WGBH reporter Cristina Quinn reports on this year’s 2.007 robot competition, during which student-built robots faced off on a course inspired by the movie Back to the Future. “We really try to stress real life skills in this class and one of the biggest as a designer is realizing things don’t work as you thought they would,” says Prof. Amos Winter.
Jordan Graham writes for The Boston Herald about a system created by Prof. Brian Williams that allows unpiloted underwater vehicles to make decisions without human intervention. Williams explains that the system was developed so that an underwater robot would not need low-level commands, “you just give it your goals.”
Brooks Hays of UPI writes that Prof. Brian Williams has developed a new system that allows autonomous underwater vehicles to operate independently. Robots using the new system “are able to navigate underwater expanses and execute research tasks on their own. Researchers simply dictate high-level goals, and the submersible calculates the most efficient path forward."
Eden Shulman reports for BetaBoston on this year’s 2.007 robot competition. Students participating in this year’s challenge competed on a course inspired by the movie Back to the Future and had to create robots capable of opening a replica DeLorean’s door, throwing bananas into a fusion energy reaction and climbing the famous clock tower from the movie.
MIT researchers have developed a new system that gives underwater robots more decision-making capabilities, reports Kelsey Atherton for Popular Science. Atherton explains that developing machines that can operate without human control could “usher in a whole new age of discovery.”
“MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab joined Italian design studio Wood-Skin to create the Programmable Table, which transitions from flat to fully built with a gentle tug,” writes Liz Stinson for Wired. The table is engineered with creases milled into the wood that act like hinges, allowing it to fold into an upright shape.
Researchers in the MIT Self-Assembly Lab has developed a self-assembling coffee table, reports Megan Turchi for Boston.com. The table “can go from the delivery box to the living room in a few seconds.”
In an article for The Huffington Post about teaching kids computer programming, Joni Blecher highlights the robotic garden developed by researchers from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and CSAIL. The garden has “over 100 flowers that can be controlled via a Bluetooth-enabled device.”
Research by Kate Darling and Cynthia Breazeal of the MIT Media Lab shows how humanizing robots can help shape people’s attitudes towards them, writes Gregory McNeal for Forbes. According to their paper, “participants hesitated significantly more to strike the robot when it was introduced through anthropomorphic framing, (such as a name or backstory).”
As part of its Game Changers series, Chronicle highlights Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, and her work developing robots that can collaborate, change shape and perform multiple tasks. Rus explains that she dreams “of a future where robots are as common as smart phones.”
Spencer Kelly of BBC News visits the MIT Distributed Robotics Lab to see how researchers have developed software that allows robots to build Ikea furniture. Kelly explains that the goal of the research is to “work towards robots that can work together collaboratively to build complex structures.”
Visiting Scholar Thomas Davenport argues in a piece for The Wall Street Journal that augmentation, in which humans and computers work together to enhance each other’s skills, would be the best way to integrate machines into the workforce. “The combination of human and computer-based capabilities leads to a better outcome than either could provide on their own,” he explains.
Prof. David Autor discusses his research showing that while automation is impacting middle-skill jobs, there has been an increase in high and low-skill jobs. While machines are entering the workplace, Autor believes that often they are serving “as tools to make humans more productive, not replace them,” explains Wall Street Journal reporter Timothy Aeppel.
Professor Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, speaks with Timothy Aeppel of The Wall Street Journal about why robots cannot perform tasks humans regularly perform, like folding laundry. While Rus explains that it would be difficult to predict when robots will be able to match the skill set of humans, “compared to now, what we had just two years ago was nothing, so I don’t think it’s going to take that long.”
Wall Street Journal reporter Timothy Aeppel spoke with faculty members across the Institute about how advances in automation could impact the labor market. Aeppel notes that MIT economists and roboticists meet regularly to gain a better interdisciplinary view of the current state of automation.