Senor Parrot’s Perch

The Nexi Robot

(Norwood House Press, 2010)

By Toney Allman

The Nexi Robot (Great Idea) by Toney Allman will fascinate you from beginning to end. It relates the quest of MIT robotics professor Cynthia Breazeal to build a social robot, one that learns like a person does and that interacts with people in a social way. Much different than tool and task oriented robots that dominate the robotics field, social robots are designed to learn from people and interact with people, understanding and showing emotions.

Video introduction to Nexi:

Author Toney Allman does a great job of making these complicated ideas understandable and stimulating. Sometimes the author struggles to keep the writing simple all the way through. At times the level is appropriate for a skilled 2nd grade reader, but overall we’re looking at a book aimed at 3rd and 4th graders and up. The format follows a younger reader level, but don’t let kids be put off. They’ll be rewarded with an excellent story about scientific inquiry that is sure to spur their imaginations and help shape their career and educational choices. I recommend this book for any school or public library or for a kid interested in robotics or engineering.

Here is a “Robots to the Rescue”, a short video kids might enjoy staring Nexi and another flying robot. At the end, you’ll see that Nexi looks like it could use a good dose of Visine as it blinks away the smokey sting from its eyes.

Robot Zot!

by Jon Scieszka

illustrated by David Shannon

Robot Zot! by Jon Scieska and David Shannon explodes with energy. Robot Zot has landed in the backyard and quickly invades the house where he destroys the toaster, an infomercial, and plenty of other things, and he rescues a toy telephone from a toddler, convinced she is captive queen. Everywhere he is followed by his faithful robot pet who looks something like a Spanish conquistador’s helmet.

Bravery is the key here. When our hero Zot faces the enemy, quaking and tempted to turn, he screws up his courage and shouts his battle cry, “Hero Zot–never fall. Hero Zot–conquers all!”

Jon Scieska has created pure boy material here, full of daring, high adventure, and zany mayhem. Then again, if your girl is the type who loves silly antics and great illustration, she’s covered here, as well.

Illustrator David Shannon completes this book with high energy and perfectly expressive illustrations. Its difficult to imagine a better collaboration between author and illustrator. Every pose and every view is perfect. Each kitchen counter appliance seems alive and menacing. The vacuum hose is a giant boa constrictor. The wide-eyed toddler the cruel captor. A dad lurks occasionally in the background, scratching his head at the devastation Robot Zot leaves in his wake.

I love Robot Zot!. Every reading seems to get better. It’s perfect for a bedtime read, take-along in the car, for pre-readers or kids headed for the second grade

Jack and the Night Visitors by Pat Schories is single-handed proof that a picture is worth 1,ooo words. This wordless book for young children, preschool through early grades, tells the story of Jack and his boy and their visitation by alien robots late one night. The drawings are amazingly expressive and full of fun and humor. It’s wordless, so there’s nothing to read, but there are endless details to the story to point to and talk about. Older kids will be fascinated by how small changes in the details of the drawings of the robots alter their expressions from joy to fear. Expect lots of cute robot pictures after reading this one with your child.

Wakened by a light from outside, Jack and his boy rush to the window to find a small spaceship landing on the roof. Out spill dozens of tiny robots eager to explore the boy’s room. It’s a frolicking party until the boy decides to keep one of the robots for himself.

It’s wordless, so there’s nothing to read, but there are endless details to the story to point to and talk about. Older kids will be fascinated by how small changes in the details of the drawings of the robots alter their expressions from joy to fear. It’s safe to say you should expect lots of cute robots in your kid’s pictures after they’ve read this book.

Pat Schories is the illustrator to the children’s favorite Bisquit series, which is authored by Alyssa Capucilli. Other Jack books by Schories include Breakfast for Jack, Jack and the Missing Piece, and Jack Wants a Snack.

Jack and the Night Visitors illustrations from Pat Schories’ Website.

Well, maybe here’s a career for a video gamer with good eye-thumb coordination – RoboSurgeon! At HeraldTribune.com there’s a fascinating article titled For Human Hearts, Renovation by Robot on heart surgery using a robot with tiny arms and hands that wield the sutures and tiny scalpels to make the cuts.

Because of it’s size and dexterity it can operate inside of a human through a much smaller opening. The surgeon twists and fiddles with small controllers attached to the mini surgical samurai to direct its slicing and sewing inside the patient, hence the critical need for that eye-thumb brain connection. The surgeon and spectators watch the entire procedure from the inside the patient via the video delivered by the robot’s miniature camera eye. The manufacturer, Intuitive Surgical, names this robot the da Vinci Si HD System.

Here’s a promo video from their site. The surgeon’s control of the robot is very cool.

There are not many surgeons qualified to operate using a robotic surgeon. There are many others who feel that there are too many risks associated with the procedures at this time. However there are some great advantages. For starters, these robotic mini-surgeons eliminate the need to saw the patient’s sternum in two, and also the subsequent pulling apart of the rib cage in order to make enough room for your surgeon’s hands, which you can imagine, must be at least as big as catcher’s mitts. Then, there is the reduced chance of infection because the surgical area is so much smaller and there is less exposure to airborne microbes. A team of additional medical personnel stand by to immediately pursue traditional surgery should something occur that requires their intervention.

The surgery isn’t perfect and some doctors qualified to perform the surgery won’t do so because of the risks and drawbacks, such as lengthier surgeries and longer time under anesthesia.

I remember when my father underwent a quadruple bypass (when he was my age). His recovery was agony, in part because of the pain of recovery from having his sternum separated. Then, he was limited in what he could lift in order not to put additional pressure on it. I don’t believe that he would have been a candidate, though, because his liver was sufficiently impaired that the anesthesia was a big concern, since it would tax his liver. (Your liver cleans stuff out of your blood, like anesthetic drugs, alcohol, and other goodies.)

So, the upshot is, go ahead, get that kid of yours an Xbox and save a life. That mind-boggling waste of time today may be saving skill of tomorrow. Think of it, your child may someday to become the virtual pilot of a mini anti-cancer submarine swimming through a patient’s veins, zapping cancer cells before they zap another healthy cell. Then, you’ll be proud to proclaim, “It was the video game console we bought him when he was just 8-years old. He almost didn’t graduate from high school, but look at him today!”

This video is from TechRepublic. It shows a robot developed by Boston Dynamics and Sandia National Laboratories for the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). It’s easy to imagine the military uses for this thing. The landing looks a bit tough for a manned ride-along.

Here is a link to Sandia’s article on the robotic jumping jackaroo.

Lego Robots are amazing. They’re easy to construct. My youngest was able to help assemble one when she was only 5 years old (and she’s 6 now). The programming is simple, with assembling programs as easy as dragging action components and setting  some simple parameters on a computer screen. If you outgrow the computer brain that Lego provides, there are third party brains that snap in and let you program more complicated routines in languages like C. This is great for your teenager.

Lego Robots are also helpful for teaching complex concepts in math. Here is a short news clip of math teachers learning how to use Lego Robots in the classroom:

The video is courtesy WHSV.com in Virginia.

Pink Tentacle has this post and video of a Japanese robot from the University of Tokyo that pitches with amazing accuracy. An updated version of a robot constructed first in 2003, this new model has super sensitive control of its fingers. The batter is a robot from MIT.

Robot Living has a short informational post about a cute, pink, robotic penguin that interacts with its friends and has a baby that it interacts with, too. I’m not showing these videos of Penbo the Pink Penguin Robot that are embedded below (the first is also posted by Robot Living) to my youngest daughter. I might show it to a grandparent or uncle around Christmas time. I think I’ll show it to my friends’ kids, though. Nothing like sowing seeds of the Christmas Gimme’s early on and spoiling summer in the mix.

Robot Living says:

What can we say. It is pink. It is a penguin and has a baby called Bebe. Both respond to stimulation like your voice and your touch. Both robots should be available soon through Amazon.

The other robot that Robot Living is referring to is Prime 8 Gorilla that is developed for boys. Here’s the video, a commercial you’ll probably see on Saturday morning TV, if you watch with your kids:

Here’s another video performance by Penbo, from the London Toy Show, with a man giving a demo:

I’m too old! (can you hear my bones creaking?) I love this interactivity that they are developing. I want to re-engineer my career and work on programming these things instead of working in BI and teaching Economics. But that mortgage and tuition for the kids’ school always gets in the way.

Well, I was too slow with this post. My youngest just woke up and came downstairs. Like a foolish dad, I showed her the video I’ve posted below. She watched quietly for about 15 seconds and then said, “I want that. Can you buy me that robot?” I knew she’d say that.

This video comes from Botropolis.

Bossa Nova Penbo from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

Also from Botropolis is this video of Prime 8, the gorilla robot for boys:

Bossa Nova Prime8 from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

I tried to find the blog where I learned about this enormous reading contraption from Japan this morning, but I couldn’t find it. I searched on the term “reading robot” and quickly found another source.

Equipped with character recognition software, this oversized robot can read printed materials. It’s expressive ability is similar to the Kindle’s, which is to say, it is surprisingly good for a machine, but needs a lot of work before it’s ready.

I love robots. I think it is amazing what they can be programmed to do. But this one is overkill. The developers say it will be great for reading to kids or old folks. So maybe it’s really a metal nanny, instead of a reader. I don’t think this will promote reading, but it sure will promote alienation between parents and children. Why bond to mom or dad when I have this lovely machine? Send me a Kindle, instead. Better yet, send me Grandma!

Here is a video:

Thanks to Pink Tentacle for the article on this robotic miscue.

Robots are good for a lot of things, but this is about as good as it gets! I have discovered that someone has made a robot that can make your coffee for you. Now I love my daily grind, but if someone, or something, can grind and brew it for me, well, how can it get any better?Robot Living reported on this fabulous development from Japan.

I’m showing this to the rest of the family and hinting that it would be great for next year’s Father’s Day. I drink enough coffee, all by myself, that Ancora opened a shop around the corner just for me, their best customer.

I’m intrigued by the programming involved. I wonder if I could pull this off with a Lego Robot? Anybody know?