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ok, this is not a question, but this article just popped up in my twitter feed, and I think many of you will find it very interesting: Looking to Build a Robot? Hiring Demand for Robotics Skills Grows 44 Percent |
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Ann: It's a pretty fuzzy line though. Nearly all machines do things that once upon a time required people to be employed. In a free economy there is no way to stop companies from finding cheaper and more efficient ways of doing things. Some of those things result in the short term loss of jobs, but some of them also result in expanding businesses which employ even more people in other ways. It's sometimes hard to predict which technological advances will have a net benefit to society. |
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Nowadays it is relatively simple to build your own robot. Here is our (me and my friends did it) solution based on Kinect camera, Intel ATOM CPU, RC battery, PWM regulators for motors, Arduino (controling motors - PWM) and HengLong tank chasis. We also build SDK platform in .NET for an easy programming... At video is just very simple program module, which heads robots to the direction in which are obstacles in the longest distance (using depth data from Kinect) - nothing hard, just for ilustrate how it works. Currently we are improving a robot and putting another sensors on it. And in a few weeks I would like to start programming much sophisticated software based on this course... If you dont spend your money for own robot, just download Microsoft Robotic studio and configure and build there your own virtual robot... |
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I have some nice arduino compatible pic32 boards with a 128k flash and 16k sram. I am not sure if I would be able to pull off particle filters with only 16k sram. I also have asus eeepc with an messed up track pad and key board. I am thinking the eeepc and for positioning using a scanning line laser and a web cam to do 3d triangulation. Probably use the eepc for the webcam and number crunching, and use a pic32 or atemga8 for motor control and general io. I think this is the next revolution for low-cost robotics: That, and the next generation of Kinect which is small enough to go in a laptop or tablet. I have been thinking I might be able pull off particle filters using the pic32. I don't to keep 1000 plus particles in memory I should be able to use a smaller number of particles and just do more sampling. I won't be able to use the web cam though I need a less processor and memory intensive sensor like sonar or an ir range finder. Fortunately those are both relatively cheap. |
Sounds good. Let's hope it's not just jobs to replace humans, but rather using the skills to be better at something that's hard for people.
well of course we want jobs to replace humans. humans are expensive and should be spending their time doing things that robots can't do yet
Yep, I thought that's what Bertrand was going on about...
http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html