1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,000 So, the first robot to talk about is called STriDER. 2 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:05,000 It stands for Self-excited 3 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Tripedal Dynamic Experimental Robot. 4 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:09,000 It's a robot that has three legs, 5 00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:12,000 which is inspired by nature. 6 00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:14,000 But have you seen anything in nature, 7 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:16,000 an animal that has three legs? 8 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:18,000 Probably not. So, why do I call this 9 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:20,000 a biologically inspired robot? How would it work? 10 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:23,000 But before that, let's look at pop culture. 11 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:26,000 So, you know H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds," novel and movie. 12 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:28,000 And what you see over here is a very popular 13 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:30,000 video game, 14 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:33,000 and in this fiction they describe these alien creatures that 15 00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:35,000 are robots that have three legs that terrorize Earth. 16 00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:39,000 But my robot, STriDER, does not move like this. 17 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:42,000 So, this is an actual dynamic simulation animation. 18 00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:44,000 I'm just going to show you how the robot works. 19 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:47,000 It flips its body 180 degrees 20 00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:50,000 and it swings its leg between the two legs and catches the fall. 21 00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:52,000 So, that's how it walks. But when you look at us 22 00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:54,000 human being, bipedal walking, 23 00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:56,000 what you're doing is you're not really using a muscle 24 00:00:56,000 --> 00:00:59,000 to lift your leg and walk like a robot. Right? 25 00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:02,000 What you're doing is you really swing your leg and catch the fall, 26 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:05,000 stand up again, swing your leg and catch the fall. 27 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:08,000 You're using your built-in dynamics, the physics of your body, 28 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:10,000 just like a pendulum. 29 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:14,000 We call that the concept of passive dynamic locomotion. 30 00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:16,000 What you're doing is, when you stand up, 31 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:18,000 potential energy to kinetic energy, 32 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:20,000 potential energy to kinetic energy. 33 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:22,000 It's a constantly falling process. 34 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:25,000 So, even though there is nothing in nature that looks like this, 35 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:27,000 really, we were inspired by biology 36 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:29,000 and applying the principles of walking 37 00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:32,000 to this robot. Thus it's a biologically inspired robot. 38 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:34,000 What you see over here, this is what we want to do next. 39 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:38,000 We want to fold up the legs and shoot it up for long-range motion. 40 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:41,000 And it deploys legs -- it looks almost like "Star Wars" -- 41 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:44,000 when it lands, it absorbs the shock and starts walking. 42 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:47,000 What you see over here, this yellow thing, this is not a death ray. (Laughter) 43 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:49,000 This is just to show you that if you have cameras 44 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:51,000 or different types of sensors -- 45 00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:53,000 because it is tall, it's 1.8 meters tall -- 46 00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:56,000 you can see over obstacles like bushes and those kinds of things. 47 00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:58,000 So we have two prototypes. 48 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:01,000 The first version, in the back, that's STriDER I. 49 00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:03,000 The one in front, the smaller, is STriDER II. 50 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:05,000 The problem that we had with STriDER I is 51 00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:08,000 it was just too heavy in the body. We had so many motors, 52 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:10,000 you know, aligning the joints, and those kinds of things. 53 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:14,000 So, we decided to synthesize a mechanical mechanism 54 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:17,000 so we could get rid of all the motors, and with a single motor 55 00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:19,000 we can coordinate all the motions. 56 00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:22,000 It's a mechanical solution to a problem, instead of using mechatronics. 57 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:25,000 So, with this now the top body is light enough. So, it's walking in our lab; 58 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:28,000 this was the very first successful step. 59 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:30,000 It's still not perfected -- its coffee falls down -- 60 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:33,000 so we still have a lot of work to do. 61 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:36,000 The second robot I want to talk about is called IMPASS. 62 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:40,000 It stands for Intelligent Mobility Platform with Actuated Spoke System. 63 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:43,000 So, it's a wheel-leg hybrid robot. 64 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:45,000 So, think of a rimless wheel 65 00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:47,000 or a spoke wheel, 66 00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:50,000 but the spokes individually move in and out of the hub; 67 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:52,000 so, it's a wheel-leg hybrid. 68 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:54,000 We are literally re-inventing the wheel here. 69 00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:57,000 Let me demonstrate how it works. 70 00:02:57,000 --> 00:02:59,000 So, in this video we're using an approach 71 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:01,000 called the reactive approach. 72 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:04,000 Just simply using the tactile sensors on the feet, 73 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:06,000 it's trying to walk over a changing terrain, 74 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:09,000 a soft terrain where it pushes down and changes. 75 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:11,000 And just by the tactile information, 76 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:14,000 it successfully crosses over these type of terrain. 77 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:18,000 But, when it encounters a very extreme terrain, 78 00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:21,000 in this case, this obstacle is more than three times 79 00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:23,000 the height of the robot, 80 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:25,000 Then it switches to a deliberate mode, 81 00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:27,000 where it uses a laser range finder, 82 00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:29,000 and camera systems, to identify the obstacle and the size, 83 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:32,000 and it plans, carefully plans the motion of the spokes 84 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:34,000 and coordinates it so that it can show this 85 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:36,000 kind of very very impressive mobility. 86 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:38,000 You probably haven't seen anything like this out there. 87 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:41,000 This is a very high mobility robot 88 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:44,000 that we developed called IMPASS. 89 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:46,000 Ah, isn't that cool? 90 00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:49,000 When you drive your car, 91 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:51,000 when you steer your car, you use a method 92 00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:53,000 called Ackermann steering. 93 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:55,000 The front wheels rotate like this. 94 00:03:55,000 --> 00:03:58,000 For most small wheeled robots, 95 00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:00,000 they use a method called differential steering 96 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:03,000 where the left and right wheel turns the opposite direction. 97 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:06,000 For IMPASS, we can do many, many different types of motion. 98 00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:09,000 For example, in this case, even though the left and right wheel is connected 99 00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:11,000 with a single axle rotating at the same angle of velocity. 100 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:14,000 We just simply change the length of the spoke. 101 00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:16,000 It affects the diameter and then can turn to the left, turn to the right. 102 00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:18,000 So, these are just some examples of the neat things 103 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:21,000 that we can do with IMPASS. 104 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:23,000 This robot is called CLIMBeR: 105 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:26,000 Cable-suspended Limbed Intelligent Matching Behavior Robot. 106 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:29,000 So, I've been talking to a lot of NASA JPL scientists -- 107 00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:31,000 at JPL they are famous for the Mars rovers -- 108 00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:33,000 and the scientists, geologists always tell me 109 00:04:33,000 --> 00:04:36,000 that the real interesting science, 110 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:39,000 the science-rich sites, are always at the cliffs. 111 00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:41,000 But the current rovers cannot get there. 112 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:43,000 So, inspired by that we wanted to build a robot 113 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:46,000 that can climb a structured cliff environment. 114 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:48,000 So, this is CLIMBeR. 115 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:50,000 So, what it does, it has three legs. It's probably difficult to see, 116 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:53,000 but it has a winch and a cable at the top -- 117 00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:55,000 and it tries to figure out the best place to put its foot. 118 00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:57,000 And then once it figures that out 119 00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:00,000 in real time, it calculates the force distribution: 120 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:03,000 how much force it needs to exert to the surface 121 00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:05,000 so it doesn't tip and doesn't slip. 122 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:07,000 Once it stabilizes that, it lifts a foot, 123 00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:11,000 and then with the winch it can climb up these kinds of thing. 124 00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:13,000 Also for search and rescue applications as well. 125 00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:15,000 Five years ago I actually worked at NASA JPL 126 00:05:15,000 --> 00:05:17,000 during the summer as a faculty fellow. 127 00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:21,000 And they already had a six legged robot called LEMUR. 128 00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:24,000 So, this is actually based on that. This robot is called MARS: 129 00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:27,000 Multi-Appendage Robotic System. So, it's a hexapod robot. 130 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:29,000 We developed our adaptive gait planner. 131 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:31,000 We actually have a very interesting payload on there. 132 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:33,000 The students like to have fun. And here you can see that it's 133 00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:36,000 walking over unstructured terrain. 134 00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:38,000 It's trying to walk on the coarse terrain, 135 00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:40,000 sandy area, 136 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:45,000 but depending on the moisture content or the grain size of the sand 137 00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:47,000 the foot's soil sinkage model changes. 138 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:51,000 So, it tries to adapt its gait to successfully cross over these kind of things. 139 00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:53,000 And also, it does some fun stuff, as can imagine. 140 00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:56,000 We get so many visitors visiting our lab. 141 00:05:56,000 --> 00:05:58,000 So, when the visitors come, MARS walks up to the computer, 142 00:05:58,000 --> 00:06:00,000 starts typing "Hello, my name is MARS." 143 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:02,000 Welcome to RoMeLa, 144 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:06,000 the Robotics Mechanisms Laboratory at Virginia Tech. 145 00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:08,000 This robot is an amoeba robot. 146 00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:11,000 Now, we don't have enough time to go into technical details, 147 00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:13,000 I'll just show you some of the experiments. 148 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:15,000 So, this is some of the early feasibility experiments. 149 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:19,000 We store potential energy to the elastic skin to make it move. 150 00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:21,000 Or use an active tension cords to make it move 151 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:24,000 forward and backward. It's called ChIMERA. 152 00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:26,000 We also have been working with some scientists 153 00:06:26,000 --> 00:06:28,000 and engineers from UPenn 154 00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:30,000 to come up with a chemically actuated version 155 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:32,000 of this amoeba robot. 156 00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:34,000 We do something to something 157 00:06:34,000 --> 00:06:40,000 And just like magic, it moves. The blob. 158 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:42,000 This robot is a very recent project. It's called RAPHaEL. 159 00:06:42,000 --> 00:06:45,000 Robotic Air Powered Hand with Elastic Ligaments. 160 00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:49,000 There are a lot of really neat, very good robotic hands out there in the market. 161 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:53,000 The problem is they're just too expensive, tens of thousands of dollars. 162 00:06:53,000 --> 00:06:55,000 So, for prosthesis applications it's probably not too practical, 163 00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:57,000 because it's not affordable. 164 00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:01,000 We wanted to go tackle this problem in a very different direction. 165 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:04,000 Instead of using electrical motors, electromechanical actuators, 166 00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:06,000 we're using compressed air. 167 00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:08,000 We developed these novel actuators for joints. 168 00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:11,000 It is compliant. You can actually change the force, 169 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:13,000 simply just changing the air pressure. 170 00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:15,000 And it can actually crush an empty soda can. 171 00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:18,000 It can pick up very delicate objects like a raw egg, 172 00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:21,000 or in this case, a lightbulb. 173 00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:25,000 The best part, it took only $200 dollars to make the first prototype. 174 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:28,000 This robot is actually a family of snake robots 175 00:07:28,000 --> 00:07:30,000 that we call HyDRAS, 176 00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:32,000 Hyper Degrees-of-freedom Robotic Articulated Serpentine. 177 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:35,000 This is a robot that can climb structures. 178 00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:37,000 This is a HyDRAS's arm. 179 00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:39,000 It's a 12 degrees of freedom robotic arm. 180 00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:41,000 But the cool part is the user interface. 181 00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:44,000 The cable over there, that's an optical fiber. 182 00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:46,000 And this student, probably the first time using it, 183 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:48,000 but she can articulate it many different ways. 184 00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:51,000 So, for example in Iraq, you know, the war zone, 185 00:07:51,000 --> 00:07:53,000 there is roadside bombs. Currently you send these 186 00:07:53,000 --> 00:07:56,000 remotely controlled vehicles that are armed. 187 00:07:56,000 --> 00:07:58,000 It takes really a lot of time and it's expensive 188 00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:02,000 to train the operator to operate this complex arm. 189 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:04,000 In this case it's very intuitive; 190 00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:08,000 this student, probably his first time using it, doing very complex manipulation tasks, 191 00:08:08,000 --> 00:08:10,000 picking up objects and doing manipulation, 192 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:13,000 just like that. Very intuitive. 193 00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:17,000 Now, this robot is currently our star robot. 194 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:20,000 We actually have a fan club for the robot, DARwIn: 195 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:23,000 Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence. 196 00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:25,000 As you know, we are very interested in 197 00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:27,000 humanoid robot, human walking, 198 00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:29,000 so we decided to build a small humanoid robot. 199 00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:31,000 This was in 2004; at that time, 200 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:33,000 this was something really, really revolutionary. 201 00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:35,000 This was more of a feasibility study: 202 00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:37,000 What kind of motors should we use? 203 00:08:37,000 --> 00:08:39,000 Is it even possible? What kinds of controls should we do? 204 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:41,000 So, this does not have any sensors. 205 00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:43,000 So, it's an open loop control. 206 00:08:43,000 --> 00:08:45,000 For those who probably know, if you don't have any sensors 207 00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:47,000 and there are any disturbances, you know what happens. 208 00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:51,000 (Laughter) 209 00:08:51,000 --> 00:08:53,000 So, based on that success, the following year 210 00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:56,000 we did the proper mechanical design 211 00:08:56,000 --> 00:08:58,000 starting from kinematics. 212 00:08:58,000 --> 00:09:00,000 And thus, DARwIn I was born in 2005. 213 00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:02,000 It stands up, it walks -- very impressive. 214 00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:04,000 However, still, as you can see, 215 00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:08,000 it has a cord, umbilical cord. So, we're still using an external power source 216 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:10,000 and external computation. 217 00:09:10,000 --> 00:09:14,000 So, in 2006, now it's really time to have fun. 218 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:17,000 Let's give it intelligence. We give it all the computing power it needs: 219 00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:19,000 a 1.5 gigahertz Pentium M chip, 220 00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:21,000 two FireWire cameras, rate gyros, accelerometers, 221 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:24,000 four force sensors on the foot, lithium polymer batteries. 222 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:28,000 And now DARwIn II is completely autonomous. 223 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:30,000 It is not remote controlled. 224 00:09:30,000 --> 00:09:33,000 There are no tethers. It looks around, searches for the ball, 225 00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:36,000 looks around, searches for the ball, and it tries to play a game of soccer, 226 00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:39,000 autonomously: artificial intelligence. 227 00:09:39,000 --> 00:09:42,000 Let's see how it does. This was our very first trial, 228 00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:47,000 and... Spectators (Video): Goal! 229 00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:51,000 Dennis Hong: So, there is actually a competition called RoboCup. 230 00:09:51,000 --> 00:09:53,000 I don't know how many of you have heard about RoboCup. 231 00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:58,000 It's an international autonomous robot soccer competition. 232 00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:01,000 And the goal of RoboCup, the actual goal is, 233 00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:03,000 by the year 2050 234 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:06,000 we want to have full size, autonomous humanoid robots 235 00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:10,000 play soccer against the human World Cup champions 236 00:10:10,000 --> 00:10:12,000 and win. 237 00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:14,000 It's a true actual goal. It's a very ambitious goal, 238 00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:16,000 but we truly believe that we can do it. 239 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:19,000 So, this is last year in China. 240 00:10:19,000 --> 00:10:21,000 We were the very first team in the United States that qualified 241 00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:23,000 in the humanoid RoboCup competition. 242 00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:26,000 This is this year in Austria. 243 00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:28,000 You're going to see the action, three against three, 244 00:10:28,000 --> 00:10:30,000 completely autonomous. 245 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:32,000 There you go. Yes! 246 00:10:33,000 --> 00:10:35,000 The robots track and they 247 00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:38,000 team play amongst themselves. 248 00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:40,000 It's very impressive. It's really a research event 249 00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:44,000 packaged in a more exciting competition event. 250 00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:46,000 What you see over here, this is the beautiful 251 00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:48,000 Louis Vuitton Cup trophy. 252 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:50,000 So, this is for the best humanoid, 253 00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:52,000 and we would like to bring this for the very first time, to the United States 254 00:10:52,000 --> 00:10:54,000 next year, so wish us luck. 255 00:10:54,000 --> 00:10:56,000 (Applause) 256 00:10:56,000 --> 00:10:59,000 Thank you. 257 00:10:59,000 --> 00:11:01,000 DARwIn also has a lot of other talents. 258 00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:04,000 Last year it actually conducted the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra 259 00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:07,000 for the holiday concert. 260 00:11:07,000 --> 00:11:10,000 This is the next generation robot, DARwIn IV, 261 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:13,000 but smarter, faster, stronger. 262 00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:15,000 And it's trying to show off its ability: 263 00:11:15,000 --> 00:11:18,000 "I'm macho, I'm strong. 264 00:11:18,000 --> 00:11:21,000 I can also do some Jackie Chan-motion, 265 00:11:21,000 --> 00:11:24,000 martial art movements." 266 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:26,000 (Laughter) 267 00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:28,000 And it walks away. So, this is DARwIn IV. 268 00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:30,000 And again, you'll be able to see it in the lobby. 269 00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:32,000 We truly believe this is going to be the very first running 270 00:11:32,000 --> 00:11:35,000 humanoid robot in the United States. So, stay tuned. 271 00:11:35,000 --> 00:11:38,000 All right. So I showed you some of our exciting robots at work. 272 00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:41,000 So, what is the secret of our success? 273 00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:43,000 Where do we come up with these ideas? 274 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:45,000 How do we develop these kinds of ideas? 275 00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:47,000 We have a fully autonomous vehicle 276 00:11:47,000 --> 00:11:49,000 that can drive into urban environments. We won a half a million dollars 277 00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:51,000 in the DARPA Urban Challenge. 278 00:11:51,000 --> 00:11:53,000 We also have the world's very first 279 00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:55,000 vehicle that can be driven by the blind. 280 00:11:55,000 --> 00:11:57,000 We call it the Blind Driver Challenge, very exciting. 281 00:11:57,000 --> 00:12:01,000 And many, many other robotics projects I want to talk about. 282 00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:03,000 These are just the awards that we won in 2007 fall 283 00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:06,000 from robotics competitions and those kinds of things. 284 00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:08,000 So, really, we have five secrets. 285 00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:10,000 First is: Where do we get inspiration? 286 00:12:10,000 --> 00:12:12,000 Where do we get this spark of imagination? 287 00:12:12,000 --> 00:12:15,000 This is a true story, my personal story. 288 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:17,000 At night when I go to bed, 3 - 4 a.m. in the morning, 289 00:12:17,000 --> 00:12:20,000 I lie down, close my eyes, and I see these lines and circles 290 00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:22,000 and different shapes floating around. 291 00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:25,000 And they assemble, and they form these kinds of mechanisms. 292 00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:27,000 And then I think, "Ah this is cool." 293 00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:29,000 So, right next to my bed I keep a notebook, 294 00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:32,000 a journal, with a special pen that has a light on it, LED light, 295 00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:34,000 because I don't want to turn on the light and wake up my wife. 296 00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:36,000 So, I see this, scribble everything down, draw things, 297 00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:38,000 and I go to bed. 298 00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:40,000 Every day in the morning, 299 00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:42,000 the first thing I do before my first cup of coffee, 300 00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:44,000 before I brush my teeth, I open my notebook. 301 00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:46,000 Many times it's empty, 302 00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:48,000 sometimes I have something there -- if something's there, sometimes it's junk -- 303 00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:51,000 but most of the time I can't even read my handwriting. 304 00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:54,000 And so, 4 am in the morning, what do you expect, right? 305 00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:56,000 So, I need to decipher what I wrote. 306 00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:59,000 But sometimes I see this ingenious idea in there, 307 00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:01,000 and I have this eureka moment. 308 00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:03,000 I directly run to my home office, sit at my computer, 309 00:13:03,000 --> 00:13:05,000 I type in the ideas, I sketch things out 310 00:13:05,000 --> 00:13:08,000 and I keep a database of ideas. 311 00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:10,000 So, when we have these calls for proposals, 312 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:12,000 I try to find a match between my 313 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:14,000 potential ideas 314 00:13:14,000 --> 00:13:16,000 and the problem. If there is a match we write a research proposal, 315 00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:20,000 get the research funding in, and that's how we start our research programs. 316 00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:23,000 But just a spark of imagination is not good enough. 317 00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:25,000 How do we develop these kinds of ideas? 318 00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:28,000 At our lab RoMeLa, the Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory, 319 00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:31,000 we have these fantastic brainstorming sessions. 320 00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:33,000 So, we gather around, we discuss about problems 321 00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:35,000 and social problems and talk about it. 322 00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:38,000 But before we start we set this golden rule. 323 00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:40,000 The rule is: 324 00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:43,000 Nobody criticizes anybody's ideas. 325 00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:45,000 Nobody criticizes any opinion. 326 00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:47,000 This is important, because many times students, they fear 327 00:13:47,000 --> 00:13:50,000 or they feel uncomfortable how others might think 328 00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:52,000 about their opinions and thoughts. 329 00:13:52,000 --> 00:13:54,000 So, once you do this, it is amazing 330 00:13:54,000 --> 00:13:56,000 how the students open up. 331 00:13:56,000 --> 00:13:59,000 They have these wacky, cool, crazy, brilliant ideas, and 332 00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:02,000 the whole room is just electrified with creative energy. 333 00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:05,000 And this is how we develop our ideas. 334 00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:08,000 Well, we're running out of time. One more thing I want to talk about is, 335 00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:12,000 you know, just a spark of idea and development is not good enough. 336 00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:14,000 There was a great TED moment, 337 00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:17,000 I think it was Sir Ken Robinson, was it? 338 00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:19,000 He gave a talk about how education 339 00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:21,000 and school kills creativity. 340 00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:24,000 Well, actually, there are two sides to the story. 341 00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:27,000 So, there is only so much one can do 342 00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:29,000 with just ingenious ideas 343 00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:32,000 and creativity and good engineering intuition. 344 00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:34,000 If you want to go beyond a tinkering, 345 00:14:34,000 --> 00:14:36,000 if you want to go beyond a hobby of robotics 346 00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:39,000 and really tackle the grand challenges of robotics 347 00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:41,000 through rigorous research 348 00:14:41,000 --> 00:14:44,000 we need more than that. This is where school comes in. 349 00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:47,000 Batman, fighting against bad guys, 350 00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:49,000 he has his utility belt, he has his grappling hook, 351 00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:51,000 he has all different kinds of gadgets. 352 00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:53,000 For us roboticists, engineers and scientists, 353 00:14:53,000 --> 00:14:58,000 these tools, these are the courses and classes you take in class. 354 00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:00,000 Math, differential equations. 355 00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:02,000 I have linear algebra, science, physics, 356 00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:05,000 even nowadays, chemistry and biology, as you've seen. 357 00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:07,000 These are all the tools that we need. 358 00:15:07,000 --> 00:15:09,000 So, the more tools you have, for Batman, 359 00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:11,000 more effective at fighting the bad guys, 360 00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:15,000 for us, more tools to attack these kinds of big problems. 361 00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:18,000 So, education is very important. 362 00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:20,000 Also, it's not about that, 363 00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:22,000 only about that. You also have to work really, really hard. 364 00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:24,000 So, I always tell my students, 365 00:15:24,000 --> 00:15:26,000 "Work smart, then work hard." 366 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:29,000 This picture in the back this is 3 a.m. in the morning. 367 00:15:29,000 --> 00:15:31,000 I guarantee if you come to your lab at 3 - 4 am 368 00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:33,000 we have students working there, 369 00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:36,000 not because I tell them to, but because we are having too much fun. 370 00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:38,000 Which leads to the last topic: 371 00:15:38,000 --> 00:15:40,000 Do not forget to have fun. 372 00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:43,000 That's really the secret of our success, we're having too much fun. 373 00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:46,000 I truly believe that highest productivity comes when you're having fun, 374 00:15:46,000 --> 00:15:48,000 and that's what we're doing. 375 00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:50,000 There you go. Thank you so much. 376 00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:55,000 (Applause)