Where is the humanoid action ?

[i-Bot]

Is it just me ?, or is Robosavvy getting rather duuuullll !

More bling than robotics.

Do we need a more private and focussed forum for this, or are people now bored cos it's too hard ?

No disrespect to core contributors, but we all seem to be spreading further afield searching for a new home forum.

I know it's a hobby, but productivity seems to be at an all time low (except stuartl !)

We can talk about it at Nov. Birmingham UK meet, but that damages the essential global relationships we enjoyed before.

Any ideas ?

[robots42]

Well I have been busy and although I did take RN to London with me I didn't get chance to do anything with it other than change a servo!

Did you ever find the list of system variable locations?

David

[limor]

This forum is about technical breakthroughs achieved by hobbyists and few researchers. I think the reason for less "interesting" activity is that many of the regular contributors have not had exciting things to say given that they have had their robot for a couple of years and maybe are out of challenges. there haven't been too many groundbreaking technologies in the hobby robotics arena since KHR-1 in 2004 and then Bioloid in 2006.

I believe the new excitement will show up when real biped walking is achieved by hobbyists (center of gravity high and tiny feet). Although i predict that the target audience will change as this will involve complex control and programming. (similar to ballancing 2 wheel platforms like skateboards, cars, etc)

[srobot]

Most of the "old members" are inactive for many different reasons, Dirty, rep100, PEV, tempusmaster, BauerMech, and many more.

Is anyone interested in doing some type of building or programming online challenge about every 4 months?

--srobot

[StuartL]

Matt and I have had Real Life issues over the last few months, both of us being distracted by separate house moves, car issues etc. Matt is now back into the swing of things (and he's the one doing most of the work on the PS2 controller) but I've still got a lot to do around my house (refurb) and am about to move again. In practice I'm not going to be making too much real progress for a few months yet but rest assured that once time becomes available all the things I've been thinking about and planning for the last six months should start to become reality...

[NovaOne]

Do we need a more private and focussed forum for this, or are people now bored cos it's too hard

I personally think I entered into the Biped/Humanoid field a little prematurely, given the fact I only have basic knowledge of key robotics disciplines (programming being my Achilles heel).
I feel attracted to simpler challenges while learning programming. So I may stray into the areas of mini-sumo, 2-wheeled balance, micromouse, Robot Vision (and moving house) etc, while I am learning. But I am NOT about to "disassemble" my RN or RB , abandon Robosavvy and never look back...........

I had hoped as others have that we are not far from the next important step in the hobbyist biped world, that is, true closed-loop balanced walking, or as limor calls it "real biped walking". StuartL has made real progress along those lines and, there seem to be quite a few other people out there that have already achieved it to some extent.....looking at the papers coming out of the universities.

I liked the thread started by StuartL on IK HowTo a while back, but the fact that it has not continued and expanded on by others, really highlighted how much potential interest there was in this key "Hard" problem , so far.

This forum is about technical breakthroughs achieved by hobbyists and few researchers.

The general slow down of higher-level projects being posted here, maybe because, most of people will not post information freely to others if it has cost them a large amount of time and effort and or is commercially valuable. Or casual browsers may be lost or intimidated by the advanced threads. The former possibility is a dead-end however the later can be dealt with, since, it goes without saying that it is up to us to provide a progression into the “Hard Stuff”, by helping those on lower steps than us, up to our level, but first you need to have lots of people on the ground floor wanting to get the top. This may also be the problem, since RoboSavvy gets lots of casual browsers visiting on the ground floor, but they show very little interest in wanting to go the next level probably as i-Bot says, “cos it's too hard”?

A problem is only perceived as hard if you can’t break it down into easier bits.

[Robo1]

I would agree that the "interesting threads" has slowed down, I check most days and there's some interesting stuff but where are the home brews, my project has taken any major leps for a month as I've moved to the usa and now working on a fully size biped for cmu this takes up a lot of my time and as where using completely different control methods then positional I can't transfer my code over to my biped I have been working on simulations and other cool thing just haven't found the time to transfer over to my bot. Hopefully will have him up and running in a month or two when I find the time. I would agree that it's a very hard hoddy as you have to know programming/electronic as well as control theory but where's the fun in easy projects. The only over down side is that the technolagy is moving so fast by the time you start getting up bot up and running and start modding it, new technology comes out and makes it obselete.

Take the gumstix thread where limor tried to get some interest in making a break out board I was really keen and posted some messages but it just died out. would have been really cool. As a side not to limor I went to a good talk on friday by Dennis W. Hong from the Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory at Virginia Tech. The creator of DARWIN, they've just started to design a new control for it using gumstix and darwin used DX-117 so you might want to drop him a line, they work with robotis, and they might want to sell it!

just my ideas Bren

[limor]

hi Bren,
I am very keen on the Gumstix daughter board and there's guys in IST that are willing to sponsor the development. Unfortunately at this time I am too much involved in RoboSavvy's warehousing, currency conversions and fulfillment issues. Hopefully at the beginning of the year i'll have more time to dedicate to the Gumstix daughterbaord.

Having an on-board processor will create new interest in walking robots since it provides an easy way in for the .NET generation of geeks that dont know and dont want to know about embedded programming; preferring to play with php, python and .net variants (even C++ is being ousted in the Vista world of 3Ghz-cpu-is-not-enough-for-word-processing). Look at the revolution that Arduino brought to the embedded hobby world by providing an easy interface and "endorsing artists". The same may happen with robotics if tiny+familiar Linux / Windows can be hoisted onto the robot..

[tempusmaster]

Most of the "old members" are inactive for many different reasons, Dirty, rep100, PEV, tempusmaster, BauerMech, and many more.

--srobot

I can't speak for others, but in my case humanoids are both a hobby and an obsession. That being said, making a living and keeping a roof over our heads has to take priority.

Once the economy has stabilized and people have more confidence and things will pickup again pretty quickly. Hopefully it will happen soon, though I'm not holding my breath.

[bkito]

The general slow down of higher-level projects being posted here, maybe because, most of people will not post information freely to others if it has cost them a large amount of time and effort and or is commercially valuable. Or casual browsers may be lost or intimidated by the advanced threads. The former possibility is a dead-end however the later can be dealt with, since, it goes without saying that it is up to us to provide a progression into the “Hard Stuff”, by helping those on lower steps than us, up to our level, but first you need to have lots of people on the ground floor wanting to get the top. This may also be the problem, since RoboSavvy gets lots of casual browsers visiting on the ground floor, but they show very little interest in wanting to go the next level probably as i-Bot says, “cos it's too hard”?

A problem is only perceived as hard if you can’t break it down into easier bits.

I really like what you're saying about the folks coming in on the ground floor. Probably because that's where I am now! I can tell you from experience, you are 100% correct. It all looks very hard to someone who has never done anything in this hobby before. There is, at the same time, not enough information and too much. I have been cruising around this forum and reading different posts. Many I don't really understand at all, but I figure it may help a piece of knowledge fall into place either now or later when I read something else. I don't envision myself ever progressing to the point where I build my own autonomous custom built humanoid. But, I'd like to put together a kit and get it running smooth and see how I like it. Maybe I'll get a second one? Maybe I'll get brave and try to add some customization?

I guess my point is that this can be an intimidating hobby both from the difficulty stand point, and the cost stand point. The people on the ground floor do need some reassurance that this hobby can be done and that there are resources (like this forum) where they can find help.

[Robo1]

I can't speak for others, but in my case humanoids are both a hobby and an obsession. That being said, making a living and keeping a roof over our heads has to take priority.

I know where your coming from that's why I turned it in to my why of making a living. It's hard to get payed for this but well worth the hassel. I'm now designing bipeds for multinational companys

So you can have you cake and eat it.

I should get back to work or thay might sack me

Bren

P.S the only down side of doing it for a living, I never seem to have time for my own bot, he just sits at home starring at me and making me feel gilty for not working on him. Any one else know the feeling.

Note to self make him a friend so he can keep him self entertained.

[Orac]

I feel sorry for you, how sad ......... no, I just can't do it, you are a lucky git, anyway you look at it


When the robot army comes smashing through Europe, no doubt the last thing I will see is a large pair of mechanical size 16's bearing down on me with "Made by Bren" emblazened across the sole.