I’m pleased to bring GoRobotics an exclusive interview with Angelica Lim of Kyoto University. When I first started writing here at GoRobotics, one of my goals that I stated was to bring more compelling academic research to the general public and enthusiasts because behind lots of jargon and hidden in some grad student’s lab somewhere is a robot waiting for it’s chance in the spotlight.

Let’s get right into things with Angelica.

How did you end up a roboticist? Was it a childhood dream?

I had no idea I wanted to be a roboticist when I was a kid. It started when I was on exchange in France, doing a year of Computer Science classes at the University of Nice. One of our projects was to pick amongst research topics proposed by faculty members, and “Build a Data Server for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV)” was one of them. I ended up choosing that on a whim, and our team did a pretty good job coding it up in C++ under her specs. I got called back the next year to help integrate it with a real “live” AUV for a competition in England, and I was hooked. I liked it so much that I put together the robotics team back home in Canada. That was my second robotics competition – hopefully not my last!

How did you end up in Japan working on robots?
The main reason I wanted to come to Japan was simply because the hardware is much more advanced and easy to acquire. Full-size humanoid research platforms have been out in Japan for almost a decade. Only now are companies like Willow Garage starting to gain traction in North America.

On a more personal level, I also felt like my research options would be limited in North America. In the US, robotics research is heavily funded by the military, and therefore it seemed to me, at least that my research would have to conform to very serious and grave goals in order to gain funding. In Japan, robotics applications sound less like “Big Dog” and more like “RIBA Nurse Robot” and “Fan Dancing Robots” . I prefer the Japanese outlook on a future with robots. Does that make sense?

More after the jump …

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Last week I mentioned something called the Record/Play Block.  This is a programming block found in the Common Template.

You can use the Record/Play Block to define a period of time where anything you do with the motors of your bot (within reason) will be recorded to a small file that is stored on the Intelligent Brick.

Here’s how it works …

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What’s NXT is a bi-weekly column written by Jim Kelly at The NXT Step Blog. Jim writes about LEGO Mindstorms NXT and all the cool news related to it.

I received an email recently requesting information about the NXT Intelligent Brick’s Firmware update process and any other feedback the Brick provided.  Glad you asked…

The first thing you need to be aware of is that the NXT Brick can connect to your PC/laptop either using the USB cable or via Bluetooth.  My screenshots are taken of my brick connection using a USB cable.  The 2nd caveat is that the Lego Mindstorms NXT software must be open.

More after the jump …



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What’s NXT is a weekly column written by Jim Kelly at The NXT Step Blog. Jim writes about LEGO Mindstorms NXT and all the cool news related to it.

While I didn’t get the fancy packaging that the retail version will provide, I was just as happy when a plain brown box arrived .

The motors, brick, and cables were packages separately from the smaller pieces.  The connectors, beams, rods, and misc. pieces were in a large plastic bag that had to first be sorted.

I had a couple of containers for my old RCX that I chose to use because they worked so well for me.  I managed to purchase a larger plastic case to hold all the old RCX parts, and then began the counting.  I first sorted all the parts based on the picture that LEGO released showing them all nicely placed.  Trust me, mine never even came close to looking that good.  After the count was done, I found that I was missing only about 7-8 pieces, and these weren’t critical or unique pieces.  A quick email to LEGO and I they shipped me out my replacement pieces within a week.  Don’t worry – you won’t have this issue.  LEGO will have a very solid Quality Control process in place for the packaging of the retail and education versions.

More after the jump.


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