Where we are all moving to

Let's Make Robots
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mor.mov (640680Bytes)

The best thing for me in a project like this LMR, is that we inspire each other, collaborative development is actually what we do - even though many of us would say that what we do is completely unique ;)

Today "a robot" is most likely not walking around but has tracks or wheels, can navigate autonomously, and that is in many instances just about that.

Of course I know that this is also highly influenced by our "start here" project.

 

Many times creative souls make something different and show the rest. Usually this is just touching the group, perhaps a few inputs are added to the common pool of ideas and knowledge - but the group continues to develop it's autonomous driveing little things.

 

However, I see a trend now, and I like it.

My personal thoughts are that the science fiction of robots wandering the streets autonomously are just a silly dream. "Robots having their own life". Why would we want robots walking around minding their own business?

What we want is extensions of our selves, tools to do stuff for us.

The smarter the tools the more they can do.

A tool that can act on it's own (being autonomous, but still remote controlled) is the ultimate tool.

 

- And so I think it is interesting to see that people in here are starting to look at making combinations of remote control and autonomous. Adding cameras and smart functions.

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My humblest opinion… You

My humblest opinion…

You don’t see too many of walking bipeds around just because they are more expensive and can’t do much things… yet.

Servos are expensive, and computer vision is still in diapers, and balancing humanoid robot is still expensive, and machine learning is still research topic… But in 10 years these problems might be solved, and in another 10 years humanoid robots (real ones, not just toys) might be in mass production, cheap and affordable for average consumer.

Keep in mind, we just switched to 64-bit world, and the memory of computer mass production is not limited to 4Gb anymore. Which expands the horizons for all kinds of machine learning algorithms (most of which tend to sonsume huge memory, which was a serios obstacle like 5 years ago.)

I totally agree with the other part of your post: we definitely want smarter tools. Ideally, we want an electronic brain being able to use our traditional tools, hammers, handsaws, cars, vacuum cleaners, etc.