David Calkins: Does Your Robot Play Well With Others?
David Calkins, Founder of ROBOlympics, presents “Does Your Robot Play Well With Others?”.
Tony [a middle school student competitor in RoboGames!] created a firefighting robot which is an autonomous robot with the goal to be a big consumer product. His is a cross between a robot vacuum cleaner, a fire extinguisher, and a smoke detector. It’s goal is to sit there and do absolutely nothing unless there’s a house fire. And if there’s a house fire, before the fire department has to put out your whole house which is now engulfed in flames – the firefighting robot detects the fire, runs over and puts the fire out while it’s just a small fire. Some of the technological problems are we light fireplaces and light candles on tables. So it’s not as easy of a challenge as you might think. Tony won the challenge that year [against adults] as well as the following three years.
Date: Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:00:00 -0800
Location: Half Moon Bay, California, The Ritz-Carlton, Big Ideas Fest
Program and discussion: http://fora.tv/2009/12/08/David_Calkins_Does_Your_Robot_Play_Well_With_Others
