[AG-TECH] conferencing outside the box

[John Shalf]

On Saturday, December 14, 2002, at 01:00  AM, Andrew Daviel wrote:
> No matter how good the conferencing technology, there are
> some things you just can't easily do in an electronic
> conference, like chatting to the other attendees, or
> asking private questions after a session, or visiting
> the trade show. So I propose "Norbert the conference attendee",
> a personal robot to free us from the drudgery of flying to
> conferences in Hawaii when we could be comfortably at home
> watching it rain.

Funny that,
does Norbert look anything like the following?
	http://www-itg.lbl.gov/~deba/RAGE/images.html
	http://dit.lbl.gov/IMAGINE
	http://dit.lbl.gov/SC2001/RobotImages
This AccessBot was originally Integrated Mobile Access Grid Inter-Net 
Entity (IMAGINE), but eventually got clipped to Remote Access Grid 
Entity (RAGE).  The version pictured uses a fancy independently steered 
and motorized wheel system.  This, however, makes it a bit difficult to 
reproduce, so we are working on a simpler/lighter-weight RAGE that is 
intended for the next SC Global.  Rather than spending all day machining 
ingots of aluminum in the machine-shop, you should be able to assemble 
the next one using parts from Home Depot and a few hand-tools.

Anyways, you can find a lot of these parts off the shelf from the 
following suppliers
	Various robot parts to play with:  http://www.robotstore.com/
		http://www.solutionscubed.com/
	Cheap Surplus parts (motors/cameras):  http://www.allelectronics.com/
	More expensive cameras:  http://www.picturephone.com
	More expensive motors:
		http://www.pittmannet.com/
		http://www.npcinc.com
	LCD Displays of all sizes and shapes:
		http://www.earthlcd.com/
	Tiny AG-capable/Linux computers:
		http://www.cellcomputing.com/
		http://www.nexcom.com/
	Even Tinier AG-capable/Linux Computers:
		http://www.motlabs.com/ipaq/index.htm
	Position Sensors and quadrature encoders:
		http://www.usdigital.com/
	Nuts-n-bolts-n-bearings:
		http://www.grainger.com/
I  think I left a couple of suppliers out, but I'm not quite sure which 
ones I missed.  Someone else from the team might follow up.

> So Norbert looks a bit like Isamu (see references), except he has an LCD
> screen for a face. He has a speaker, a PTZ camera, and a couple of
> microphones with echo cancellation. He has a wireless LAN card to 
> connect
> to the Internet, and the remote operator can walk him around and talk to
> people. He can even get them a drink. The operator has a regular 
> monitor,
> videophone camera, and headset, and his/her face appears on the LCD 
> screen
> so that the robot can hold a fairly normal conversation with one or more
> people, using facial expressions and performing movements such as 
> turning
> to face someone.
>
> Of course this has all been suggested before I don't doubt.
> I found a "AccessBot" intended for those with disabilities,
> while the novel "The Modular Man" describes a teleoperated robot
> good enough to fool casual onlookers that it's human (also for
> the disabled, in fact).
>
>
> References:
> Isamu (http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT9048148355.html)
> Asimo (http://world.honda.com/robot/)
>
> AccessBot: Jason Leigh et. al., INET 2000
> http://www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/papers/Inet2000AccessBot.pdf
>
> A "remote person" described in the SF novel
> "The Modular Man" by Roger MacBride Allen (1992).
>
>
> --
> Andrew Daviel, TRIUMF, Canada
> Tel. +1 (604) 222-7376
> security at triumf.ca
>