Posts Tagged ‘learning’
A Heated Robotic Mother Hen Improves Quail Chicks’ Spatial Learning Abilities
QuailBot has a space between its wheels where chicks can go get warm
Researchers at the University of Rennes in France built two comfy cube-shaped robotic mother hens, and introduced them to 36-hour-old Japanese quail chicks. The team took 24 chicks and divided them into groups of four. All six groups hung out with the robot for an hour a day for 10 days in a row, according to an . Three groups spent time with a mobilized version of the robot, and three groups got a stationary one. The chicks stopped interacting with the robot after the 10th day.
On the 13th day, the researchers placed the chicks back with their robots and watched what happened. The chicks with the mobile robot mother moved around a lot more, emitting more distress calls. The chicks with the immovable object mother were less active.
On the 14th day, the researchers placed the chicks facing each other, with a grid in the way. The chicks with the mobile mommy navigated around the grid more quickly than the chicks with a stationary HenBot, the researchers said. All this is to show that the chicks with a mobile robot mother had a slight advantage in spatial understanding.
But here’s the rub: This evaporated after a few days. On the 20th day, the team repeated the grid experiment, and found the chicks with the stationary robot had improved so much, there was no longer a significant difference in their behavior.
Still, it’s an interesting example of how robotic technology can impact animal development. Imagine a zoo or a rehabilitation center with some orphaned animals; if they have a movable object the birds can bond with, the birds might do a little better, this study suggests.
The other QuailBot we’ve seen was developed to monitor . It's nice to know this new QuailBot could conceivably help their offspring.
The study was published in the journal Bioinspiration and Biomimetics.
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Video: Predator Camera Studies You, Tracks You Relentlessly
The algorithm was developed by Zdenek Kalal, a PhD student at the University of Surrey in England, who we can see rolling around on his desk chair in this video demonstration of the camera’s tracking abilities. After selecting something for Predator to focus on with a bounding box, the system begins recognizing patterns, learning how that object looks at different distances and angles, and even finding it amongst a sea of similar objects. When Kalal tells Predator to track his face, it is able to pick him out of a page full of small photos of other people.
Kalal does an excellent job of explaining the potential uses for the technology, moving beyond the obvious implications for security and identifying criminals. The video demonstrates how you can use the algorithm to track animals, stabilize videos by focusing on one object, or even create a makeshift mouse as the system tracks your fingers.
[University of Surrey via Wired]
Baby Chicks Reject Escher-esque Impossible Shapes
Are baby birds' brains hard-wired for 3-D perception?
In a new study, newborn chicks were confused by an M.C Escher-style drawing of an impossible object, with the majority of the birds choosing an accurate 2-D depiction of a 3-D cube.
A group of Italian researchers kept 66 chicks in the dark for their first 24 hours of life, ensuring they had no visual stimulus, . They put them in an enclosure and showed them two drawings, one depicting a normal cube and one depicting an “impossible” Escher-esque drawing, wherein the cube’s front and back corners overlapped.
Two-thirds of the chicks went toward the normal shape, the researchers said.
“These findings suggest that the vertebrate brain can be biologically predisposed towards approaching a two-dimensional image representing a view of a structurally possible three-dimensional object,” the . Their study is reported in the early online edition of the British journal Biology Letters.
Previous studies have shown 4-month-old infants can objects. But the babies were able to see for four months before the experiment, possibly giving reality an unfair advantage over the impossible. The chick study suggests that even before a vertebrate animal sees anything, it understands the rules governing three-dimensional structures.
To follow up on their observations, perhaps the researchers should repeat the experiment using chicks gestated in a four-dimensional space. Or, even better, incubate the chicks inside the Large Hadron Collider, where they might be able to visit the other dimensions before hatching.
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Telepresence Bots Help Sick Teens Attend Class, Providing Real-Time Lessons and Adolescent Interaction
For the past three weeks, a new telepresence robot has allowed Knox City, Texas, high school freshman Lyndon Baty to interact with classmates, attend lectures and feel like a regular student. He suffers from polycystic kidney disease and had a kidney transplant at age 7. He attended school until last year, but when he started showing signs of transplant rejection, he was forced to stay home because of his suppressed immune system. He wears a surgical mask and must avoid almost all social interactions just to stay healthy.
In December, school district officials heard about the Vgo telepresence robot, a new platform released last year, and they got one for him. As long as he has Internet access, he can attend classes from anywhere — home, the hospital or any other safe spot. He started using it Jan. 18.
The Vgo, which cost the school about $5,000, stands about four feet tall and has wheels so Lyndon can drive it around his high school campus. A video monitor shows his face and speakers project his voice, so teachers and friends can see him as if he was there. Its battery lasts 8 hours.
“I never thought when I was sick that I would ever have any interaction, much less this kind. It is just like I am there in the classroom,” Lyndon said in an interview with a .
He’s not the only one benefitting from telepresence technology. A young leukemia patient in Moscow has a plastic telepresence bot in the classroom, too, which helps him participate in history, English and French lessons. Stepan Supin’s robot, also named Stepan, can broadcast his lessons to a computer in his home. A screen in front of the ‘bot allows him to participate in class, .
Telepresence robots have been extolled for their ability to help in factories, and other professional settings. But these two examples, although uncommon, showcase an even better use for the technology: Helping otherwise isolated people stay connected to others.
Providing homebound people with video feeds or teleconferencing is not the same thing, especially in school settings where locker-side conversations are as important to a student’s personal growth as the day’s algebra lesson. It would be great if telepresence robots could help more students like Stepan and Lyndon live happier, more productive lives.
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Wii-Powered Robot Chair Lets Infants Zoom Around On Their Own
"Independent mobility is crucial in the development of typical infants," says the research
At a rehabilitation conference in Las Vegas, researchers at Ithaca College described attaching a child seat to a Wii Fit balance board and mounting the whole setup on a Pioneer 3 robot. Like an infant Segway, it moves in whatever direction the baby leans, and built-in sonar helps avoid collisions.
It worked for babies aged 7 to 9 months, according to a paper on the Wii ‘bot. Babies leaned forward to grab a toy or a drink, and they wheeled forward. They also zoomed around on their own without coaxing, the paper says. Parents can assume control using a wireless joystick that acts as a master override switch.
Doctors say such a contraption could help children with spina bifida or cerebral palsy who can’t explore the world on their own. Independent movement is crucial for infant development, the Ithaca researchers say.
We say giving mobility-impaired babies a way to move around is a great idea. As an added bonus, it prepares them for a future wearing an .
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Video: Robot Arm Wants Nothing More Than To Master the Art of the Flapjack-Flip
And after 50 or so tries (and some kinesthetic training), he does
After about 50 attempts, the arm is finally able to perfect its wrist-flipping technique, so the fake metal flapjack flips and lands in the skillet. You almost want to start clapping.
The robot learned its skillet skills through kinesthetic teaching, where the user grasps and moves the robot to provide an example of how to flip a pancake. Roboticists Petar Kormushev and Sylvain Calinon from the Italian Institute of Technology helped the robot build on what they taught.
It is called , and it works by allowing the robot to reproduce the task in different configurations, so it figures out for itself what it needs to do.
For instance, the robot’s arm needs to be stiff to throw the pancake in the air and make it flip. Catching it requires the robot hand to be pliant and have “give,” so it can catch the pancake without it bouncing off.
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