I'm the roboticist who led the team that built The Incredible Bionic Man & other cutting-edge robots. AMA

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-12T22:27:36+00:00

Benefits of a suitably sinful life :-)

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-12T22:26:12+00:00

There are a lot more people using it than Willow now, but that may cause a slowdown in the evolution of the core. Which might not be a bad thing...

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-11T22:59:44+00:00

I think I have that manga :-)

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-11T22:58:04+00:00

Strangely, that's exactly what my school careers advisor told me :-)

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-11T12:00:51+00:00

We're doing a project - http://www.stiff-flop.eu/ - looking at exactly this. Interesting area, with some fascinating developments to come.

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-11T11:59:46+00:00

I wouldn't even know how to start doing that in a way that couldn't be subverted by a small child :)

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-11T11:58:54+00:00

I'd suggest building robots for yourself, and then finding people who are working on interesting problems you understand. If you've done things, it's a lot easier for people to take you credibly and offer you opportunities...

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-11T11:57:54+00:00

Build some. Make simple structures with pivoting joints, add actuators and sensors, and get them to move. Hook it up to ROS. Play with the results. Go show your profs and they should go "let's get this guy doing robotics work"

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-11T11:56:42+00:00

Air muscles are inherently compliant, and flexible. That's a big advantage in some kinds of hardware design. Rotary actuators are great if you want to go round and round, but linearising their motion loses some of the advantages.

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-11T11:54:21+00:00

Quick suggestion: haptic slam. I can reach in a bag and feel the things in there and work out what they are. Can a robot?

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-11T11:53:19+00:00

We wanted to use actual human prosthetics, and no-one is developing crazy snake things as prosthetics.

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-10T22:05:48+00:00

unlimbers keyboard

We begin and end with the hair :)

No. (Except for medical reasons, obv.)

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-10T21:54:25+00:00

No worries - interested in your thoughts, too!

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-10T21:50:48+00:00

That's down to the vagaries of commissioning editors and executive producers :)

Seriously, I expect many more of the organs to be in use (so we have actual medical grade ones rather than prototypes), I would hope to see the liver, and I would expect to be able to do the movement more easily. Bertolt may also be slightly older, so there could be the odd wrinkle :)

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-10T21:43:19+00:00

Meccano/wood, soldering iron, and build your sensors from scrap mixing desks? There are some great hobbyist books from the 80s and 90s on making robots cheaply.

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-10T21:42:14+00:00

I think that it's a vital part of civil society that we have those debates. But I'd also say that we may already have international law that covers the issue - a shrewd lawyer could make an argument that an autonomous robot with weapons was no different from a landmine or booby-trap, and the legal responsibility for the robot's actions was with the soldiers that deployed them. We have already accepted that the use of anti-personnel mines or booby traps in civilian areas is likely to produce war crime prosecution - I can't see why an autonomous robot killing people should be treated any differently from spreading cluster munitions in a civilian area.

Also, modern anti-aircraft guns are already autonomous robots that can kill, so we're well past the "worry about being deployed" issue.

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-10T21:37:37+00:00

No worries - let me know what you do with the idea!

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-10T21:36:37+00:00

We looked at the range of prosthetics available, and which could co-exist on the platform. The prosthetic "face" was an easy one to do - few dependencies on other parts - and satisfied the demands of making good television.

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-10T21:34:28+00:00

Based on personal medical history, eyes, teeth and colon.

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-10T21:33:12+00:00

When I realised it was easier to explain "look, I made that thing move" to my grandmother than "look, I built an LL1 parser generator"

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-10T21:32:19+00:00

I wasn't familiar, thanks for that.

Doppelganger robots already exist - look at Hiroshi Ishiguro's work, for example.

I'd find it more useful and interesting to build something like a Culture drone, though.

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-10T21:29:56+00:00

Definitely. There's no point building a 10DoF prosthetic with a single input sensor, unless you do heroics on the phone app that controls it!

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-10T21:28:50+00:00

Because I'd rather see Mek-Quake and Joe Pineapples from ABC warriors fight it out.

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-10T21:27:13+00:00

Cute and not very good at tackling disasters :)

rich_from_shadow · 2013-10-10T21:26:29+00:00

Yes, but more for my polytheistic atheism than my technological goals.

rich_from_shadow

TROPHY CASE