Where does the word robot come from?

The Origin of Robot

The word "robot" (from robota, Czech for "work") made its public debut on this date in 1921, when it premiered on stage in Karel Capek's play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots). The play told of a world in which humans relaxed and enjoyed life while robots - imitation humans - happily did whatever labor needed to be done. Not unexpectedly, the robots eventually rebelled and took over the world. The term "robot" achieved its own world domination in 1923, when the play was translated into English; it quickly overran its competition, precursors "android" and "automaton."
Apparently from Czech robotnik (worker) or robota (work).

The term 'robot' was first used by Czech writer Karel Capek in a 1921 play called "Rossum's Universal Robots", and caught on internationally.

Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov is credited with coining the related term robotics in 1941.


Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_does_the_word_'robot'_come_from#ixzz1tHOqR75N

LEGO NXT wire pinout

This was a very helpful graphic I found a while back. It shows which pins do what on the LEGO NXT cable connections.

I also received a suggestion recommending this site: http://www.philohome.com/nxt.htm which has a lot of good information regarding NXT projects for users that want to take their NXT designs to a more advanced level. This site has good instructions and I would definitely recommend checking it out.

Embedding Base64 Images

This is a technique that I used on this blog a while back to embed some icons in a post because I didn't want them to be stored in my albums on Picasa. It worked well and I  just wanted to share how I did it. This technique allows you to embed an image in a web page without having to upload an image file.

I found a great online tool for making base64 encoded images http://www.base64-image.de/

Personally the first thing that I thought about was the pros and cons of using embedded images on my website. This is what I found out:

• Pros: 
• Quicker loading
• No file storage required
• No resource request

• Cons:
• Images can take up almost three times more storage space
• Images will not cache locally and 
• Your website can be seen as a spam site because many spam sites use base64 to force browsers to load images. (I have never run into this issue myself)

Using embedded images:

• In HTML:

<img alt="Embedded Image" src="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAiG0" />

• In CSS:

div.image{background-image:url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAiG0);}

Using embedded images:

I recently learned that it is also possible to embed fonts as base64 as well. This is remarkably easy and they can be included in css just like images and the same pros and cons apply. For converting the fonts I have been using http://base64fonts.com as my tool of choice.

• Base64 font in CSS:

@font-face{font-family:"webfont";src:url(data:font/ttf;base64,
AAEAAAANAIAAAwBQRkZUTWSFw8QAAAZ0AAAAHE9TLzIH/RRrAAABWAAAAGBjbWFwAA/zzAAAAcgAAAFMAAAABGdhc3AAAAAQG)format('TrueType');}

Happy Earth Day 2012

Happy Earth Day from Salvius!

Getting the robot ready to drive

Recently I have been working on mounting the drive motor on the left side of the robot. I got another belt for the other side and I think i'm going to have to buy another motor controller. Hopefully I can find one on eBay or something. Also, I attached a tensioner to keep the belt tight against the pulleys but after the first test I think I will also have to make some teeth to fit the rigid inside of the belt because it is slipping to much.

Motor controller, motor and fuse box mounted.

Tensioner installed on belt.

Belt-drive for wheels almost completed

Today I started working on a belt-drive system for the robot. I made my own pulleys out of wood and sized them to get maximum torque to turn the wheels. I have only finished building one side so I won't know if this setup will provide enough power to move the robot until get both sides finished.

Eight wooden circles I cut out on the band-saw to make the pulleys

The first large pulley completed with bearings

I finally got everything mounted on the robot's chassis and tested it. I'll upload a video of it working later but this was a bit scary when I tested it. Despite my high-torque setup I am still getting a tremendous amount of speed. Hopefully there will be enough power to get the robot to drive.

LED Audio Indicator

This was the LED that I added to the audio amplifier to show when the robot is speaking. This simple modification helps with human-robot interaction and potentially will allow the robot to have self-recognition.

Robot's new audio indicator LED

This LED added to the robot's head enables better interaction with humans because they can see when the robot is saying something.

This was my latest improvement with the robot. This modification was extremely easy to do because the robot's audio amplifier circuit is mounted behind the face. All I had to do was add an LED across the wires that are connected to the robot's speaker. As Salvius explains in the video the purpose of this LED is to allow people to see when the robot is saying something. I thought of this after re-watching a video I had made where the robot sang Mr. Roboto and I realized that it was extremely difficult to tell if the robot was even turned on in the video. Hopefully this will be a big improvement. It is ironic that in the past I have made sarcastic remarks about robots that use lights for mouths because I thought they were useless. Looks like I was mistaken!

Now that I have installed the LED I have thought of another purpose for it. The LED could aid in self-recognition for the robot. If I had the robot say something like "Scanning for reflection" it could use its camera to look for the specific pattern that the LED blinks when it says that phrase.

Homeostasis for robots

This is another flowchart for an idea that ties in with the one I created for allowing a robot to learn. This program provides the robot with, in a scene, a type of homeostasis; a will to preserve itself. I have gone about this in a very simple way. What this does is makes the robot keep its self in a state where particular sensor values are attained to satisfy a range of variables. If the variables are not satisfied the robot uses its artificial-intelligence to decide on the best course of action to correct the variable.

Robotic learning flowchart

This is an idea I have been working on for a while now. It involves artificial intelligence algorithms. This is the flowchart I have been working on for a program that will allow a robot to learn. This design is crude at the most and there are still some issues with it that I need to work out but this is the essential design of my program. I plan on coding this and running it on Salvius as soon as the robot has enough capacity to run autonomous programs. This program takes sensor inputs then stores and compares them with past sensor inputs and it associates them with responses that achieve a goal such as self preservation.