-Graduate student Andrew Marchese and CSAIL Director Daniela Rus, part of Rus' Distributed Robotics Lab
-a “fish” that can execute an escape maneuver, convulsing its body to change direction in just a fraction of a second, almost as quickly as a real fish.
-first self-contained autonomous soft robot capable of rapid body motion
-Emerging field of soft robots (safer to interact w/humans, sturdier, more malleable)
-Presenting researchers were research scientist John Romanishin and CSAIL Director Daniela Rus as part of Distributed Robotics Lab
-robotic cubes that can self-assemble into different configurations a la “Transformers”
-Inside each M-Block is a flywheel that can reach speeds of 20,000 revolutions per minute, and on each edge and face are permanent magnets that allow cubes to attach to each other.
-Interesting implications for disasters, scaffolding and perhaps even self-assembling furniture.
-CSAIL team led by Professor Seth Teller & Associate Professor Russ Tedrake -Presenting researchers were postdoc Scott Kuindersma, research scientist Maurice Fallon and collaborating researcher Pat Marion
-CSAIL one of eight finalists in robotics competition run by the Department of Defense’s research arm, DARPA.
-Can climb stairs, open doors, lift beams, turn valves and even operate a car.
Printable bots (article, video)
-Postdoc and lead researcher Ankur Mehta, and CSAIL Director Daniela Rus
-CSAIL’s printable robots can be created in five steps for $20 w/ little more than a 3D printer, some off-the-shelf electronics, and plastic.
-Group has created a six-legged insect-like robot and a gripper claw that can pick up objects.
-Just won IEEE competition & funded by a $10 million NSF grant
-team envisions future where you could walk over to a “robo-Kinko’s” and order a fully programmed bot for specific domestic tasks.
Real-time 3D-scanning (article, video)
-CSAIL researchers include graduate student Ross Finman and Professor John Leonard
-Robots have trouble working in homes and other novel GPS-denied environments due to poor navigation and object recognition abilities.
-New software maps 3-D environment, detects & classifies objects within it - all in real-time.
-Using a regular laptop and a low-cost Kinect camera, the scanner processes and then transforms video data into a photorealistic map at speed of 9.2 million 3D pixels per second.
-presenting researchers include postdoc Erez Karpas, PhD Enrique Fernandez, graduate students Peng Yu and Steve Levine, and visiting researcher Luis Figueredo
-invented by former CSAIL researcher Rodney Brooks, now CEO of Rethink Robotics
-an industrial robot with cameras, sensors and an expressive LCD-screen “face” that can safely, efficiently work alongside factory workers
-CSAIL researchers like Julie Shah are using robots like Baxter to develop methods of “cross-training” - teaching robots and humans to work w/each other to maximize efficiencies
Intelligent Wheelchair (article, video)
-presenting researchers include research scientist Matthew Walter and graduate student Sachi Hemachandra -a self-driving wheelchair that can respond to requests and navigate buildings
-uses advanced natural-language processing and 3D scanning technology to understand different human inputs (“gym,” “elevator”) and build an accurate map of its surroundings
Perching flying robots (article, video)
-Graduate student Joe Moore, part of Associate Professor Russ Tedrake's Robot Locomotion Group
-Lightweight, single-motor robots that can stop on a dime into a perching position
-implications for improving the maneuverability of robotic planes and potentially allowing them to recharge their batteries simply by alighting on power lines.
Ping Pong Arm (article, video)
-graduate student Jared Glover, advised by Leslie Kaelbli
-robotic arm uses new algorithm that’s 50 percent better than its best competitors at object recognition in environments where visual information is patchy or unreliable
-has implications for future research on tricky algorithmic problems like estimating relationships between objects and their attributes
-graduate student Patrick Barragan, part of the Learning In Intelligent Systems group led by Professor Leslie Kaelbling and Professor Tomas Lozano-Perez
-robot can do complex control tasks, ranging from baking a cake to playing pool
Demo Day Schedule
Thanks for your interest in attending MIT CSAIL's Demo Day on April 7, 2014, at the MIT Stata Center (32 Vassar Street, Cambridge).
Below is the day's schedule as well as some background on each of the demos.
Please note that all of the demos are located in the Gates Building of the Stata Center, with the exception of the Atlas demo in Building N9. (We will be leaving for Building N9 from G449 at 1:10 p.m.)
For any other questions, please contact Adam Conner-Simons at 617-324-9135 or aconner@csail.mit.edu.
| 4/7/2014 | CSAIL Robotics | Demo Day | MIT Stata Center | Media |
| TIME | ACTIVITY | LOCATION | CONTACT | |
| 9 - 11:50 a.m. | Morning demos | |||
| 9-9:20 a.m. | Baxter | G277 | Erez Karpas | |
| 9:25-9:45 a.m. | Flying bots | G339 (Holodeck) | Joe Moore | |
| 9:50-10:10 a.m. | 3D scanner | 3rd floor demo space | Ross Finman | |
| 10:15-10:35 a.m. | Wheelchair | Floor 4 Hallway | Matt Walter | |
| 10:40-11:00 a.m. | PR2 | G415 | Patrick Barragan | |
| 11:05-11:25 a.m. | Ping Pong Arm | G475 | Jared Glover | |
| 11:30-11:50 a.m. | M Blocks | G449 | John Romanishin | |
| 11:30 a.m. | Mayor attends demos | Adam Conner-Simons | ||
| 3D scanner | 3rd floor demo space | |||
| M Blocks | G449 | |||
| 11:50 a.m. | Mayor's remarks | G449 | Adam Conner-Simons | |
| 12:00 p.m. | Lunch - on your own | |||
| 12:30 - 2:00 p.m. | Afternoon demos | |||
| 12:30-12:50 p.m. | Printable bots | 3rd floor demo space | Ankur Mehta | |
| 12:50-1:10 p.m. | Soft robotic fish | G449 | Andrew Marchese | |
| 1:20-2:00 p.m. | Atlas robot | Building N9 | Scott, Maurice, Pat & Russ |