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Robots and Art: The Umbrella Project
from Daniela Rus
(2015/10/8 1:44)
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The Umbrella Project (UP) is a large-scape participatory experiment in which hundreds of participants light up the night?s sky.
The participants use the color-changing umbrellas to create images that are projected in real time on a large screen, and use this feedback along with high-level human instructions to cause the image to change. UP gives a group of untrained people umbrellas and 60 minutes to create something beautiful and moving.
The experiment is an exploration of the power of groups and the idea that groups are more capable than the sum of their parts. This project is the result of our second collaboration with Pilobolus. It was performed at PopTech in October 2012 and at MIT in May 2013. The roots of the project are in the research on collaborative decision making for robots at MIT. The Umbrella Project allows the exploration of theories on collaboration in the context of crowds and enables the extraction of hypotheses for future biologically-grounded approaches to rob ...
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Education Project: The Robot Garden
from Daniela Rus
(2015/10/8 1:33)
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Computational thinking is an important part of a modern education, and robotics provides a powerful tool for teaching programming logic in an interactive and engaging way.
We are developing a robot garden: a distributed multi-robot system consisting of robot flowers, robot sheep, and robot ducks. The garden is capable of running autonomously or under user control from a simple graphical interface. Over 100 origami flowers are actuated with LEDs and printed pouch motors, and are deployed in a modular array around additional swimming and crawling folded robots. The movement and color appearance of the robots can be controlled.
The garden integrates rapid design and fabrication technologies with distributed systems software techniques to create a scalable swarm in which robots can be controlled individually or as a group. The garden can be used to program and visualize the behavior of classical graph algorithms and distributed graph algorithms. The execution sequence of such algorith ...
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Education Project: The Robot Garden
from Daniela Rus
(2015/10/8 1:33)
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Computational thinking is an important part of a modern education, and robotics provides a powerful tool for teaching programming logic in an interactive and engaging way.
We are developing a robot garden: a distributed multi-robot system consisting of robot flowers, robot sheep, and robot ducks. The garden is capable of running autonomously or under user control from a simple graphical interface. Over 100 origami flowers are actuated with LEDs and printed pouch motors, and are deployed in a modular array around additional swimming and crawling folded robots. The movement and color appearance of the robots can be controlled.
The garden integrates rapid design and fabrication technologies with distributed systems software techniques to create a scalable swarm in which robots can be controlled individually or as a group. The garden can be used to program and visualize the behavior of classical graph algorithms and distributed graph algorithms. The execution sequence of such algorith ...
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Education Project: The Robot Garden
from Daniela Rus
(2015/10/8 1:33)
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Computational thinking is an important part of a modern education, and robotics provides a powerful tool for teaching programming logic in an interactive and engaging way.
We are developing a robot garden: a distributed multi-robot system consisting of robot flowers, robot sheep, and robot ducks. The garden is capable of running autonomously or under user control from a simple graphical interface. Over 100 origami flowers are actuated with LEDs and printed pouch motors, and are deployed in a modular array around additional swimming and crawling folded robots. The movement and color appearance of the robots can be controlled.
The garden integrates rapid design and fabrication technologies with distributed systems software techniques to create a scalable swarm in which robots can be controlled individually or as a group. The garden can be used to program and visualize the behavior of classical graph algorithms and distributed graph algorithms. The execution sequence of such algorith ...
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Education Project: Imara
from Daniela Rus
(2015/10/8 0:39)
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In August 2014 I traveled to Taveuni, the Garden Island of Fiji, with a treasure trove: a box of 60 Little Suns, the gift of light for school children.
I had been visiting Taveuni for many years, at first for conducting experiments for my underwater research projects, and more recently to give back as part of CSAIL’s Imara outreach program. The generous and friendly people of Taveuni have always provided support for our work and it is rewarding to give back.
The Imara program started in 2007 as a computer literacy program. Jack Costanza and I traveled to Taveuni with a donation of laptops for computer literacy. Every school on the island received one laptop equipped with software for learning basic computer skills and software for learning maths, writing, and science. We conducted Teach the Teacher sessions to empower the teachers to use the computers in their classrooms. The schools on Taveuni do not have power, but the principal’s house does. Every night the principa ...
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Education Project: Imara
from Daniela Rus
(2015/10/8 0:39)
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In August 2014 I traveled to Taveuni, the Garden Island of Fiji, with a treasure trove: a box of 60 Little Suns, the gift of light for school children.
I had been visiting Taveuni for many years, at first for conducting experiments for my underwater research projects, and more recently to give back as part of CSAIL’s Imara outreach program. The generous and friendly people of Taveuni have always provided support for our work and it is rewarding to give back.
The Imara program started in 2007 as a computer literacy program. Jack Costanza and I traveled to Taveuni with a donation of laptops for computer literacy. Every school on the island received one laptop equipped with software for learning basic computer skills and software for learning maths, writing, and science. We conducted Teach the Teacher sessions to empower the teachers to use the computers in their classrooms. The schools on Taveuni do not have power, but the principal’s house does. Every night the principa ...
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Education Project: Imara
from Daniela Rus
(2015/10/8 0:39)
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In August 2014 I traveled to Taveuni, the Garden Island of Fiji, with a treasure trove: a box of 60 Little Suns, the gift of light for school children.
I had been visiting Taveuni for many years, at first for conducting experiments for my underwater research projects, and more recently to give back as part of CSAIL’s Imara outreach program. The generous and friendly people of Taveuni have always provided support for our work and it is rewarding to give back.
The Imara program started in 2007 as a computer literacy program. Jack Costanza and I traveled to Taveuni with a donation of laptops for computer literacy. Every school on the island received one laptop equipped with software for learning basic computer skills and software for learning maths, writing, and science. We conducted Teach the Teacher sessions to empower the teachers to use the computers in their classrooms. The schools on Taveuni do not have power, but the principal’s house does. Every night the principa ...
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Fuel cells are the future: An interview with UBC MECH professor Walter MeridaMB-fuel-cell-png
from UBC Mechanical Engineering
(2015/10/3 8:28)
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The recall of 11 million Volkswagen diesel vehicles highlights the challenges of reducing emissions from fossil fuel-powered cars. Fortunately, there?s an alternative and it has zero emissions. The fuel-cell car is currently being developed by major automakers including Mercedes-Benz, Toyota and Hyundai.
Walter Mérida, director of UBC?s Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC), has been researching fuel-cell technology for more than 15 years. When Mercedes-Benz rolls out its new fuel-cell cars in a few years, they?ll feature Canadian technology.
What are some of the benefits of fuel cells?
Fuel cells convert hydrogen and other fuels into electricity quietly, efficiently, and without pollution. A fuel-cell car produces zero emissions. You?ll only see water coming out of the tailpipes. And it?s quickly refueled, unlike battery-powered cars which can take hours to recharge.
Fuel cells can be used to build a renewable, carbon-free energy system if you produce the hydrogen from ...
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October Lab TourDSC_5773
from UBC Mechanical Engineering
(2015/10/3 4:12)
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The Mechanical Engineering Department regularly hosts guided lab tours for high school students, first year students, incoming mechanical engineering students, or anyone interested in mechanical engineering. We will be hosting our first tour of the year on October 23rd from 1:00-2:30 pm .
Come meet some of our current MECH students and get their perspective on the department and program as they show you around our facilities. See the cool gadgets our student teams are working on and learn about the many different areas in which a mechanical engineer can apply his or her knowledge. Get a look at the cutting-edge technology inside our labs and see the kinds of research mechanical engineers can do. It’s a great chance to find out what our department is all about and what you can do with a mechanical engineering degree from UBC!
For those interested, there will also be a half-hour long advising session held after the tour where participants can ask questions about admission ...
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Günstige Wafer für Solarzellen
from Fraunhofer Presseinformationen
(2015/10/1 16:00)
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Siliziumwafer sind das Herzstück von Solarzellen. Sie herzustellen, ist jedoch nicht billig.Über 50 Prozent des reinen Siliziums werden zu Staub zerspant. Eine neue Herstellungsmethode von Fraunhofer-Forschern räumt auf mit diesen Materialverlusten: Die Hälfte des Rohstoffs und 80 Prozent Energie lassen sich so einsparen.
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