reshaped my thinking on humanoid robots as well as a lot of other “AI problems.” Need the right sensors, and the right kind of training data…
What an excellent article. It seems obvious that teleop data would be the gold standard for training if anyone is serious at all about this program of development.
A human operator with a responsive game controller can make a robot do amazing things.
I am horrified by the idea of trying to train a hand robot on videos of hands.
Even then, “robotics is hard” this isn’t going to be instant or easy!
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I am trying to be open minded. not judgmental.
I am also curious if the robot can bend over and pick up an object on the ground or nah.
@futurebird @epicdemiologist Bending over is so important! I saw an excellent talk at an HRI conference years ago on how they tried to get a PR-2 robot to operate in an office environment for a month without humans stepping in to help, and one of the things that happened was that it dropped its power cord and couldn't pick it up to plug itself in to charge. (PR-2's don't bend!)
PR2 - ROBOTS: Your Guide to the World of Robotics
The world's largest catalog of robots, drones, and self-driving cars, with thousands of photos, videos, tech specs, news, and information on how to get into robotics. Brought to you by IEEE Spectrum.
ROBOTS: Your Guide to the World of Robotics (robotsguide.com)
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@futurebird @epicdemiologist Bending over is so important! I saw an excellent talk at an HRI conference years ago on how they tried to get a PR-2 robot to operate in an office environment for a month without humans stepping in to help, and one of the things that happened was that it dropped its power cord and couldn't pick it up to plug itself in to charge. (PR-2's don't bend!)
PR2 - ROBOTS: Your Guide to the World of Robotics
The world's largest catalog of robots, drones, and self-driving cars, with thousands of photos, videos, tech specs, news, and information on how to get into robotics. Brought to you by IEEE Spectrum.
ROBOTS: Your Guide to the World of Robotics (robotsguide.com)
@robotistry @futurebird @epicdemiologist
In fairness, I am also mostly unable to bend over and pick up objects off the ground.
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@futurebird @epicdemiologist Bending over is so important! I saw an excellent talk at an HRI conference years ago on how they tried to get a PR-2 robot to operate in an office environment for a month without humans stepping in to help, and one of the things that happened was that it dropped its power cord and couldn't pick it up to plug itself in to charge. (PR-2's don't bend!)
PR2 - ROBOTS: Your Guide to the World of Robotics
The world's largest catalog of robots, drones, and self-driving cars, with thousands of photos, videos, tech specs, news, and information on how to get into robotics. Brought to you by IEEE Spectrum.
ROBOTS: Your Guide to the World of Robotics (robotsguide.com)
Am I just showing my age because I like these “general purpose” robots better?
They just seem like robots I could program, they are clearly based on “the human form” but take advantage of “better ways to move” when we are talking about motors and metal rather than muscles and bones.
And I’m impressed with the accomplishments. This is what I thought we were doing.
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@robotistry @futurebird @epicdemiologist
In fairness, I am also mostly unable to bend over and pick up objects off the ground.
@venya @robotistry @epicdemiologist
Sadly then u shall be “deprecated”
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Am I just showing my age because I like these “general purpose” robots better?
They just seem like robots I could program, they are clearly based on “the human form” but take advantage of “better ways to move” when we are talking about motors and metal rather than muscles and bones.
And I’m impressed with the accomplishments. This is what I thought we were doing.
When it comes to robots like this there is a lot of work to be done on how they break and fail and how to make servicing the robot easy enough for life outside of a lab with experts.
Hopefully it won’t all be “the lubricants in servo 48 are dried out please take it to the genius bar/ tesla dealership” for every little snag in operation.
This could all be very exciting— if the will exists to really make it happen.
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I coach a robotics team should I ask for Tesla to send us one of their general purpose robots so we can see if it can do the task that thousands of high school students are building robots to solve?
It involves picking up balls and putting them in a basket.
@futurebird in a career of boosting hokey tech, Muskbots are surely the hokiest.
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@futurebird in a career of boosting hokey tech, Muskbots are surely the hokiest.
They look so unstable and uncanny it gives me anxiety.
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Am I just showing my age because I like these “general purpose” robots better?
They just seem like robots I could program, they are clearly based on “the human form” but take advantage of “better ways to move” when we are talking about motors and metal rather than muscles and bones.
And I’m impressed with the accomplishments. This is what I thought we were doing.
@futurebird @epicdemiologist Nope, not an age thing. There have always been "we should build general purpose humanoids" and "we should build form-follows-function specialists" camps. The C3-P0 and R2-D2 camps, if you will.
There are solid use cases for humanoid robots (C3-P0 is humanoid in part because his primary function is both social and political), but they are much narrower than they appear because the robots themselves are much more behaviorally fragile than humans.
I would like a humanoid in-home care robot, but it will take many orders of magnitude more work and investment to make something useful compared to a 70% solution like the Labrador: https://labradorsystems.com
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When it comes to robots like this there is a lot of work to be done on how they break and fail and how to make servicing the robot easy enough for life outside of a lab with experts.
Hopefully it won’t all be “the lubricants in servo 48 are dried out please take it to the genius bar/ tesla dealership” for every little snag in operation.
This could all be very exciting— if the will exists to really make it happen.
@futurebird @epicdemiologist So. Much. Work.
It's not even "lubricants in servo 48".
It's "why is my robot suddenly failing a little after 3pm every day?" (where reasons might include "you started opening the curtains to see if your kid was almost home yet" to "daylight savings time started" to "your neighbor cut down their tree and the light in your living room has changed" to "your wifi password changed and it can't back itself up").
It's "how do I know the robot that I have been adding random apps to for four years will be safe around my new baby".
It's "I added an app to the robot because my PT said it would let it help me with my exercises and now it can't load the dishwasher anymore".
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Am I just showing my age because I like these “general purpose” robots better?
They just seem like robots I could program, they are clearly based on “the human form” but take advantage of “better ways to move” when we are talking about motors and metal rather than muscles and bones.
And I’m impressed with the accomplishments. This is what I thought we were doing.
@futurebird @robotistry @epicdemiologist This particular guy looks unthreatening as well; no uncanny valley syndrome, and doesn't look like it's actually designed to be a weapons platform ( ala those dog things ).
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@futurebird @robotistry @epicdemiologist This particular guy looks unthreatening as well; no uncanny valley syndrome, and doesn't look like it's actually designed to be a weapons platform ( ala those dog things ).
@toerror @futurebird @epicdemiologist The most intimidating robot I've met was a four-wheeled robot that could move on two or four wheels. Like the one linked below, but bigger, heavier, blacker/less red, and taller than me. When it was in two-wheel mode, I always felt like it was going to run right over me.
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@toerror @futurebird @epicdemiologist The most intimidating robot I've met was a four-wheeled robot that could move on two or four wheels. Like the one linked below, but bigger, heavier, blacker/less red, and taller than me. When it was in two-wheel mode, I always felt like it was going to run right over me.
@robotistry @toerror @epicdemiologist
It’s an intrinsically mischievous form factor.
When it stood up I wanted to say “cut that out right now”
same thing with the prancing.
