Personal info for roschler

Name: Robert Oschler
Member since: 2004-02-13 03:49:41
Last Login: 2008-04-16 19:40:17

I am a hobbyist roboticist and AI enthusiast. I once built a 6 jointed robot hand, using the Robix RCS toolkit, to look for the brightest source of light in a room. It held a light receptor in its gripper hand. It's movements were controlled by genetic algorithms. Each chromosome in the population contained 6 genes; one gene per motor position angle. The fitness test was the strength of the light coming in from the photo receptor. I never entered it in any competitions, but I had a great time building and testing it. A funny anecdote about the hand. I tested it in a dark room and at one point, the two best solutions for the robot ended up being a light I turned on in the room, and my forehead (reflected light)! It eventually settled on the light.

Some more detail on the robotic hand. I built the hand in the middle 1980's. I used two computer systems to drive it; a Windows 3.1 system and a pure DOS machine. The DOS machine ran the Robix driver programs which communicated with the robot hand joint motors over an RS-232 port. I had to use two machines because the Robix drivers needed real time access to the robot hand motors. This meant you could only run low level programs that used it's robot programming language and not Window 3.1, on the same machine. The genetic algorithm code was much easier to write and test under Windows 3.1. The Windows 3.1 machine communicated to the DOS machine over a custom written RS- 232 comm bridge module.

I also moderate the Robots.net forum and maintain a web site for robot and android enthusiasts at RobotsRule.com. I can't wait for the Robosapien V2 to be released so I can adapt my software to it's advanced capabilities. I've just started a new blog for owners of the Robosapien V2 robot titled the Robosapien V2 Review. I just picked up a RC Roboraptor, the robot dinosaur, and my own little Robopet robot dog. I just added the i-Cybie robotic dog to my collection so that my Robopet would have a friend.
I am obviously dying to see the new Robosapien RS Media, P-Bot and Roboreptile robots shown at the 2006 Consumer Electronics show by WowWee Toys International. My latest blog reviews robots and my first entry covers reviews on Roomba. If you want to talk about the Roomba and the latest hardware hacks with it like the Bluetooth control hack, visit the new Roomba & Competition forum section I recently opened up. I just added a new forum section for the fabulous and adorable UGoBe Pleo forum robot dinosaur and have begun to blog about it on my blog for the Pleo. I’m looking forward to getting a Ugobe Pleo soon. The buzz floating around the Pleo dinosaur is tremendous and growing. I have not seen one up close yet, except for Pleo videos I have seen, but as soon as I do I'll add my opinion to the growing list of Pleo reviews for the Pleo robot. For now, I am entertaining myself by creating a portal for the Pleo Dinosaur that I will grow slowly during the coming year.

The latest news of course is the amazing Flytech Dragonfly. The new flying insect robot that beats its wings. I tried to make a video of it recently but trying to do a good camcorder test on a sunny day still gives me fits; I can't seem to get the right light level setting.

The Consumer Electronics 2007 show gave us the following new robots from WowWee and other companies:

Robopanda, a bear shaped mood changing robot that can hug you. i-SOBOT, the world's smallest mass produced bipedal humanoid robot (I have one now). or the Spykee, a wireless Skype compatible spy robot (formely known as Spyke), the Roboboa, a snake robot with high accuracy vision. Exosapien, a mysterious new robot that little is known about.

[Update] Fresh from the CES 2007 show. WowWee has announced a brand new spider robot called the Roboquad, a four legged robot with a high accuracy object sensing and motion detection infrared system.

WowWee has also announced a pair of movie themed robots, specifically a blue and red webbed Spidersapien robot and another model done up as famed cartoon character Homer Simpson, dubbed the Homersapien.

The CES 2008 show has many creative and interesting new robots from WowWee. My favorite is the Rovio telepresence robot that allows you to watch your house remotely. You can quickly make patrol routes with the included point and click navigation software. My second favorite was the FlyTech Bladestar, a flying blade which is a spinning propeller (blade) that has the unique feature of having infrared sensors that can sense obstacles thereby allowing it to fly on autopilot. If you like dancing robots, then the female Femisapien is sure to catch your eye.

Fisher-Price is preparing another blockbuster Elmo toy with their upcoming Elmo Live animatronic doll; available in October of 2008.

Articles Posted by roschler

Recent blog entries by roschler

3 Mar 2008 »

I'll be hosting another online Pleo party with the help of Yahoo Live this Thursday, March 6 2008. If anyone wants to chat while watching my 3 Pleos raise a ruckus in real time (with audio too), just visit my Yahoo Live Robots channel at 9 PM/EST on that date. To watch you just need a Flash enabled browser. To chat you will need a Yahoo ID (they're free).

13 Jan 2008 »

CES 2008 brought quite a few new robots from WowWee. One exciting entry was the FlyTech Bladestar flying machine, a spinning propeller with the unique twist of having sensors that allow it fly on autopilot. The most interesting in my opinion is the Rovio spy robot that allows you to monitor your home remotely and easily create patrol routes to go to predetermined spots in your home, using its point and click navigation software.

8 Nov 2007 »

Work on Robodance progresses well but is very time consuming. I have decided to add support for the i-SOBOT robot since I think it's fantastic. This will allow i-SOBOT owners to script him using the full power of the PC instead of the tiny window and facilities on the remote control. It will also let people command all of the i-SOBOT's functionality using voice commands, instead of just the 10 the stock i-SOBOT supports.

2 Sep 2007 »

I recently added Skype support to Robodance 4, my free software program for WowWee robot owners. It will be released at the end of November 2007. This is the version that also has WiiMote support. I made a video that shows my Skype enabled Roboquad, who is wearing a wireless camera and microphone, to patrol my house and beam audio and video back to my laptop. My laptop is connected remotely over the Internet, via a Skype video call, to my home computer. My home computer is running Robodance 4. This means I can dial into my house from anywhere in the world there is an Internet connection and patrol my house with my Roboquad, using just my voice to control it.

I've also updated my web site with a whimsical page on Samsung's RFID enabled Refrigerator. Although quite not a robot, it's the first refrigerator with A.I! It monitors your inventory levels of food and alerts you when you are getting low on various items.

5 Jun 2007 »

Still waiting for an update on the Ugobe Pleo dinosaur robot as to when preorders will begin. In the meantime I'm laying out the design for a portal dedicated to the Pleo. I intend to have help documentation, tips and tricks information, and much more. In the meantime, I'm keeping a blog on my progress and including the occasional technical piece or feature brief on the Pleo Dinosaur.


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