Login | Logout | Register    
Home Innovation Home Robotics
Home Robotics

The easiest way to explain what we are trying to accomplish with this research is to share a visionary scenario with you so sit back and picture the following in your mind:

It's 3:00 on a Wednesday afternoon. You are sitting in your office across town and you are thinking about what to fix your family of four for dinner (its your turn after all). You know that Jr. has baseball practice until 5:30 and you will need to pick him up on the way home from work. Little Judy has dress rehearsal for her ballet recital from 7:00 to 8:00 and your significant other is tied up in budget meetings and won't be home until 6:00. This gives you a window to serve dinner from 6:00 to 6:30 when everyone will be home at the same time. Now, what to fix?   You turn to your computer and log into your home network to see what is available in the Kitchen inventory, after all, with the RFID tags, the system knows exactly what's available and where its at. Ah, a nice steak for us grown ups and hamburgers for the Kids. You flip to today's menu page and load up the items you want, by the person you are preparing them for, and what time you need them ready. From here the system takes over. It knows that you like your steak medium rare with garlic seasoning and a little salt. Your significant other likes it well done with no seasoning what-so-ever. At the appropriate time the system opens the fridge, grabs the steaks, puts the right seasonings on them and places them in the cooking unit. Don't forget the veggie's. You also told the system that you wanted a salad and green beans for the adults and French fries for the kids (you over indulge them you know). The system has timed everything perfectly so when everyone walks in the door at 6:00 everything is ready to be served, just the way you like it. Clean-up, forget about it. Its done.

Now for breakfast... 

 Pipe dream you say, maybe, but we don't think so. Most of the technology is ready to be packaged together right now. There are special problems to over come of course, but it is not out of reach. Expensive, you bet. But we are betting on the long term. Five years from now these will be luxury items. Ten years, there will be a lot of them installed in new construction. Twenty years, standard issue. We want to be on the leading edge of this technology. Why don't you join us. Drop us a line and let us know what you think.

 

Robotics Feeds

Robots - The Podcast for News and Views on Robotics
Robots is the podcast for news, interviews and discussions on all aspects of robotics.
  • Robots: 2008 New Year's Special
    We review the biggest events in robotics in 2008 and look to what 2009 has to offer with our panel of experts: Dan Kara from Robotics Trends, Terry Fong from the NASA Ames Research Center, Dario Floreano from the EPFL, Steve Rainwater from robots.net, and Minoru Asada from Osaka University.
  • Robots: Robot Toys
    Mark Tilden, passionate robot builder with WowWee Robotics, talks about designing robots for children, and what he thinks that scientists and researchers can learn from the toy industry.
  • Robots: Robot Musicians
    Gil Weinberg who is the Director of Music Technology at Georgia Tech, presents his wooden robot drummer Haile that is capable of playing with human teachers and even evolving its own beats to reach robotic improvisation. He also introduces his latest robot, Shimon the Marimba player. Our second guest, Atsuo Takanishi describes the Waseda Flutist, a robot that mimics human lungs, vocal chords, and lips to accurately play the flute.