Sure the average video gamer is 34 years old, but the most active group is boys under 18, a group famously resistant to reading. Here is the RTSF Top 10 recommendations of books that have robots plus enough world building to rival Halo or Doom and lots of action or puzzles to solve. What’s even cooler is that you can cleverly use the “Topics” links to work in some STEM talking points by asking things like: do you think it would be easy reprogram cars to hit pedestrians instead of avoiding them? How would you fool a security drone? or Do you think robots should have the same rights as animals? But you may want to read them too, the first six on the list are books that I routinely recommend to general audiences and people tell me how much they loved them.

Head On – The rugby-like game in the book, Hilketa, played with real robots, is the best multiplayer game that never was. And paralyzed people have an advantage! (FYI: a PG-13 discussion of tele-sex through robots). Good for teachable moments about teleoperation.

Robopocalypse– Loved World War Z and read the book? They’ll love this more and it’s largely accurate about robots. Good for teachable moments about robot autonomy.

The Murderbot Diaries (series)- Delightfully snarky point of view of a security robot trying to save clueless scientists from Aliens-like corpos and creatures. Good for teachable moments about software engineering and whether intelligence systems would need a governor to keep them in line.

The Electric State– This is sort of a graphic novel the way Hannah Gadsby is sort of a comedian- it transcends the genre. Neither the full page illustrations nor the accompanying text tell the whole story of the angry teenage girl and her robot trying to outrun the end of the world. Like an escape room, you have to put the text and images together to figure out what is going on. Good for teachable moments about autonomy.

Tales from the Loop– the graphic novels, two in the series, are different from the emo Amazon streaming series. The books are much more suited to a teenage audience who love world building and surprising twists. Good for teachable moments about bounded rationality.

Kill Decision– Scarily realistic description of killer drones, with cool Spec Ops guy who has two ravens with call out to Norse mythology. Good for teachable moments about swarms (aka multi-robot systems).

Robots of Gotham– It’s sort of Game Lit without being based on a video game. Excellent discussion of how computer vision/machine learning works. Good for teachable moments about computer vision and machine learning.

The Andromeda Evolution– Helps if they’ve seen or read the original Andromeda Strain movie, but it can be read as a stand-alone. This commissioned sequel is a worthy addition. Good for teachable moments about drones and teleoperation.

Machinehood – A pro-Robots Rights group is terrorizing the world, nice discussion of ethics amid a lot of action- no boring lectures. Good for teachable moments about robot ethics.

The Themis Files– A earnest girl finds an alien Pacific Rim robot and learns to use it to fight evil giant piloted mecha invaders while shadowy quasi-governmental figures try to uncover its origins. Good for teachable moments about exoskeletons.

Here are the slides I gave recently as member of panel Sci-Fi Dreams: How visions of the future are shaping the development of intelligent technology, at the Centre for the Future of Intelligence 2017 conference. I presented three short stories about robot stories.

Slide 2:

The FP7 TRUCE Project invited a number of scientists – mostly within the field of Artificial Life – to suggest ideas for short stories. Those stories were then sent to a panel of writers, who chose one of the stories. I submitted an idea called The feeling of what it is like to be a robot and was delighted when Lucy Caldwell contacted me. Following a visit to the lab Lucy drafted a beautiful story called The Familiar which – following some iteration – appeared in the collected volume Beta Life.

Slide 3:

More recently the EU Human Brain Project Foresight Lab brought three Sci Fi writers – Allen Ashley, Jule Owen and Stephen Oram – to visit the lab. Inspired by what they saw they then wrote three wonderful short stories, which were read at the 2016 Bristol Literature Festival. The readings were followed by a panel discussion which included myself and BRL colleagues Antonia Tzemanaki and Marta Palau Franco. The three stories are published in the volume Versions of the Future. Stephen Oram went on to publish a collection called Eating Robots.

Slide 4:

My first two stories were about people telling stories about robots. Now I turn to the possibility of robots themselves telling stories. Some years ago I speculated on the idea on the idea of robots telling each other stories (directly inspired by a conversation with Richard Gregory). That idea has now turned into a current project, with the aim of building an embodied computational model of storytelling. For a full description see this paper, currently in press.

Happy International World Book and Copyright Day! It’s a celebration of authors, illustrators, books and reading, held annually on 23 April—a symbolic date coinciding with the anniversary of the deaths of William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes. By celebrating, UNESCO seeks to promote reading, publishing and the protection of copyright, and will be hosting a series and events and conferences over the coming days.

Here at Robohub, we’re celebrating by sharing our list of 20 robot related books (in no particular order) aimed at engaging kids and/or teens with everything robotics. Ranging from funny fictional narratives to DIY drone building and coding, these books are sure to stoke the imaginations of budding innovators and creators.

If you can think of any other books that deserve inclusion, we’d love to hear about them!

Robot Building for Teens (2014), by Behnam Salemi.

Robot Building for Teens will teach you how to get started in this fascinating hobby. The projects in this book include the “Digital Brain Robot,” the “Bug Bot,” and even a robot on wheels! You will learn how to design your robot, how to create a prototype, where to buy parts, how to program your finished robot to perform tasks, and more. You’ll be led step-by-step through the projects in the book. Along the way, you’ll learn about advanced robotic systems that use the same principles you’re learning, and you’ll get a glimpse into the future of robotics. This book’s companion website includes software program files, parts lists for each project, and links to online parts suppliers. Robot Building for Teens is a fun, easy-to-understand, hands-on guide that will have you building your own robots in no time.

The Wild Robot (2016), by Peter Brown.

When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is alone on a remote, wild island. She has no idea how she got there or what her purpose is–but she knows she needs to survive. After battling a fierce storm and escaping a vicious bear attack, she realizes that her only hope for survival is to adapt to her surroundings and learn from the island’s unwelcoming animal inhabitants. As Roz slowly befriends the animals, the island starts to feel like home–until, one day, the robot’s mysterious past comes back to haunt her.

From bestselling and award-winning author and illustrator Peter Brown comes a heartwarming and action-packed novel about what happens when nature and technology collide.

Cinder (2012), by Marissa Meyer.

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

Robots in Space (2015), by Jenny Fretland VanVoorst.

In Robots in Space, early fluent readers learn about the many ways robots have expand what’s possible in the field of space exploration. Vibrant, full-color photos and carefully leveled text will engage young readers as they learn about the fascinating world of robots.

Medical Robots (2016), by Daniel Faust.

Can robots save lives? Medical robots save lives every day, and theyre sure to save more as their technology advances. This book describes the amazing work done by medical robots, from surgical robots to nano-robots. Readers will learn about the medical breakthroughs performed by robots, the latest models, and the future of robots in medicine. Accessible descriptions of how medical robots work will engage readers and give them a deep understanding of this burgeoning technology. Color photographs of each robot are provided to give readers an inside look into the operating room and beyond.

How to Build Robots (2017), by Louise Derrington.

How to Build Robots instructs readers on how to make useable robots, including one that will scrub a table! Featuring easy-to-follow instructions, vivid photographs, easily accessible materials, and a handy template, readers will delight in watching their creations come to life!

So, You Want to Be a Coder? (2016), by Jane Bedell.

Covering everything from navigating the maze of computer languages to writing code for games to cyber security and artificial intelligence, So, You Want to Be a Coder? debugs the secrets behind a career in the diverse and state-of-the-art industry.

In addition to tips and interviews from industry professionals, So, You Want to Be a Coder? includes inspiring stories from kids who are working with code right now, plus activities, a glossary, and helpful resources to put you on the path to a fun and rewarding career with computer code today!

The Robot Book: Build & Control 20 Electric Gizmos, Moving Machines, and Hacked Toys (2014), by Bobby Mercer.

Author and physics teacher Bobby Mercer will show you how to turn common household objects and repurposed materials into 20 easy-to-build robots for little or no cost. Turn a toothbrush, an old cell phone or pager, and scrap wire into a Brush Bot, or hack a toy car to hotwire a Not-So-Remote Bot. A small electric fan, several craft sticks, and rubber bands make a Fan-Tastic Dancing Machine, and drinking straws, string, tape, and glue can be used to construct a working model of the human hand.

Every hands-on project contains a materials list and detailed step-by-step instructions with photos for easy assembly. Mercer also explains the science and technology behind each robot, including concepts such as friction, weight and mass, center of gravity, kinetic and potential energy, electric circuitry, DC vs. AC current, and more. These projects are also perfect for science fairs or design competitions.

If You’re a Robot and You Know It (2015), by Musical Robot.

It’s the classic version of If You’re Happy and You Know It as you’ve never seen (or heard!) it before. Sing along to the free downloadable song by the dynamic Musical Robot team, then turn the pages as David Carter’s clever pop-ups show the robot characters going through all of the call-out movements, from clapping hands to shooting laser beams out of your eyes!

Making Simple Robots: Exploring Cutting-Edge Robotics with Everyday Stuff (2015), by Kathy Ceceri.

Written in language that non-engineers can understand, Making Simple Robots helps beginners move beyond basic craft skills and materials to the latest products and tools being used by artists and inventors. Find out how to animate folded paper origami, design a versatile robot wheel-leg for 3D printing, or program a rag doll to blink its cyborg eye. Each project includes step-by-step directions as well as clear diagrams and photographs. And every chapter offers suggestions for modifying and expanding the projects, so that you can return to the projects again and again as your skill set grows.

Everything Robotics: All the Photos, Facts, and Fun to Make You Race for Robots (2016), by Jennifer Swanson.

They fix spacecraft, dance, tell jokes, and even clean your carpet! From the tiniest robo-bees to gigantic factory machines, robotics is all around you. This technology isn’t just for science-fiction anymore — it’s real and more relevant than ever. With stunning visuals and energetic, impactful design, readers won’t stop until they’ve learned everything there is to know about robotics.

Robo-Sauce (2016), by Adam Rubin.

Robots never have to eat steamed beans or take baths, or go to bed. If only there were some sort of magical “Robo-Sauce” that turned squishy little humans into giant awesome robots… Well, now there is. Giggle at the irreverent humor, gasp at the ingenious fold-out surprise ending, and gather the whole family to enjoy a unique story about the power of imagination. It’s picture book technology the likes of which humanity has never seen!

Getting Started with Drones: Build and Customize Your Own Quadcopter (2016), by Terry Kilby and Belinda Kilby.

Want to make something that can fly? How about a flying robot? In this book, you’ll learn how drones work, how to solve some of the engineering challenges a drone presents, and how to build your own–an autonomous quadcopter that you can build, customize, and fly. Your drone will be your eyes in the sky and in places where a human could never get to-much less fit!

Boy and Bot (2012), by Ame Dyckman and Dan Yaccarino.

One day, a boy and a robot meet in the woods. They play. They have fun. But when Bot gets switched off, Boy thinks he’s sick. The usual remedies—applesauce, reading a story—don’t help, so Boy tucks the sick Bot in, then falls asleep.

Bot is worried when he powers on and finds his friend powered off. He takes Boy home with him and tries all his remedies: oil, reading an instruction manual. Nothing revives the malfunctioning Boy! Can the Inventor help fix him? Using the perfect blend of sweetness and humor, this story of an adorable duo will win the hearts of the very youngest readers.

Popular Mechanics Robots: A New Age of Bionics, Drones & Artificial Intelligence (2015), by Popular Mechanics and Daniel H. Wilson.

Thanks to film and literature, the idea of robots and artificial intelligence has long intrigued us. The fascination continues with Popular MechanicsRobots, which gathers the very best of the magazine’s fantastic robotic coverage and examines the way we live with these machines today—and how we will continue to exist with other advanced technologies in the future. Readers can now discover all varieties of robot, including ones that recognize our faces, gestures, and emotions; drive our cars; serve as highly intelligent personal assistants and medical diagnosticians; go into space; and even become embedded in our architecture and homes. Although robots can inspire both fear and wonder, author David H. Wilson shows how they’re an integral part of a wonderful new world.

DIY Drones for the Evil Genius: Design, Build, and Customize Your Own Drones (2016), by  Ian Cinnamon, Romi Kadri and Fitz Tepper.

This fun guide shows, step-by-step, how to construct powerful drones from inexpensive parts, add personalized features, and become a full-fledged pilot. DIY Drones for the Evil Genius: Design, Build, and Customize Your Own Drones not only covers safety, mechanics, drone design, and assembly, but also teaches the basics of Aerospace Engineering. You will discover how to add video transmitters, GPS, first-person view, and virtual reality goggles to your creations. The book walks you through the FAA licensing process and takes a look at advanced concepts, such as artificial intelligence and autonomous flight.

DK Workbooks: Coding with Scratch Workbook (2015), by DK.

Perfect for beginner coders ages 6–9, this highly visual workbook builds basic programming skills using Scratch, a free computer coding programming language, and will take kids from browsing to building. DK Workbooks: Coding with Scratch Workbook explains how computer coding works and teaches kids how to complete simple coding actions with clear, step-by-step instructions and fun pixel art. From conditionals to math equations to animating characters who walk, talk, and dance, young coders will put all these pieces together at the end of the lesson to create a simple “dodge the dragon” game

Sometimes I Forget You’re a Robot (2013) by Sam Brown.

For a little boy who’s always dreamed of having his own robot, actually getting one isn’t what he expected at all. The robot can’t fly, or swim, or even talk. All he does is beep beep beep like a toy. But his robot does have some hidden talents—and one of them is being a great friend. In this unexpectedly poignant story about adjusting expectations, Sam Brown shows that while no one is perfect, a good friend sure comes close.

New Hands, New Life: Robots, Prostheses and Innovation (2017), by  Jan Andrysek and Alex Mihailidis.

Available for pre-order, New Hands, New Life offers young readers the opportunity to learn how our bodies work during physical activity and what happens when they don’t work properly. It shows how exciting advances in technology and science have allowed us to create assistive technologies — from artificial limbs and wheelchairs to exoskeletons and robots — that make it possible for someone with a disability to make new abilities. Assistive technologies are especially life-changing for a child who can overcome the challenges of a missing limb or reduced motor function to enjoy a life of learning and play that would be otherwise out of reach.

Soft Robots: Paper, Silicone, Cloth, and Rubber Bots for All Ages (2017), by Matthew Borgatti.

Popularized by Baymax in the hit movie Big Hero 6, soft robotics is a big, fun field. More than just cloth or silicone robots, soft robotics is all about getting motion out of soft things–paper, silicone, cloth, springs, rubber hoses–all these and more can be combined in different ways to come up with comfortable, friendly, and familiar-feeling solutions to interesting problems. And they can be fun to play with, too. This book is about taking different materials, combining them, and remixing them with 3d printing, laser cutting, mold making, casting, and sewing to create soft robots. You can pre-order your copy now.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• 25 holiday gift ideas for RoboGeeks (2014)
• Reading for robot fans: 24 books to inspire, educate and provoke
• 20 great books to hook kids and teens on robotics
• Still looking for last-minute holiday gifts? 15 ideas for robot fans (2013)
• 8 Robotic Gifts for the 2013 Holiday Season

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

A new book by Lentin Joseph, ROS Robotics Programming, outlines more than 14 robotics projects using ROS that can be engaged with without requiring a lot of hardware. The book starts with an introduction to ROS and its installation procedure. After discussing the basics, you’ll be taken through great projects such as building a self-driving car, an autonomous mobile robot, and image recognition using deep learning and ROS. You can find ROS robotic applications for beginner, intermediate, and expert levels inside.

This book is unique in that it focuses on ROS via the lens of robotics projects only. Lentin is the CEO/Founder of Qbotics Labs and the author of Learning Robotics using Python and Mastering ROS for Robotics Programming.

Below is an overview of the chapters in the book:

Chapter 1, Getting Started with ROS Robotics Application Development, is for absolute beginners to ROS. No need to worry if you don’t have experience in ROS; this chapter will help you give you an idea of the ROS software framework and its concepts.

Chapter 2, Face Detection and Tracking Using ROS, OpenCV and Dynamixel Servos, takes you through a cool project that you can do with ROS and the OpenCV library. This project basically creates a face tracker application in which your face will be tracked in such a way that the camera will always train on your face. We will use intelligent servos such as Dynamixel to rotate the robot on its axis.

Chapter 3, Building a Siri-Like Chatbot in ROS, is for those of you who want to make your robot interactive and intelligent without much hassle. This project creates a chatterbot in ROS that you can communicate with using text or speech. This project will be useful if you’re going to create social or service robots.

Chapter 4, Controlling Embedded Boards Using ROS, helps you build a robot using Arduino, an embedded compatible board, Raspberry Pi, or Odroid and an interface to ROS. In this chapter, you will see a wide variety of embedded boards and the interfacing projects made with them.

Chapter 5, Teleoperate a Robot Using Hand Gestures, will teach you how to build a gesture control device using Arduino and IMU. The gestures are translated into motion commands by ROS nodes.

Chapter 6, Object Detection and Recognition, has an interesting project for detecting objects. You will learn both 2D and 3D object recognition using powerful ROS packages.

Chapter 7, Deep Learning Using ROS and TensorFlow, is a project made using a trending technology in robotics. Using the TensorFlow library and ROS, we can implement interesting deep-learning applications. You can implement image recognition using deep learning, and an application using SVM can be found in this chapter.

Chapter 8, ROS on MATLAB and Android, is intended for building robot applications using ROS, Matlab, and Android.

Chapter 9, Building an Autonomous Mobile Robot, is about creating an autonomous mobile robot with the help of ROS. You can see how to use packages such as navigation, gmapping, and AMCL to make a mobile robot autonomous.

Chapter 10, Creating a Self-driving Car Using ROS, is one of the more interesting projects in this book. In this chapter, we will build a simulation of the self-driving car using ROS and Gazebo.

Chapter 11, Teleoperating Robot Using VR Headset and Leap Motion, shows you how to control a robot’s actions using a VR headset and Leap Motion sensor. You can play around with virtual reality (a trending technology these days).

Chapter 12, Controlling Your Robots over the Web, we will see how to build interactive web applications using rosbridge in ROS.

The book uses ROS Kinetic and Indigo installed on latest Ubuntu L.T.S 16.04.01. The codes are also compatible with ROS Jade.

A basic knowledge in R.O.S, GNU/Linux, and C++ programming concepts is recommended.

The book is published by PACKT and can be purchased at Amazon Global and PACKT Publishing.

Code review of a C++ program with an error found.

I have been part of many software teams where we desired to do code reviews. In most of those cases the code reviews did not take place, or were pointless and a waste of time. So the question is: how do you effectively conduct peer reviews in order to improve the quality of your systems?

I found this book, Peer Reviews in Software: A Practical Guide by Karl E. Wiegers. This book was recommended to me, and having “practical guide” in the title caught my attention —  I have reviewed other books that claimed practical, but were not. Hopefully this book will help provide me (and you) with tools for conducting valuable code reviews.

Peer Reviews in Software: A Practical Guide. Photo: Amazon

As a human, I will make mistakes when programming; finding my mistakes is often difficult since I am very close to my work. How many times have you spent hours trying to find a bug in your code only to realize you had a bad semi-colon or parentheses? Another person who has not worked on the code for hours might have been able to spot the problem right away. When I first started programming it could be embarrassing to have somebody review my code and point out the problems. However now that I am more senior, I do not view it as an embarrassment, but as a learning opportunity since everybody has a different set of experiences that influences their code. I would encourage other developers to view it as a learning experience and not be bashful about reviews. Remember the person is critiquing the work, not you; this is how to become a better developer.

According to Wiegers, there are many types of peer reviews including: inspections, team reviews, walkthroughs, pair programming, peer desk check passaround, and finally ad hoc review.

This book is divided into three sections:

1. Cultural & social aspects
2. Different types of reviews (with a strong focus on inspection)
3. How to implement review process within your projects

Cultural & Social Aspects

In this first section of the book, the author makes the argument that quality work is not free and that “paying” the extra cost of peer reviews is a good investment in the future. By having peer review you can reduce failures before the product is released out into the world and any applicable reworks. Shifting the defect detection to the early stages of a product has huge potential payoff, due to high costs of fixing defects found late in the release cycle, or after release. The space shuttle program found the relative cost for fixing a defect is: $1, if found during initial inspection; $13, if found during a system test; and $92, to fix after delivery! In the book, the author documents various companies who saved substantial amounts of time and money all by having code inspection programs.

One thing I like is the reference to IEEE 1999, which talks about other items that are good to review. People don’t think about it but other things, such as marketing brochures, requirement specifications, user guides, test plans and many other things, are good candidates for peer review.

I have seen many project teams try to do error tracking and/or code reviews but fail, due to team culture. I saw one case where peer review actually worked: when a dedicated person’s only job was to manage reliability in the project. He was great at hounding people to track bugs and review code. This book discussed how team culture must be developed to value “quality”. If you are the type of person that does not want to waste time reviewing another’s code, you must remember you will want the other person to “waste” time looking at your code. In this manner, we must all learn to scratch each other’s back. There are also two traps to watch out for:

1. Becoming lazy and submitting bad code for review since somebody else will find/fix it, or
2. Trying to perfect your code before sharing it, in order to protect your ego from getting bruised, and to only show your best work.

We also cannot forget managers. Managers need to value quality and provide time and resources for employees to develop good practices. Managers need to understand the point of these exercises are to find flaws and people should not be punished based on those flaws. I have often seen managers not putting time in the schedule for good code reviews.

Types of reviews

Before discussing the types of reviews there is a good discussion on the guiding principles for reviews. Some of the principles are:

• Check your egos at the door
• Keep the review team small
• Find problems during review, but don’t try to fix them at the review. Give up to 1 minute for discussion of fixes.
• Limit review meeting to 2 hours max
• Require advanced preparation

There are several types of peer reviews discussed in this book. This list starts with the least formal approach and develops until the most formal approach (the book uses the opposite order which I found non intuitive).

1. Ad Hoc – These are the spur of the moment meetings where you call a coworker to your desk to help with a small problem. Usually, this just solves an immediate problem. (This is super useful when trying to work out various coordinate transforms)
2. Peer passaround/deskcheck, – In this approach a copy of the work is sent to multiple reviewers, after which you can then collate all of the reviews. This allows multiple people to look at the code/item and also lets you get something if one person does not respond. In the peer deskcheck version, only one person looks at it instead of passing it around for multiple reviews.
3. Pair Programming – This is the idea that two people program together. So while there is no official review two sets of eyes see each line of code being typed. This has an added bonus that now two people will understand the code. The downside is that often one of the coders can “doze-off” and not be effective at watching for flaws. Also, many coders might not like this.
4. Walkthrough – This is where the author of the code walks through the code to a group of reviewers. This is often unstructured and heavily dependent on how good of a job the author prepared. In my experience this is good for helping people understand the code and finding large logic flaws, but not so much for finding smalls flaws/bugs.
5. Team Review – This is similar to the walkthrough however reviewers are provided with documentation/code in advance to review and their results are collated.
6. Inspection – Finally, we have the most formal approach which the author appears to favor. In this approach the author of the code does not lead the review, rather, a moderator, often with the help of checklists, will lead the meeting and read out the various sections. After the moderator reads a section, the reviewers discuss it. The author of the code can answer questions and learn how to improve various sections. Often the author might identify other instances of the same problem that the reviewers did not point out. An issue log should be maintained as a formal way of providing feedback and a list to verify fixes against.

Suggested review methods from “Peer Reviews in Software”

The book then spends the next few chapters detailing the inspection method of peer review. Here are just a few notes. As always, read the book to find out more.

• In most situation 3-7 is a good size group for the inspection. The number of people can be based on the item being reviewed.
• The review needs to be planned in advance and have time to prepare content to distribute to reviewers.
• After the meeting the author should address each item in the issue log that was created and submit it to the moderator (or other such person) to verify that the solutions are good.
• Perform an inspection when that module is ready to pass to the next development stage. Waiting too long can leave a person with a lot of bad code that is now too hard to fix.
• You can (sort of) measure the ROI by looking at the bugs found and how long they took to find. There are many other metrics detailed in the book.
• Keep spelling and grammar mistakes on a separate paper and not on the main issue list.

How to implement review processes within your projects

Getting a software team and management to change can be difficult. The last part of this book is dedicated to how you can get reviews started, and how to let them naturally grow within the company. One significant thing identified is to have a key senior person act as a coordinator for building a culture of peer review and to provide training to developers. There is a nice long table in the book of the various pitfalls that an organization may encounter and how to deal with them.

This book also discusses special challenges and how it can affect your review process. Some of the situations addressed are:

• Large work products
• Geographic or time separation
• Distributed reviewers
• Asynchronous review
• Generated and non-procedural code
• To many participants
• No qualified reviewers available

At the end of this book, there is a link to supplemental material online. I was excited to see this. However when I went to the site, I saw it was all for sale and not free (most things were around $5). That kind of burst my bubble of excitement for the supplemental material. There is a second website for the book that is referenced but does not seem to be valid anymore.

Throughout the book the idea is getting proper training for people on how to conduct inspection reviews. Towards the end of the book, the idea of hiring the book’s author as a trainer to help with this training is suggested.

Overall, I think this is a good book. It introduces people on how to do software reviews. The use of graphics and tables in the book are pretty good. It is practical and easy to read. I also like how this book addresses management and makes the business case for peer reviews. I give this book 4.5 out of 5 stars. The missing 0.5 stars is due to the supplemental material not being free and for not providing those forms with the book.

Disclaimer: I do not know the book author. I purchased this book myself from Amazon.

The book starts with an introduction to ROS. The introduction does a good job describing the basic ROS constructs such as the directory structure, nodes, services, etc. and goes into detail to describe those constructs. The book continuous to show how to create ROS packages, add custom messages (topics), and creating launch files. The first chapter has everything you need to get a basic ROS system up and running. One thing missing is how to have your launch file start on computer boot up (using the “ROS way” as opposed to just adding it to rclocal).

The book can use more information on using the catkin build system and CMake. I am not sure if that is fair to expect in this book, but it is an essential skill to develop with ROS, and is not listed as a skill that people using this book are expected to have.

ROS only supports versions of Ubuntu that are around when that version of ROS was released. In general, ROS is not upgraded when a new version of Ubuntu is released (this is one of the things that I dislike about ROS). To deal with this, the examples in the book are given for both ROS Indigo (the prior version) and ROS Jade (the current version). Good job to the author for that!

After you are given the basics of ROS, the rest of the book is roughly split into three sections: ‘Modeling, Simulating & Autonomy’, ‘Working with Hardware’, and an example.

For Modeling, Simulating & Autonomy, the book starts with a chapter on how to model your robot with URDF. Afterwards you use the model created to simulate it using Gazebo and learn how to add planning and autonomy to arms and mobile robots. There is an extra chapter dealing with advanced usage of MoveIt for robotic arms, I would have liked to see an advanced chapter for the Navigation Stack. I also would have liked more information on using the transforms within the Navigation Stack. With that said, I am happy the book addresses these items as many other authors do not.

After getting the high-level tour of ROS and making an autonomous robot with existing nodes, the book steps back to teach the reader how to build controllers, work with hardware, (controllers, motors, sensors, cameras, etc.) and visualizations. The book has many examples of working with specific hardware items such as Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Kinect, webcams, Hokuyo, & the Velodyne. Adding a joystick to that list might have been nice. Working with OpenCV and PCL within ROS has a dedicated chapter.

At first I was skeptical of having an example section since I have seen many books do this poorly, however, this book does a good job describing in detail how to configure an example robot without making you feel like they are just regurgitating what they built. It also has more details about the Navigation Stack, which partially makes up for not having an advanced chapter on it.

The best practices section at the end of the book could have had more ROS specific practices, instead of just generic C++ practices. I like the fact that the book uses c++ as that is how most robots are built. It would have been nice to have a chapter with basic discussions on python and java usage. The author briefly mentions setting up ROS on distributed systems, this could be expanded a little (such as in the roswtf section for looking at timing).

Overall, I give this book 4.5 out of 5 stars. By going into detail for both robotic arms and mobile robots, this book is sure to help both a novice or experienced programmer enter the world of ROS and get their robots up and moving.

Note: The paperback book has black and white images. I think the e-book has color images.

I would like to thank the Publisher PACKT for providing me with a copy of this book for review.

Some words of disclaimer:
I have never met the author of this book and the opinions above are mine.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like:

• Book Review: Practical Field Robotics, by Robert Sturges
• Book Review: Implementation of Robot Systems, by Mike Wilson

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

John Markoff filing story from airport. Image credit: Joi via Wikimedia Commons

If you are working in the field of robotics or AI, you may be used to fielding calls from journalists wanting to better understand the technology. But not all journalists are created equal. Pulitzer-Prize-winning John Markoff (@markoff) has been covering the technology beat at the New York Times for almost three decades, and recently published Machines of Loving Grace – a book that chronicles the evolution of computer science, robotics and AI. In this interview we turn the lens around and ask Markoff about what motivates his interest to report on robotics, and how he sees trends in robotics today being informed by people and events from the past.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

[HS] Can you tell us about your early days writing about the fields of AI and robotics?

[JM] I began writing about Silicon Valley in 1977 and spent most of my time writing about personal computing and the Internet. In the ‘80s there was a lot of controversy around the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and many computer scientists and AI researchers were opposed to it – it was the first big AI issue in the news. Then in 2004 there was the DARPA autonomous vehicle challenge, and I began covering those events.

Engelbart’s prototype of a computer mouse, as designed by Bill English from Engelbart’s sketches. Image: Wikipedia via Macworld

It wasn’t until a bit later that I really made AI and Robotics my first interest, though. I’d covered computer security for the New York Times forever, but I began feeling that I’d written the same story just too many times. I needed to do something different, and it seemed like AI and robotics were making more progress.

I’ve always loved the social history of the Valley, and trying to understand how things are connected there. Often technologies will bubble around for decades before they actually gain broad consumer acceptance. Look at the mouse, for example. Engelbart invented it in ’64 but it really didn’t become a mass consumer product until Microsoft Windows and Mac adopted it 20 years later. I’m interested in what causes things to gain acceptance even though there were people who believed in them for years beforehand.

There are other examples … In 2010, the historian David Brock came across a 1951 memo written by William Shockley describing an “Automatic Trainable Robot”. Shockley had always been known for his work on transistors, but what the memo showed was that he had really set out to build a robotics company. To discover that early ideas in robotics were at the core of creating Silicon Valley was a bit of a revelation that nobody had really noticed until then.

Shockley’s 1951 memo to president of Bell Labs Mervin Kelly described an “automatic trainable robot” that sounds eerily similar to trainable products on the market today, such as Rethink’s Baxter. For more details, see the IEEE Spectrum article by David Brock How William Shockley’s Robot Dream Helped Launch Silicon Valley.

Your book describes a funny anecdote around that revelation … when Rod Brooks shared that memo with his employees and asked them to guess when it had been written…

Rod gave the memo to his employees, and nobody could figure out the timing of it, because if you just read the memo and don’t think about the date, it reads like a product description of Baxter. So here we have an idea for a “trainable robot” from 1951 … and 65 years later it looks like the timing is finally right.

Machines of Loving Grace starts out describing the tension between two researchers doing early work in computer science – John McCarthy and Douglas Engelbart – whose work eventually led to the creation of two philosophical “camps” in AI research. What was that tension about?

In the ‘60s McCarthy was involved in setting up the Stanford AI Laboratory, and Engelbart set up the Augmentation Research Center at SRI. They were each were about a mile from Stanford, but they had very different approaches. Whereas McCarthy had set out to build a working “artificial intelligence” that could simulate human capabilities (he thought this could be done within a decade), Engelbart was going in the opposite direction – he wanted to use technology to augment intellectual workers.

I came to realize that these two approaches – artificial intelligence (AI) and intelligence augmentation (IA) – went in two philosophically different directions … and that two distinct research communities emerged from those early laboratories – communities that don’t really speak to each other.

The paradox we see now is that the same technologies that extend our abilities can also displace us – and that was the puzzle I wanted to solve in my book.

There were several key figures in your book – Norbert Wiener and McCarthy come to mind – who really broke over differences in their philosophical approach to AI … Can you describe what was at the root of their polarization?

Read Frank Tobe’s review: New book by John Markoff explores common ground between humans and robots

Wiener was an interesting character – an outlier in his day, and rather eccentric.

In 1948 Wiener wrote ‘Cybernetics’, a book that outlined his approach to control and communication engineering. That work led him to believe that it was possible that humans could one day be designed out of the future, and so two years later he wrote a second more philosophical book called the ‘Human Use of Human Beings‘ about the AI/IA dichotomy, where he attempted to lay out the choice we have in terms of how we use technology.

At that point, technological unemployment was a new concern. Industrial automation had already been happening for decades, but Wiener was the first one to really understand the potential of software-controlled machines and he brought that alarm to the US labour movement. He actually wrote letters to many labour leaders to warn them that the technology was going to have an impact on the workforce, saying “This may end up destroying much of your union membership’s jobs.”

We know Wiener was a very controversial character within the engineering and academic communities; he had lots of enemies and his ideals were never mainstream. He was seen as a radical, going all the way back to his opposition to the technical community designing weapons in the wake of World War II.

On the other hand, McCarthy was very clear about saying that he deliberately coined the term “artificial intelligence” in order to set his ideas apart from Wiener. He felt that Cybernetics leaned too far towards the analogue. On a personal level, McCarthy really disliked Wiener, too; he thought that Wiener was bombastic and a bore, and he wanted nothing to do with him.

So there was this tension right at the root of artificial intelligence, and it has all kinds of significance for the field.

For the most part your book chronicles events that take place in the US. Was the same tension between AI and IA happening in other places, too?   

That’s an interesting question. Cybernetics was more appealing to the Europeans, and there are Departments of Cybernetics in universities across Europe to this day. I am fascinated by that, even though I really did focus on the US in my book.

Sir James Lighthill. Image via Wikipedia. Watch the BBC Lighthouse Debates on YouTube.

AI actually had its first big failure not in the US but in England as a result of Lighthill Report, which assessed the claims made by the AI researchers in the early 1970s and then cut off government funding for their research, causing what we now call the “AI Winter”. That collapse of funding had a big impact on many people’s careers. Geoffrey Hinton for example is now a well-known Google researcher, and is one of the key figures in development of advance neural net technologies, but early in his career he really was an outcast as a result of that report.

Then there was Joseph Weizenbaum, who had a similar outlook to Wiener. He ran the famous ELIZA experiment at MIT and was aghast that a simple text bot was able to convince his students that they were having real conversations with it. In his book ‘Computer Power and Human Reason’ he was very critical of AI research on a philosophical and ethical level for ignoring human values. He left the US disgusted, and ended up being much more widely accepted in Europe. 

What about Japan? Fast forwarding to the present, your book mentions Toyota’s current corporate philosophy of kaizen (or “good change”) as a shift that suggests there are limits to automation. Can you describe that philosophy and how it’s influenced Toyota’s policies?

While Toyota had at one time been pushing towards fully automated assembly lines, more recently they have begun to systematically put humans back into their manufacturing processes. They have come to see that if you fully automate a production line, it might be extremely reliable, but it’s frozen … an automated assembly line doesn’t really improve.

But skilled workers who are on the production line are intimately familiar with the manufacturing process, and can suggest ways to improve efficiency and productivity. So Toyota is rebalancing automation with craft in order to get a more cooperative relationship between humans and robots.

In September 2015 Toyota announced a substantial investment in robotics and AI research to develop “advanced driving support” technology, with former Program Manager of DARPA’s DRC Gill Pratt directing the overall project as Executive Technical Advisor. Toyota will allocate USD$50M over the next five years in a partnership with MIT’s CSAIL (headed by Daniela Rus) and Stanford’s SAIL (headed by Fei-Fei Li) to develop research facilities in Stanford and Cambridge. Photo: Kathryn Rapier

What’s interesting is that just this past fall Toyota invested in the AI departments of both MIT and Stanford to do research on an intelligent car that they clearly describe as being on the IA side of the AI-IA debate. They are not looking to build pure self-driving cars, but instead want to give you a kind of guardian angel that will watch over you as you drive. They really want to design humans “in” rather than design them “out”.

I spend a lot time with the AI community in my research, and I think half of the field really feels strongly that you should use AI technologies in an IA format, keeping humans in the loop. People like Adam Cheyer, Eric Horvitz and Tom Gruber are all well-known AI researchers who see Engelbart as their hero. Horvitz in particular feels strongly about approaching things from that direction.

In 2009 after the AAAI Meeting on Long Term AI Futures you wrote an article for the New York Times with the headline ‘Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man‘. More recently, covering the DARPA challenge, your headline was ‘Relax, The Terminator is Far Away’. Has your perspective on robotics and AI changed in that time period?

The AAAI Alisomar meeting was really motivated by Eric Horwitz in response to WIRED article the founder of Sun Microsystems Bill Joy wrote in 2000 about Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us, where he raised concerns about AI and robotics as threats to human survival.

Horvitz felt that he needed to respond to Joy’s concerns, so in 2009 he called together a group of the best AI researchers in the country to explore the issue of how fast AI technologies were developing and whether they indeed posed a serious threat to humanity. That was where the first headline came from, and I was really a messenger in that case.

Funny enough, the final report from the meeting was somewhat anti-climactic: they basically came to a consensus of that the kind of scenario Joy had sketched out was not an immediate worry.

Now fast-forward to last year, when my article about the DAPRA Robotic Challenge came out. This was toward the end of the renewed AI debate that had just been touched off by Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Stuart Russell, Nick Bostrum, and others at the Future of Life Institute who were arguing that, based on half a decade of success in the neural network community, they foresee an exponential increase in the capability of machines coming in the near future.

But many computer scientists think that the possibility of self-aware thinking machines is vastly overstated, and my experience watching the DARPA Robotics Challenge supported that view. You just had to look at the falling robots, and the fact most of them couldn’t even open a door. That’s the state of the art.

I guess it’s still an open debate, but as for my own feelings, I’m sceptical about some of the claims being made about AI.

Douglas Hofstadter was one of the philosophers who originally called out the AI researchers in 1960s and 1970s for over-promising and under-delivering. He argued that the assertions about AI programs and their progress is a little bit like someone who climbs to the top of the tree, saying he is making steady progress on the way to the moon. But at some point the tree stops. I feel like that statement still holds.

I thought it funny when Elon Musk was quoted last year as saying “We will be like a pet Labrador if we’re lucky” and how close that was to Marvin Minsky’s famous in the 1970s saying “If we are lucky they will treat us like pets.” But you seem to be saying that these kinds of statements aren’t just attention-grabbing or click bait – they are also over-promising what AI can do, albeit in a negative way … 

Elon has this wonderful ability to say evocative things like “we are summoning the demon”.

Some people have criticized the media for their reporting of the Future of Life Institute’s activities, but I felt that the Institute may have brought this on themselves to some degree. They talk about the “existential risks” of AI, so it’s no surprise that some of the media picked up on this and jumped immediately to The Terminator. Afterall, what is The Terminator if it’s not an existential threat?

I don’t think that existential threat is a bad motif for people’s concerns, but I also think this is a field that routinely over-promises. It’s true that we have seen significant progress in terms of machines that can see, listen and understand natural language. But cognition reasoning systems are still making baby steps.

That said, I’m supportive of the efforts of Elon Musk and his colleagues at the Future of Life Institute because I do believe that machine autonomy is increasingly becoming a reality in everything from the workplace to weapons, and it’s worth talking about these issues whether autonomous machines are self-aware or not.

As a journalist following the field, you’ve had a unique opportunity to watch a whole new crop of roboticists and AI experts mature. Is this next generation continuing to fuel the polarization between AI and IA, or are the two camps starting to merge?

It’s hard to predict what will become of this current debate. Looking at the issue of technological unemployment in particular, I’ve come to feel that the actual impact of automation technologies on the workforce is a much murkier question than either the press or the science community seems to believe.

Once you start reading the economists, you realize there is a multiplicity of issues going on, including things like tax policy and changing demography, and picking it apart is very difficult. It’s a huge debate, and I’ve come away feeling I know less than when I started.

But I’ve spent a lot of time talking to people working in this field – mostly around Stanford and Berkeley – and it makes me hopeful because there is a generation of young scientists and engineers who are actually exposed to some of the issues we’ve been talking about and are really thinking about them. Ultimately, these machines are being built by humans, so it comes down to individuals having to make decisions about how to design their machines, and their values become really important.

Thank you! It was such a pleasure to read your book and to have a chance to talk to you today.

It was great talking to you – I enjoyed it.

Machines of Loving Grace was released in August 2015, and is available in hardcover, softcover and e-book formats. 

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy:

• New book by John Markoff explores common ground between humans and robots

• Talking Machines: History of machine learning, w. Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio, Yann LeCun
• Funding high risk proposals at the National Science Foundation: A brief history
• Passion for utility drove Engelberger’s vision for robotics
• Should cars be fully driverless? No, says MIT engineer and historian David Mindell
• DARPA’s Gill Pratt on Google’s robotics investments
• From pencil and paper to hands-on making, a brief history of MIT’s legendary MechE 2.007

This book begins with a deep overview of the ROS framework, discusses robot manipulation and navigation, and covers how ROS interfaces with I/O boards, sensors, and actuators. Vision sensors are essential ingredients in robotics, and so an entire chapter is dedicated to how they interface with ROS. The book also explores hardware interfacing and the simulation of complex robots in ROS and ROS Industrial, and finishes with a chapter on best practices to follow while programming in ROS.

Below is an overview of the chapters in the book:

1. Introduction to ROS and its package management
2. Working with 3D robot modeling in ROS
3. Simulating  robots using ROS and Gazebo
4. Using the ROS MoveIt! and Navigation stack
5. Working with Pluginlib, Nodelets and Gazebo plugins
6. Writing ROS controllers and visualization plugin
7. Interfacing I/O boards, sensors and actuators to ROS
8. Programming Vision sensors using ROS, Open-CV and PCL
9. Building  and interfacing differential drive mobile robot hardware in ROS
10. Exploring the advanced capabilities of ROS MoveIt!
11. ROS for Industrial Robots
12. Troubleshooting and best practices in ROS

The book uses ROS Indigo installed on latest Ubuntu L.T.S 14.04.03. The codes are also compatible with ROS Jade. https://github.com/qboticslabs/mastering_ros

A basic knowledge in R.O.S, GNU/Linux, and C++ programming concepts is recommended.

The book is published by PACKT and can be purchased at Amazon Global  and PACKT Publishing. More information can be found on the book website and Wiki page.

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in:

• Learning robotics using Python
• Book Review: Implementation of Robot Systems, by Mike Wilson
• Arduino for Makers #2: Deconstructing Arduino programs
• Arduino for Makers #1: Setting up a development station
• MATLAB Robotics System Toolbox and ROS

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Ford received a $45,500 check and gave a brief acceptance talk at the event.

Media has been paying a lot of attention to the issue of automation replacing jobs while not creating enough new jobs, and are warning of an impending crisis. Ford’s book contains sufficient forecast situations to cover almost every occupation, industry group and country.

The Financial Times wrote:

The book reflects growing anxiety in some quarters about the possible negative impact of automation on jobs, from manufacturing to professional services. The subtitle of its UK edition [cream colored] warns of “the threat of mass unemployment” and, in the US edition, foresees “a jobless future”.

Mr Ford, founder of a Silicon Valley software development company, suggests “a fundamental restructuring of our economic rules” may be needed to mitigate the impact of the advance of robotics and automation. He proposes a guaranteed minimum basic income — or “citizen’s dividend” — as one radical remedy.

Not all the judges agreed with the book’s proposed solutions but nobody questioned the force of its argument.

The book certainly provides fodder for the media’s grist, and has debatable content to argue about with friends. If you can get through the whole book, it will leave you skeptical but more aware of the fact that automation is relentlessly changing the landscape of work and jobs.

David Mindell and the cover of “Our Robots, Ourselves” (Viking/Penguin). Photo (Mindell): Len Rubenstein

by Peter Dizikes | MIT News Office

If you follow technology news — or even if you don’t — you have probably heard that numerous companies have been trying to develop driverless cars for a decade or more. These fully automated vehicles could potentially be safer than regular cars, and might add various efficiencies to our roads, like smoother-flowing traffic.

Or so it is often claimed. But the promise of artificial intelligence, advanced sensors, and self-driving cars could be achieved without full autonomy, argue scholars with deep expertise in automation and technology — including David Mindell, an MIT professor and author of a new book on the subject.

If robotics in extreme environments are any guide, Mindell says, self-driving cars should not be fully self-driving. That idea, he notes, is belied by decades of examples involving spacecraft, underwater exploration, air travel, and more. In each of those spheres, fully automated vehicles have frequently been promised, yet the most state-of-the-art products still have a driver or pilot somewhere in the network. This is one reason Mindell thinks cars are not on the road to complete automation.

“That’s just proven to be a loser of an approach in a lot of other domains,” Mindell says. “I’m not arguing this from first principles. There are 40 years’ worth of examples.”

Now Mindell, the Frances and David Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing in MIT’s Program in Science, Technology, and Society, and also a professor in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, has detailed the history in his new book, “Our Robots, Ourselves,” released on Oct. 13 by Viking Books.

To be clear, Mindell thinks that “it’s reasonable to hope” that technology will help cars “reduce the workload” of drivers in incremental ways in the future. But total automation, he thinks, is not the logical endpoint of vehicle development.

“The book is about a different idea of progress,” Mindell says. “There’s an idea that progress in robotics leads to full autonomy. That may be a valuable idea to guide research … but when automated and autonomous systems get into the real world, that’s not the direction they head. We need to rethink the notion of progress, not as progress toward full autonomy, but as progress toward trusted, transparent, reliable, safe autonomy that is fully interactive: The car does what I want it to do, and only when I want it to do it.”

Shooting for the “perfect 5”

To see why Mindell thinks history shows us that automation is not the endpoint of vehicular development, consider the case of undersea exploration. For decades, engineers and scientists thought that fully automated submersibles would be a step forward from the seemingly risky work of deep-sea journeys.

Instead, something unexpected happened with submersibles: Technological progress, including improved communications technologies, made it less useful to have fully automated vehicles sweeping across the sea floor. Instead, Mindell notes, submersibles “are more effective when they have even a little communication” with people monitoring and controlling them.

Or consider the Apollo program, which put U.S. astronauts on the moon six different times. Originally, Mindell notes, the expectation was that moon missions would be fully automated, with astronauts nothing more than passengers. But in the end — and partly due to the feedback of the astronauts themselves — astronauts handled many critical functions, including the moon landings.

“The sophistication of the computer and the software was used not to push people out, but to give them true control over the landing,” Mindell says.

And then there are airplanes. Commercial airliners do have many automated systems, such as cruise control-type features and even systems that can automate landings in certain circumstances. But it still takes highly trained pilots to manage those systems, make critical decisions in the cockpit — and, yes, frequently to steer the planes.

“Commercial aviation is incredibly safe,” says Mindell, himself a qualified civil aviation pilot with more than 1,000 hours of flying time to his credit. “Part of the reason is there are a lot of highly technical systems, but those systems are all imperfect, and the people are the glue that hold the system together. Airline pilots are constantly making small corrections, picking up mistakes, correcting the air traffic controllers.”

Drawing on a concept developed by MIT professor of mechanical engineering Tom Sheridan, Mindell notes that the level of automation in a project can be judged on a scale from 1 to 10 — and aiming for 10, he contends, does not necessarily lead to more success in any given endeavor, compared to a happy medium of technology and person. In the space program, Mindell reflects, “The digital computer in Apollo allowed them to make a less automated spacecraft that was closer to the perfect 5.”

Full automation a “20th-century narrative”

So why, in the case of cars, are we back to a point where many people are envisioning a driverless future? In a way, Mindell says, this vision of the future belongs squarely to the past.

“I think the narrative of full autonomy is a 20th-century narrative,” Mindell says. “It’s a narrative of industrial mechanization that’s kind of filtered its way through the 20th century, supported by 20th-century science fiction. These narratives can and should change.”

Still, the idea of total automation is the approach taken by Google, most notably, in its development of self-driving cars. Yet as Mindell also observes, there are many challenges to the Google model: Its cars must identify all nearby objects correctly, need perfectly updated mapping systems, and must avoid all software glitches.

Ultimately, Mindell writes, “Google’s utopian autonomy is a more brittle, less functional solution than a rich, human-centered automation.” He predicts that the fully driverless model will not be the most successful, both for technical and social reasons.

“The notion of ceding control of something as fundamental to life as driving to a big, opaque corporation — people are not comfortable with that,” he says. Additionally, other companies and research groups looking at automating cars are “very clearly not going for the Google approach to fully driverless cars.”

Other scholars have found “Our Robots, Ourselves” to be valuable. Ian Bogost, a professor of media studies and interactive computing at Georgia Tech, calls the book “a lucid, hype-free exploration of how robotic automation really works” in tandem with human design and operation.

Mindell says he is eager to see how technologists, especially robotics engineers, react to the book. Among the places where Mindell is scheduled to speak on his current book tour are Microsoft and, yes, Google. In time, Mindell says, he believes his perspective will come to be more widely accepted, and that full automation on the roads will not seem as desirable a goal.

“I think the public discourse is slowly coming around to there is another way to do it,” Mindell concludes.

Reprinted with permission of MIT News.

Practical Field Robotics: A Systems Approach

This book has two primary sections. The first part of the book looks at three different example robotic systems from the domains of nuclear service robotics (teleoperated), mining robotics (large and autonomous), and a grass cutting robot (cheap consumer product). The second part of the book focuses on moving beyond those designs to cover the detailed software and systems that make a robot work.

The author presents a series of layers that can be applied to systems to characterize and guide a design. These layers are a way to guide the definition of requirements in order to build a robotic (or any other) system.

• Field Environment – This is where the operating environment needs to be defined. These items can include: thermal, radiation, humidity, site layout, terrain, water, dimensions of interest, etc.
• Field Work – This includes the tasks that the robot needs to complete in the environment from above.
• Equipment Requirements – What constraints need to be placed on the robot due to the layers above. For example in a reactor building you can not use halogens on your robot/equipment.
• Conceptional & Operational Designs – This layer is where you can really spend a lot of time. This is where you take the requirements and constraints that you defined in the above layers and actually create the high level details for the system that you will build. This can include creating concept of operations, figuring out what a mechanism should be, and determining your high level design.
• Safety & Reliability – Once you have a basic design you need to evaluate the safety and reliability of the resultant design. This applies to the robot, the operators, the environment, etc. Note that this comes before the detailed design is completed.
• Detailed System Design – <system> – Once you have a basic design and you make sure it will be safe and reliable you are finally able to create the detailed design that you will build. You can have multiple instances of this layer for each of your various systems.

One thing I ignored above is that the author discusses creating free body diagram’s (FBD) to help design the above systems.

The second half of the book moves on to the next levels of design. For example when performing the exercises above you create an FBD that has a block for Send Sound. The next level is detailing that block; you can create an FBD of that step alone. The author expands this by discussing the electronics, software (assembly style code) and how to set parameters in order to execute a Send Sound block. The author does this for several different types of functions. In practice the second half of the book is just a detailed view into how they built their robotic lawnmower project.

The author says several times that “This book covers electronic, electrical, mechanical, control, and software disciplines as needed,” however I disagree. The book does discuss some small details of the above and I guess it maybe meets the “as needed” clause that is on that assertion. However when it comes to building “Practical Field Robotics” I do not think there is any real discussion about the electronic, electrical, mechanical, and controls needed. There is a chapter that details software but it is pretty specific to the autonomous lawn mower project that is discussed. I expected it to cover the high level modules that a robot would need, but instead it is a very detailed review of the code needed for their robotic lawnmower project.

I think the first half of this book is a useful approach to systems engineering. However I am not sure how valuable the second half of the book is. I think if the author added another section to the book describing a systems-level approach to electrical, mechanical, etc. that would be great. You could imagine looking at a power system from the batteries to different DC/DC converts, to shunt regulators, etc. You could also imagine looking at basic mechanical systems such as 4-bar linkages and motors. This systems approach can be pushed even farther if we discuss sensors. However that was not done.

In conclusion if your goal is to learn how to build a field robot this book might not be for you. If you are looking to study systems engineering, then this book is worth the read.

I would like to thank Wiley for providing me with a hard copy of this book for review.

Some words of disclaimer:
I have never met the author of this book and the opinions are mine.

A new book, Learning Robotics using Python, takes a different approach to teaching the Robotics Operating System (ROS). Written by Lentin Joseph, founder and CEO of Indian robotics startup Qbotics Labs, it enables you to learn by building an interactive, autonomous, mobile robot, and is the result of his research while designing the company’s autonomous robot prototype, Chefbot. It features Artificial Intelligence, vision capabilities, speech recognition and synthesis.

Chefbot is designed primarily to serve food in hotels and restaurants and Qbotics plans to release the robot as open hardware to develop a community focussed on improving the design. The company also provides assistance for clients autonomous machines.

Learning Robotics Using Python uses ROS Indigo, a stable version of ROS, installed on the latest Ubuntu L.T.S 14.04.02. The code is also compatible with ROS Jade. After a basic introduction, it looks at the mechanical design of robots using open source tools. ROS is introduced following the building of 2D and 3D models, and Chefbot is simulated using ROS and Gazebo. The Chefbot simulation is adapted from a Turtlebot simulator.

With a successful simulation in Gazebo, the book turns to the hardware element, the selection of the electronic components needed to build the robot. The sensor and actuator interfacing is explored and interfacing embedded boards to ROS using Python.

The Chefbot has (Kinect) sensors, ultrasonics and sound sensors, as well as motor encoders. The book looks at the detailed interfacing of each sensor with ROS and Kinect, and how to work with depth to pointcloud package.

In addition, it examines speech recognition and synthesis in robots, using ROS and Python, and implementing a version of Artificial Intelligence using ROS and Python.

After all this interfacing, the final integration is possible, both in hardware and software, resulting in the complete robot.

It needs a GUI controller, built using PyQt. Debugging is enabled via ROS rqt. Once the GUI has been constructed, it goes into the calibration and testing of the robot before its deployment.

Learning robotics using Python is available on the PACKT website and also Amazon.com.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Book Review: Implementation of Robot Systems, by Mike Wilson
• Arduino for Makers #2: Deconstructing Arduino programs
• Arduino for Makers #1: Setting up a development station
• MATLAB Robotics System Toolbox and ROS

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Implementation of Robot Systems

After the introductory section discussing the history of robots in manufacturing we jump into a discussion of the different types of robots (articulated, SCARA, cartesian, parallel mechanisms, etc…), how they perform, and how to select the proper robot type. For performance he picks out the following four items that you need to evaluate for a given application and robot.

1. Weight carrying capacity
2. Repeatability (path and tool position)
3. Reach and Working envelope (configuration, number of axes, etc..)
4. Speed (for each axis or given path).

That list is followed by a list of how to select your robot. It is a combination of the items above and a few more things such as:

5. Mounting capabilities
6. Dimensions and weight
7. Protection and environmental considerations
8. Electrical requirements

The following two chapters are all about the common components in a manufacturing system and the applications that robots are commonly used for. So to build your robotic system you will need to start by considering:

• Handling Equipment: conveyors, ground vehicles, part feeders, bowl feeders, linear feeders, blow feeders, bandoleer feeders, and magazine feeders
• Vision Systems: For inspection and positioning
• Process Equipment: There are two types of process equipment.
  1. Equipment that handles parts
  2. Equipment that applies a process: Welding, Painting, dispensing, cutting, etc..
• Grippers and Tool Changers
• Tooling & Fixturing
• Assembly Automation Components
• System Controls
• Safety & Guarding

While I just provided a list, the book goes into detail about each of the above categories.

Now that the reader knows what they need to consider and how to evaluate a solution, we can look at typical applications. The primary applications discussed include: welding (arc, spot and laser), dispensing (painting, adhesives, and sealant), processing (cutting, grinding, deburing, and polishing), handling (casting, molding, forging, stamping, inspection, palatizing, and packing), followed by some electronics assembly. For each of these topics the concept and requirements are first discussed, followed by a section on developing a solution.

After developing the ideas required to iterate a system we are ready to develop specifications for each section. The author discusses the process starting with the concept and requirements, all the way to testing, warranties, and training.

Once your solution is in place it is important to quantify the benefits that you are receiving. The author discusses the 10 key benefits of robots as developed by the International Federation of Robotics in 2005:

1. Reduce operating cost
2. Improve product quality and consistency
3. Improve quality of work for employees
4. Increase production output
5. Increase product manufacturing flexibility
6. Reduce material waste and increase yield
7. Comply with safety rules and improve workplace health and safety
8. Reduce labor turnover and difficulty of recruiting workers
9. Reduce capital costs
10. Save space in high-value manufacturing areas

These ten areas are a good start for justifying robots as part of a business model. They can also be used to evaluate a system before purchasing.

After reading this book I found it interesting to see the different processes and methods that robots are typically used for in manufacturing. If you are looking to get into the field, then you should read this book. While I think it is great that the author walks the reader through the different tasks, and how to evaluate the robotic solutions, I often felt that the book was repetitive.

I think this book is good for researchers looking to break into manufacturing robotics, to help get a good idea of various manufacturing processes. It might also useful when writing grants to have metrics that you can discuss. For a practicing (maybe beginner) engineer, this book has good chapters on project management and how to evaluate a system pre and post installation.

I would like to thank Wiley for providing me with a hard copy of this book for review.

The post Book Review: Implementation of Robot Systems by Mike Wilson appeared first on Robots For Roboticists.

• Toughbook: The super rugged laptop teardown
• Selecting a camera and lens for your robot
• Things to think about when transporting your robot
• Developing trust in autonomous robots: Seminar with Michael Wagner

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Kids love robots! And they love reading too. Ranging from preschool to teen, this selection of books includes fiction and nonfiction, activity books and maker manuals, all to help inspire the kids in your life to get into robotics.

“On the ground and in the air, Robots, robots everywhere! . . . Up in space, beneath the seas, Robots make discoveries . . .” A nice little board book for little kids.

A sweet story about a boy and his bot – a great bedtime story for little ones.

Robots build the alphabet! Featuring hilarious robots making goofy noises, this book is perfect for young readers.

When this robot goes out of date, a child helps him find a new lease in life. From the award-winning author of Corduroy.

A girl and her mother turn a simple cardboard box into the robot of their dreams. Half story book, half activity book, this is perfect material for a fun family activity day or a kids workshop.

Simple descriptions and designs for creating your own Lego robots.

Photo-packed book showing kids real robots, and the science behind them.

How to make ten different robots—that move—out of the most ordinary things from around the house.

LEO the Maker Prince teaches children (both young and old) about 3D printing.

Learn about incredible space robots and the amazing things that they have discovered about our solar system.

Sammy’s mother is an inventor, and their house is filled with her robots, which do everything from housework to tutoring. Plenty of humor of the same genre as Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Fifteen colorful punch-out robot designs with interchangeable parts make a great rainy day activity.

A mystery story that contains the blueprints to build five different robots projects. Make bristlebots that buzz, hoverbots that float above the ground, battlebots that duke it out, and more! Can Nick and Tesla catch the criminal mastermind—and foil his army of rampaging robots—before it’s too late?

Step-by-step instructions for building real robot models using ordinary craft materials and parts salvaged from recycled toys and other household devices. Kids will learn how to create working robot hands, hydraulic arms, sensors, solar-powered robots, light-seeking robots and more.

A collection of hundreds of working examples of simple Technic models of gears, shafts, pulleys, turntables, connectors, that you can build based on their pictures alone.

A look at the early visual development of the Pixar film Robots. If you loved the movie, you’ll love the book.

Who could be more inspiring to a budding young roboticist than sociable robotics expert Cynthia Breazeal? Though this book was written in 2005 and looks at her earlier work, Jibo’s emergence is bound to make this book resonate once again. If you’re looking to inspire a girl, check out also Dazzling Women Designers by Jill Bryant.

A classic introduction to building robots – now in its 4th edition. Well organized, easy to understand and fun!

An easy and fun introduction to building Arduino by the author of the classic Robot Builder’s Bonanza – no special tools or knowledge required!

Caleb-Seven isn’t just another robot, he’s been created to be given to the king, who is childless, and who wants this robot to be blank slate that can be molded into a surrogate son. But Caleb is bent on escaping his fate.

Robohub is an online platform that brings together leading communicators in robotics research, start-ups, business, and education from around the world. Learn more about us here. If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

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It seems like our most popular visions of the future always end with environmental collapse, authoritarian oppression … and the ever-popular zombie apocalypse. Science fiction, what Clive Thompson called “the last great literature of ideas,” seems to function today primarily as a literature of warning, of cautionary tales and parables of technology run amok.

What if we could also use science fiction to inspire hopeful thinking about the future, to imagine how technology could be a tool to help us solve our most pressing challenges, instead of being the purveyor of our destruction or a symbol of our hubris? Project Hieroglyph, founded by science fiction visionary Neal Stephenson in 2012 and headquartered at Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination, seeks to use science fiction to restore the creative, practically ambitious thinking about technology that made Golden Age science fiction so powerful and compelling.

The project’s first anthology, Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future (William Morrow/HarperCollins) features hopeful visions of the near future, grounded in real science and technology, created by top science fiction authors like Stephenson, Cory Doctorow, Elizabeth Bear, and Bruce Sterling, and scientists, technologists, and other experts in fields ranging from robotics and space exploration to education, sustainability, and neuroscience. (Disclaimer: I work at the Center for Science and the Imagination, and am one of the project managers for Hieroglyph.) We sometimes call this “science fiction of the present” or “science fiction of five minutes from now,” because the stories feature technologies – from a 20 kilometer steel tower to crowdfunded 3D printing robots creating a lunar base from moon dust to a global network of drone pilots protecting wildlife from poachers – that we could start building today, if we had the right story to tell about how and why.

The fundamental idea driving Project Hieroglyph is this: if we want a better future, we need to start by crafting better stories , better dreams. Major challenges like climate change, world hunger, and many of our most deadly infectious diseases are well understood. What holds us back from implementing solutions on a global scale is a lack of social and political will – fundamentally, a lack of imagination. We need stories that engage our collective imagination and inspire us to reallocate resources, change our priorities, and do something different, ambitious, and transformative.

When Stephenson talks about a “Hieroglyph,” he means an icon, like Asimov’s robots, Heinlein’s rocket ships, and William Gibson’s cyberspace, that “supplies a plausible, fully thought-out picture of an alternate reality in which some sort of compelling innovation has taken place” (read more in his article “Innovation Starvation“). Hieroglyphs become deeply etched in our cultural consciousness and shape generations of actual research. For example, it’s impossible to work on robotics without grappling with Asimov’s Three Laws.

Project Hieroglyph also challenges science fiction writers to collaborate deeply with researchers working at the cutting edge of knowledge, not just as fact checkers, but as equal partners. Stephenson’s story about a 20 kilometer tall steel tower, for example, was created in collaboration with Keith Hjelmstad, a professor of structural engineering at Arizona State University, and the idea is filtering back into Keith’s teaching, research, and work with students who are exploring how super-tall structures can cope with punishing jet stream winds and exotic upper-atmosphere weather conditions.

A great science fiction story can act as a first prototype (an idea developed by Intel’s futurist Brian David Johnson, one of our collaborators), a napkin sketch of a possible technological solution, to explore how the technology might affect communities, economies, and individuals. The best stories are also invitations, bringing people from a variety of perspectives together to have a conversation about whether we should pursue certain innovations, how we should use our vast technological capabilities, and what limits and regulations need to govern emerging technologies. At Project Hieroglyph we believe that weaving a human story around a whiz-bang technological idea is an important step in beginning to understand its social, cultural, and ethical implications, and to give a broad range of people an opportunity to respond, with enthusiasm, curiosity, caution, or consternation. In this spirit, each story in our anthology is coupled with a “story page” on our web platform that features expert responses, links to additional information, and most importantly, discussion forums that enable readers, experts, and skeptics to weigh in and contribute their own ideas.

We’re excited to welcome in Robohub community members to Project Hieroglyph, especially because several of the stories in our first anthology engage with the incredible possibilities of emerging robotics technologies. Cory Doctorow’s novella “The Man Who Sold the Moon” imagines how crowdfunding, the DIY culture, and 3D fabrication can open up new possibilities for democratized robotic forays into space. Gregory Benford’s “The Man Who Sold the Stars” (a lot of Heinlein readers contributed to this one!) imagines a future where robotic mining of asteroids and comets enables humans to extend our reach throughout our solar system and beyond. Lee Konstantinou’s “Johnny Appledrone vs. the FAA” and Brenda Cooper’s “Elephant Angels” consider how drones, currently a major bogeyman haunting our collective imagination, might be used for good. Vandana Singh’s “Entanglement” imagines self-organizing networks of robots scouring the floor of the Arctic Ocean and plugging methane leaks that threaten to exponentially accelerate climate change.

Project Hieroglyph has a network of amazing writers, artists, scientists, and engineers engaged in creating stories that make transformative change feel possible. But we know that we can’t accomplish anything significant without you. These stories are arenas for conversation, collaboration, and creativity, and they are designed to spawn real-world research projects, inventions, and solutions. We need your help transforming these Big Ideas into new collective realities. Won’t you join us?

To learn more about Project Hieroglyph and join the community, visit http://hieroglyph.asu.edu. Check out a video trailer for the project here:

http://vimeo.com/105817777

Read free excerpts from the book here, here, and here.

This is an excerpt from The Drone Primer: A Compendium of the Key Issues, a free, one-stop, handbook addressing the basic and fundamental questions around drones in all their contexts, from foreign theaters of war to domestic civilian use. This basic report covers technology, history, strategy, law, and culture, and includes a portfolio of drone art. It addresses what the authors identified as as a serious problem: the lack of any single, well-written, comprehensive introduction to drones that was not driven by a political, moral or commercial agenda. Written for a general audience, The Drone Primer explains how drones work, their history, how they are used, the concerns that they have raised, their practical benefits, the debate that they have sparked, and the art trend that they have inspired.

Click here to read the full Primer for free.

Chapter 8 – DRONE ART

“The policy discussion is a highly specialized system with its own language and its own elite— almost a priesthood—who understand it and can explain it. By bringing back that analysis, by demystifying it, by looking at how we can explain it better and have clearer discussions around it, I think art has the potential to perform a very important role in policy.” – James Bridle

Over the past few years, artists have responded to the drone in various mediums. Art that treats the drone as its subject, or an art-making tool, has served to interrogate, protest, and promote this technology. This art has been well received by the public and has earned institutional recognition, to the extent we could confidently claim that it is an art trend. The art that makes up this movement is most commonly referred to as drone art.

Because of its cultural resonance, the drone has embedded itself in the popular visual vocabulary. Visions of the drone—usually some kind of variation on the U.S. Predator or Reaper—pop up in graffiti murals, collages, animations, and conceptual art with increasing frequency. Its distinctly sharp, cockpitless form has become a visual motif representing technological advancement, state power, and the spectre of autonomous technology.

In established art practices, we have seen drone art range from straight-served activism— as in the case of Heather Layton and Brian Bailey’s exhibition Home Drone, which asked its American audience to imagine what it would be like to live under drones—to more subtle forms, as Mahwish Chishty’s drones are painted in the aesthetic of Pakistani truck art—to the oblique, like Himanshu Suri’s song “Soup Boys”:

That drone cool, but I hate that drone Chocolate chip cookie dough in a sugar cone Drones in the morning, drones in the night I’m trying to find a pretty drone to take home tonight.

A key feature of the drone art movement is that the drone has served a dual role as both a subject of the artwork and a tool for creating it. In the case of artist and vandal KATSU’s drone graffiti, a drone is the graffiti-making tool. One of the earliest examples of drone art was the Natalie Jeremijenko and the Bureau of Inverse Technology’s BIT Plane project (1995). The team flew a camera-equipped, remote-control plane over Silicon Valley, capturing footage of large tech campuses that, on the ground, were closed to the public. In an interview with the Center for the Study of the Drone, Jeremijenko described the project as an “an exploration into this new territory called ‘information space.” The artistic product was a grainy, black-and-white video containing very little useful information about Silicon Valley, but it was a powerful statement about aerial technology and its surveillant potential.

Tomas van Houtryve’s drone-made aerial photographs of American domestic scenes are similarly bi-layered. On one hand, he is, like Layton and Bailey, experimenting with the idea of hypothetical drone strikes in the U.S. and protesting what he believes is a violent and unjust U.S. policy. On the other hand, his compositions flex the power of the drone, and in doing so point at what he considers to be the worrying implications of unmanned aerial technology. Van Houtryve protests the targeted killing campaign by partially demonstrating what the killing machine can do.

This project diverged from aerial drone art that celebrates the machine for its photographing ability without raising objections or concerns. Drone aerial photography, much of it created by amateurs, is a burgeoning field. While aerial photography has been practiced in various forms since the 19th century, its accessibility and popularity has exploded in recent years. Drone aerial photography was popularized by Raphael “Trappy” Pirker, who in 2010 grabbed U.S. headlines for flying a camera-equipped drone over the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, and parts of Lower Manhattan.

While Trappy contends that his interest is in flying rather than art, his videos have inspired an aesthetic that disabuses itself of the political discussion and focuses instead on the sheer beauty of the aerial perspective.

Chapter 9 – PORTFOLIO

The Drone Art movement is important because it has contributed a vibrant visual vocabulary to the drone debate. It is also a test case of how different sectors of the art world—from fine gallery art to conceptual virtual art—respond to (and sometimes incorporate) a new technology.

Pakistani artist Mahwish Chishty relays the image of the drone through a classic Pakistani truck art aesthetic; in doing so, she raises questions about how the continuous presence of drones over parts of Pakistan have earned the drone a place in the country’s culture.

The BIT Plane project made use of the drone as a flying tripod, but in doing so also made a statement about the technology itself. Fernando Brizuela’s watercolors create a space of intersection between an old- fashioned, high art practice and a commentary on modern warfare.

James Bridle and Trevor Paglen, two seminal drone artists, meditate on the invisibility of the drone. Paglen takes super-long-range photographs of U.S. military drones flying at high altitude. In the resulting images, the drones often appear as nothing more than dark specks in the wide desert sky.

Bridle, on the other hand, traces 1:1 scale outlines of military drones in public spaces–he calls them Drone Shadows. “The Shadows are not really about what the drone looks like,” Bridle told the Center for the Study of the drone. “They’re about the absence of the drone in the contemporary discourse.”

Fernando Brizuela. “drone,” 2013. Watercolor on Paper.

Trevor Paglen, “Untitled (Predators; Indian Springs, NV),” 2010 [Detail]. Credit: Altman Siegel

James Bridle, “Drone Shadow 007: The Lavender Hill Drone” 2014

Mahwish Chishty, “MQ9/1,” 2011. Gauche, tea stain and gold leaf on paper. 8” x 28.5”

Thematically, I think the natural world provides a wonderful contrast when held up against humanity and the technology we create. Describing a synthesis of high technology and the dirty, complicated natural world forces the reader to consider what makes something natural versus unnatural. The comparison also serves as a metaphor for what it might mean to have a relationship with a machine – another combination of natural and unnatural. In the end, I believe all technology is “natural” because it is an outcome of what human beings are naturally designed to do – build tools, and use those tools to build better tools.

Hope you enjoy the excerpt!

— Daniel H. Wilson

Part 3. Chapter 4: MIND OF LIFE

Neuronal ID: Takeo Nomura

What is a mind, but a pattern? My mind or yours. Man or machine. Simply an arrangement of atoms. Each of us, a unique expression of the mind of the universe.

Thoughts are precise bullets of electricity, fired through our neurons in timed pulses. Our bodies are layers of folding skin and muscle laced with fractal lightning. Natural, like veins on a rain-soaked leaf. Cracks in a tumbling stone. Or the sigh of this wave, lapping my shins until they are cold and numb. The clear liquid flows in, suspends the fine black hairs on my legs, and then retreats, laying the hairs down in new configurations. The sky leaks raindrops over my bony shoulders like Morse code.

We are patterns. Trapped inside other patterns.

After six months of listening, the sea sends an emissary. The towering bulk of a bizarre machine approaches our outermost seawall. A glistening spire, afloat, the size of a skyscraper. It forges ahead, slow and steady, through azure stripes of rain. From the salt encrusted on it, I would say it came from the open ocean. The dreamer only knows what this derelict has been doing out there on those endless blue plains.

I am staggered by its layered complexity.

Half submerged in Tokyo harbor, the spire is saturated with living things. It sprouts so far into the heavens that its upper reaches are shrouded in the rain haze. Some kind of muscular fiber makes up the main trunk, braided thick as the Tokyo Skytree, resembling bark but clearly with much higher tensile strength. It bears further study, as does the stability mechanism. The island-machine flutters delicately on flat fins the size of baseball fields, rising and falling, surfaces curling with wet sea grass on top and studded with barnacles below. Each pulse of the surf surges over the lip of the rear fin and washes straight through the marshy ecosystem.

“It is beautiful,” I say to Junshi-88.

The humanoid robot stands in the surf with me, trinocular lenses protruding at maximum zoom. It wears no human clothing, only a camouflaged green and black armored outer casing. Spurning human adornments is a mark of autonomy.

I hear the raucous squawking of seagulls from here. Hundreds of them circle the treelike structure, hunting the fish that swarm below in its safe harbor. The birds are nesting in the upper branches and have been for many generations, it seems, above clouds of insects. The fiber base is shit-stained and covered in seaweed, riddled with dens and nests and burrows. The voice of the sea has manifested itself to me in the most enormous and ancient form of life possible.

“Do you think it is shinboku?” I ask.

“Hai,” says the 88, its voice a grinding whine. Unlike the generations of overly polite robots that populated Japan before the New War, my freeborn ally is barely willing to speak in human audible frequencies, much less exercise impeccable manners. He is his own, not a servant, and there is no risk of me forgetting it.

I nod vacantly, staring. It must be a form of shinboku, a divine tree, honored by the monks and called upon to protect Shinto shrines. This mightiest of shinboku is beached here, as if lost from some other dimension. It forms a pattern so intricate that it places a gentle flame of awe into the pit of my belly. I am glad that I can simply coexist with a thing of such beauty and complexity. The shinboku has come from the unknowable flat wasteland of the open ocean, through tides of war, crafted by the voice of the sea and now sent into our harbor.

My equipment detects communications being relayed from hidden antennae located in the upper reaches of the tree. I slide a pair of modified binoculars over my eyes. Flip on a radio overlay of my own design. Scan the patterns until I find an alcove, nestled in the top. Some kind of control center is perched in the crook of two large branches, its entrance covered by sweeping vines. The binoculars reveal radio communications floating from the tower. Greenish wisps of communication meander over infinite glittering waves, to the horizon.

The voice of the sea is speaking.

I tap the 88 on its shoulder and we return to our little boat. Continue puttering up the Sumida River toward Nomura Castle. Behind us, the swaying island-tower watches balefully from where it rises out of the bay, the size of a movie monster kaiju.

Reaching the top of the shinboku will not be easy. I will need to retrieve my best tools if I wish to climb the tree of life. And returning to my workshop is, unfortunately, complicated. Mikiko will be there and she will disapprove of this mission. My place is on the throne, she says. I made my people a promise to protect them. I haven’t been back to the castle in weeks, staying on the streets with the Junshi-88.

The darkness settled over my people in the last months like silent falling strips of black silk. In the field of optics, they call the phenomenon a “just noticeable difference threshold.” A slight darkening of things. Each tiny gradation impossible to perceive.

Until the suicides began.

One month ago, I returned from a night expedition to the bay. In the frigid predawn, I had just docked my little wooden motorboat on the river. Junshi-88 was walking behind me in quiet pneumatic steps. It stopped. Ground out a verbal warning in Robspeak. My eyes lifted from the roadway and thoughts of the roiling sea evaporated.

A curious sight.

Nomura castle lies on a small hill, giving it a view of the surrounding Adachi ward. Scarred and leaning, its curtained walls of flash-welded steel and iron surround a star-shaped central keep. The roof of the castle is a curved square, the roofline bowed, edges thrusting out angrily like the horns of a kabutomushi beetle.

A little fellow was standing on the sweeping arch of the keep tower, his body sheathed in layers of hazy morning light, face empty, taking deep, slow breaths. Fish- scale flakes of armored roofing winked around him and I remember the roosting pigeons were giving him polite space.

“Not good, Junshi,” I murmured.

The crack of the young man’s bones on the castle steps was like the report of a pistol. We hurried to his body and tried our best to move him into a respectful position. With the fighting over, I could not imagine why the man would step away from this life. The akuma offer no more threat. But the war must have torn holes in our hearts. When it ended, no hope arrived to fill them.

“You must be very sad and lonely,” I whispered to the corpse. “But your friends will come for you soon and they will help put you to rest.” Junshi-88 blinked at me, processing my words. I do not know if it understood. By treating the dead as if they are living, we give them respect. We make life easier for those who remain.

Junshi-88 helped me arrange the body and it did not complain. I do not fear to touch a dismantled machine. On that morning I learned that this bravery can go the other way, too.

The young man was not the first to leap. Nor was he the last. Many of my people are falling. They are drowning. Hanging and suffocating and burning. I cannot say why my people are leaving us. I have never been good with emotions. But I can feel the wrongness of the empty act. The despair and meaninglessness that have settled over us like still, glassy water.

Without an enemy, we are falling forward. Nothing to push against. Flailing into empty space. We do not know how to start over. There is no route back to the beginning. The pattern of the world is torn. Living is the ruins of our memories is painful, and many would rather die.

My people may despair, but I do not.

For many years I have lived in a bare room with a woman and a workbench. A lamp and a chair and well-oiled tools spread out on a reed mat. Warm fingers on my shoulders. Hot tea. The bright smell of washed hair and the warm lingering scent of the soldering iron. It is a world of hope. From in here I can see the tools of rebirth everywhere. Each mangled wire or melted scrap is another piece of the puzzle.

I say a prayer as I cross the square where that nameless young man stepped out of the world. Beside me, 88 marches dutifully. The awakened military humanoid is a chilly friend. Never a recipient of my services. But Mikiko asked it to protect me, and as a freeborn, 88 takes her command very seriously. It required two nights before I became used to having it watch me sleep.

“There he is,” calls someone.

“Nomura!”

“What is in the harbor!?”
“Are we under attack!?”

My people are gathered. Each measured shout sends my head ducking lower and puts an extra scurry in my steps. Junshi-88 clears the way as we trot up the sweeping promenade of steel steps. They have been destroyed and repaired in a cycle these last three years. Burrowed under, demolished, heat-blasted, and soaked in the blood and oil of our defenders. The enemy akuma never made it inside. Not after that first time.

No one tries to stop my passage. I glance up, just once, and see that there are hundreds of my people outside the closed doors to the throne room. They are milling around and talking to each other in concerned whispers. A hush shudders through them like a wake as 88 pushes a path through.

I am not good at talking to them. Head down, as usual, I climb the steps. My workshop is still located in the main hall, on the same spot where I first knelt and began to work on a nearby senshi robot arm. Back when this place was an abandoned factory and not a shining fortress.

The 88 and I enter through an arched front door made of crosshatched steel beams. The fortified door gleams like the armored scales of some giant prehistoric fish. It was built by the great crane-arm senshi that rests now, coiled and deadly, high against the ceiling of what is now the throne room.

Slipping inside, I pad across the vast space. A neat corridor of senshi honor guard flanks the path to the throne. Each robot arm is folded in a salute, coated in glistening, nail polish–red paint. My terra-cotta army, always capable of animating, but not called on to defend the central keep in more than a year. Are they unhappy to be without purpose now? I wonder. Or will the time soon come again when they must build?

The scrap-metal throne is empty.

I leave the 88 behind and trot around the throne. My table and lamp are shoved against the stone foundation of the dais. Polished steel flooring whispers under my paper sandals. My amorphous reflection spreads below like a dark puddle on the metal. Quiet now. A little farther and I can make it out without alerting Mikiko.

Hastily, I stuff the tools I will need into a brown canvas backpack. Ransacking my work desk, I pull out all manner of tools and trinkets. Soon, the bag is bulging. Last thing, I grab my trusty toolbox and tuck it under my other arm.

“Mr. Nomura,” calls Mikiko.

Her voice stills my feet. My queen steps out from behind the dais that supports our thrones. I cannot remember the last time I climbed those steps to sit on that ostentatious chair. At some point, it has been decorated with a fan spray of sharp, twisting scrap metal, collected from our destroyed city.

“Mikiko,” I whisper.

“Did you notice your people outside?” she asks.

“Oh, uh. No,” I reply. “Too busy, in any case.”

Mikiko does not react to my obvious lie.

“Listen to me now. I cannot stop this darkness. The survivors need a human being to lead them. Someone who understands the despair they feel. An emperor.”

“No time,” I say.

“The rate of suicide is increasing,” she says. “I do not know how to help them. They need a purpose. You gave them that, once.”

“I’ve got to get back to the harbor,” I say.

“What are you afraid of, Takeo? Really?”

The question lingers, her synthetic voice echoing.

“Very busy,” I whisper, taking a step.

As I turn to go, she speaks: “My darling, you will never find what you have lost. The answers you seek are not in the sea. They are in here.”

I stop moving. My skin has gone cold. I am thinking of those wide, round little eyes. The crushing press of the wave against my back.

“It’s . . . a shinboku,” I say, voice shaking. “In the harbor. The voice of the sea has sent it here to me. I must find out why.”

“The platform that washed up? It is an artifact of war. Broken and derelict.”

“I am curious,” I whisper.

So difficult to explain, these patterns in my mind. The razed remains of Tokyo and the phantom images of buildings that are gone. The wailing ghosts of millions of dead, their bodies churned under the ground and burned to smoke on the wind and swept out to the bottom of the sea.

I need to understand it. I need to find the meaning in it.

“Trust me, my love,” I say. “The voice of the sea—”

“Is in your imagination!” she shouts. Her voice echoes from the thick rib supports that hold up the vast arched ceiling. “I am losing you to the past. To the same despair that is taking your people. Stop this madness. Come back, Emperor Nomura. Do your duty.”

Now there is exquisite emotion on her face. Anger and sadness. I know she places it there for me alone, an affectation. Each careless wrinkle on her face, every strand of gray in her hair puts a thumping into my heart. Passion and dread. I try to imagine returning to her side and ignoring the voice calling to me from the sea.

She is her own and you know it, old man. You are going to lose her.

The thought makes my fingertips numb, puts a thickness in my throat and a warm waiting tide behind my eyes. I cannot face it.

“This is my duty to myself,” I whisper, and scurry away.

Daniel Wilson will be at the Waucoma Bookstore in Hood River, OR on Friday, August 1 at 5pm as part of his Robogenesis book tour:

Waucoma Bookstore, 5PM
212 Oak St.
Hood River, OR, 97031 

Robohub is an online platform that brings together leading communicators in robotics research, start-ups, business, and education from around the world. Learn more about us here. If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

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The panel discussion was excellent, and the response by economist Carlota Perez was engaging and thought provoking – check here for the Storified tweets and pictures. Perhaps the thing that surprised me the most, given the serious economists on the panel (FT, The Economist) was that the panel ended up agreeing that the Robot Economy will necessitate something like a Living Wage. Music to this socialist’s ears.

In my contribution: The Next Big Things in Robotics (pages 38-44) I do a bit of near-future gazing and suggest four aspects of robotics that will, I think, be huge. They are:

• Wearable Robotics
• Immersive Teleoperated Robots
• Driverless Cars
• Soft Robotics

To see why I chose these – and to read the other great articles – please download the book. Let me know if you disagree with my choice, or to suggest other Next Big Things in robotics. I end my chapter with a section called What’s not coming soon: super intelligent robots

“My predicted things that will be really big in robotics don’t need to be super intelligent. Wearable robots will need advanced adaptive (and very safe and reliable) control systems, as well as advanced neural–electronics interfaces, and these are coming. But ultimately it’s the human wearing the robot who is in charge. The same is true for teleoperated robots: again, greater low–level intelligence is needed, so that the robot can operate autonomously some of the time but ask for help when it can’t figure out what to do next. But the high–level intelligence remains with the human operator and – with advanced immersive interfaces as I have suggested – human and robot work together seamlessly. The most autonomous of the next big things in robotics is the driverless car, but again the car doesn’t need to be very smart. You don’t need to debate philosophy with your car – just trust it to take you safely from A to B.”

According to MIT Press:

This book offers the definitive guide to the theory and practice of disaster robotics. It can serve as an introduction for researchers and technologists, a reference for emergency managers, and a textbook in field robotics. Written by a pioneering researcher in the field who has herself participated in fifteen deployments of robots in disaster response and recovery, the book covers theory and practice, the history of the field, and specific missions.

Available through the MIT Press, Amazon, and as a Kindle eBook.

This post is part of Robohub’s Jobs Focus.

A strong argument can be made that a very large percentage of jobs are, on some level, essentially routine and repetitive in nature. In other words, the job can be broken down into a discrete set of tasks that tend to get repeated on a regular basis and can be predicated based on historical data. It seems likely that, as both computer hardware and software continue to progress, a large fraction of these job types are ultimately going to be susceptible to robotic or software automation, and in particular to machine learning technology.

Recent innovations like IBM’s Watson computer suggest that machine learning algorithms may soon be able to take on a number of cognitive tasks. As technology accelerates, I think there is little doubt that these systems will begin to match or exceed the capability of human workers in many routine job categories — and this includes a lot of workers with college degrees or other significant training.

As robots and smart algorithms increasingly take on the more routine, predictable jobs, this will leave much of our workforce with an unprecedented challenge. Historically, most workers have been able to move from routine occupations in one area to similarly routine jobs in a new emerging area, perhaps acquiring some new skills as part of the transition. However, as technology impacts virtually all routine work across the board, workers will have to find work in areas that are genuinely non-routine or creative in order to remain relevant. There are good reasons to be concerned that a significant fraction of our workforce will have great difficulty with such a transition: after all, if we assume a normal distribution or capability, then by definition, 50% of workers are average or below average.

None of this is intended to argue against continuing progress in areas like robotics, big data and AI. However, as these technologies continue to accelerate, the impact on employment and income inequality is likely to become more and more visible to the general public. Ultimately, I think that in order to solve the distributional problems that will be created by automation — and to ensure continued, broad-based prosperity — we will need to reform our economic systems. If we fail to do this, it seems very likely that a public backlash against automation technologies, as well as significant social and economic upheaval could well result.

This post is part of Robohub’s Jobs Focus. 

Those of us who have been speaking about the tremendous impact of automation in the workforce know very well that this isn’t a fad about to pass, but that it’s a problem that will only exacerbate in the future. Most of us agree on what the problem is (exponential growth of high-tech replacing humans faster and faster), and we agree that education will play a crucial role; but very few seem to suggest that we should use this opportunity to re-think our entire economic system and what the purpose of society should be.

We have come to believe that we are dependent on governments and corporations for everything, and now that technology is ever more pervasive, our dependence on them is even stronger. And of course we don’t question the cycle of labor-for-income, income-for-survival and the conspicuous consumption model that has become dominant in virtually every country – and that not only is ecologically unsustainable, but it also generates immense income inequality.

Well, I do. I challenge the assumption that we should live to work, and even that we should work to live, for that matter. In an age where we already produce more than enough food, energy, and drinkable water for 7 billion people with little to no human labour, while 780 million lack access to clean water and 860 million are suffering from chronic hunger, it follows that the system we have in place isn’t allocating resources efficiently. And rather than going back to outdated ideologies (i.e. socialism), we can try new forms of societal structure; starting with open source philosophy, shared knowledge, self-reliance, and sustainable communities.

There are many transitional steps that we can take  – reduced workweek, reform patent and copyright laws, switch to distributed and renewable energies – and there will be bumps along the road, no doubt. But if we move in the right direction, if we are ready to abandon ideologies and stick to whatever works best, I think we will prevail – simply because we will realise that there is no war other than the one we are fighting with ourselves.

See all the posts in Robohub’s Jobs Focus →

Robot Futures is a new book written by Dr. Illah Nourbakhsh, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who has been teaching roboethics at the university for many years. According to Dr. Noel Sharkey, this book is “[a]n exhilarating dash into the future of robotics from a scholar with the enthusiasm of a bag of monkeys. It is gripping from the start with little sci-fi stories in each chapter punching home points backed up forcefully by factual reality. This is an entertaining tour de force that will appeal to anyone with an interest in robots.”

Mind you, I found out about the book just this morning, so I definitely haven’t read it yet. But I am very curious to find out more about Dr. Nourbakhsh’s view of our future with robots.

For one, Dr. Nourbakhsh teaches a roboethics course at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He even made a roboethics teaching material available to the public online (check it out here if you haven’t already). So I am very much looking forward to his insight into the topic of roboethics as he discusses the future.

The book is now safely sitting in my electronic library waiting to be read and highlighted and pondered over — very exciting!

For those of you interested in finding out more about the author and his connection to ethics of robotics, here’s a YouTube video of a very fun and story-filled lecture Dr. Nourbakhsh gave at Carnegie Mellon University. Also, be sure to check out his blog as well.  (Warning: you might end up bound to your chair to listen to his lecture for the next 40 minutes as soon as you hit play):

1. The Handbook of Robotics is a massive book. But is amazingly good at giving a broad sweep of the field.
2. Robotics, Vision and Control: Fundamental Algorithms in MATLAB by Peter Corke is an excellent introductory text with online Matlab examples.
3. Probabilistic Robotics by Sebastian Thrun et al. gives an excellent grounding in statistical and machine learning methods for robotics.
4. For people starting out in robotics I recommend the brilliant LEGO MINDSTORMS by Laurens Valk. It provides practical ways to teach and inspire the next generation of roboticists.
5. I also recommend people read some inspiring science fiction to get motivated! You can’t go past Isaac Asimov and his classic I, Robot.

Read more answers →

A great history of the robotic future can be found by starting through Isaac Asimov’s “I, Robot” anthologies (and the extending books “Robots of the Dawn”, “Caves of Steel”, etc). As with the Sherlock Holmes novels, Asimov’s stories are engaging, logical, quick to read, and, best of all, not bogged down by technical jargon. Written in a simpler time (starting 1930s), the “I Robot” parables revolve around the necessities of the humans involved, but as the series progressed over decades, Asimov’s machines evolve more interesting, sometimes pertinent, roles.

Stories of robot evolution are pandemic through sci-fi culture, and there are many pejorative “Frankenstein awakens and he’s pissed” sub-genres that burden the field. However there are some tales that explore why he’s pissed, and what sort of introspection it might take to calm him down (pitchforks not included). Two of my favorites along these lines are “Two Faces of Tomorrow” (1979, ISBN 978-1-59307-563-7) and “Code of the Lifemaker” (1983, ISBN 0-345-30549-3) both by James P. Hogan. Not only are these stories prophetic, but they deal with my favorite attribute of robotics, namely “Emergent Properties”, when a robot system does more than expected. A major part of the fun of research robotics — “Is it a bug, or awareness?”

There are many excellent modern mechanical missives, but one of the most brilliant details a realistic legal robot dystopia that’s free online. “The Robot and the Baby” by John McCarthy (2006) makes me glad robots are still mostly fictional and not subject to choking regulations and political tarnish. For now, the fun of building robots unfettered is secure, but this story reveals some disturbing possibilities and is my favorite cautionary tale.

And finally, I strongly recommend “Expedition — Voyage to Darwin IV” by Wayne Douglas Barlow (1990, Workman Publishing). This book is pure imagination in biology form, and fed well into my long-held bias that robots don’t have to just be copies of familiar earthly lifeforms, they could be nimble, exotic, enticing aliens. As roboticists, we can build anything, provided we’ve the inspiration, and this book is all about that.

Inspiration acquired. Now where’s my box of junk?

Read more answers →

So, what’s on the essential reading list for budding roboticists? Our panel members weigh in:

Mark Tilden on “What are the five must-read publications for budding roboticists?”

Aside from the conventional introductory texts on BEAM Robotics, control systems, electronics, and multi-axis mechanics, I always recommend books to inspire thoughts on robotic history, possibilities, and directions.

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Alex Zelinski on “What are the five must-read publications for budding roboticists?”

The field moves quickly. So much of the material dates quickly. Joining a professional association such as IEEE or IFR and regular reading of publications – magazines and journals – is essential.

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