Engineers at Harvard University have created a 3D-printed robot that can leap about six times its own height.
The secret to its success? It’s made from a combination of soft and rigid parts.
Soft robots are more adaptable, safer, and more resilient than stiff metal machines, say the researchers, led by Robert Wood. But they also tend to take longer to produce.
3D printing lets you cheaply and quickly produce things that combine the advantages of rigid and soft materials. The former could help power and control bots; the latter make them better at withstanding stress.
To jump, this bot inflates a number of its pneumatic legs, which will control the direction it will travel in once the legs “fire”. Then, a mixture of butane and oxygen is ignited in a central chamber, setting off an explosion that sends it flying. The inflated legs help cushion the landing.
In resilience tests, one bot performed more than 100 jumps without breaking, and another survived dozens of drops from a height of about 1 metre. A hard bot could jump higher but shattered after just five jumps.
The BBC Micro Bit programmable device for school children was first announced back in March, along with a prototype. And the finished article was formally launched today at an event in Broadcasting House, London.
Around 1 million of the devices will be given to all Year 7 children (11/12 year-olds) in the UK by late October (an online simulator, to help teachers get to grips with it, will be available in September).
Deliberately invoking the legacy of the BBC Micro of the early 1980s, the device is aiming to change the emphasis from consumption to creation when it comes to young people and technology.
As well as open sourcing the technology behind the Micro Bit, the BBC is also setting up a not-for-profit company to license the device and make it commercially available to everyone who is interested.
Citing the original BBC Micro, Tony Hall, director-general of the BBC, said at the launch: “We want to take the legacy and reinvent it for our age, so that future generations can say ‘this inspired me'”.
The BBC Micro was part of a BBC Computer Literacy Project and it was designed and built by Acorn Computer, which developed the ARM (Acorn RISC Machine) architecture that is so prevalent today in mobile devices, and at the heart of the Internet of Thuings concept.
From Acorns to IoT
Technology Will Save Us – Micro Bit guitar
The Micro Bit collaboration actually involves a wide range of other companies and organisations, such as Samsung, Nordic Semiconductor, Farnell element14, Bluetooth SIG, Technology Will save Us, Barclays Bank, Microsoft, Lancaster University, Wellcome Trust and more.
The spec? Tongue in cheek, the Head of BBC Learning, Sinead Rocks, said that the device was faster and smaller than the BBC Micro (18x faster, 70x smaller and 617x lighter, to be precise). It runs on a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0 CPU, the smallest ARM processor available.
She described it as having 25 programmable LEDs, two physical buttons, and an accelerometer and magnetometer (compass) for motion and positioning information. And its Bluetooth Smart capable.
The operating system has been developed by Lancaster University, led by Dr. Joe Finney, and uses ARM mbed technology for interfacing to the hardware.
There are two code editing interfaces, both developed by Microsoft: the Block Editor for younger users, and the Touch Development Environment, for older users. You can code in Java, C++, Python and Block.
There are five I/O rings to connect the Micro Bit to other devices or sensors using crocodile clips or 4mm banana plugs, to send commands to and from the rings, to power devices like robots and motors.
The 4cm by 5cm device is powered via a USB cable, or otherwise via a battery-pack accessory
BBC Micro Bit board layout
Rocks said she hoped it would get kids “creative with coding” and described it as “biggest educational initiative the BBC has ever led”:
“The BBC Micro Bit is all about young people learning to express themselves digitally. As the Micro Bit is able to connect to everything from mobile phones to plant pots and Raspberry Pis, this could be for the internet-of-things what the BBC Micro was to the British gaming industry.”
Speaking at the event, Richard Curtin, global director of strategic alliance at Farnell element14 – who will managing the manufacturing of the devices – welcomed the initiative: “The electronics industry relies on new engineers to come through and the BBC’s efforts will have a strong effect.”
ARM, Lancaster, Freescale, Samsung…
How do the various partners fit together?
The BBC Micro Bit was created using the ARM mbed hardware and software development kits and compiler services. other companies, such as Microsoft and Lancaster University’s operating system all interface into the mbed technology.
A new way to take selfies with the BBC Micro Bit
For example, it enables Lancaster University’s Micro Bit runtime system and the Microsoft programming interface to sit on top of mbed’s cloud compiler service. This converts users’ programmes into Micro Bit code. These files are ‘flashed’ onto the device over USB or BLE for the board to run.
Freescale is responsible for supplying the sensor technology within the device: the accelerometer, the magnetometer, and the Micro-USB controller (the Kinetis KL02) fro the Micro-USB port.
The latter allows users to connect the Micro Bit to their computers and for them to appear in a similar way to a USB drive. Users can then drag their compiled code file onto the Micro Bit and run it.
Freescale has also provided the motion sensors that enable the Micro Bit to react to movement and the direction it’s facing. The idea, of course, is these will allow children to create applications based on position and whether they shake, turn or tilt their Micro Bit.
On the mobile side of things, Samsung is helping smartphones and tablets communicate with the device. By enabling the Micro Bit to tap into the functions of everyday digital devices – a new Bluetooth Smart profile has been specifically created for Micro-Bit by the Bluetooth SIG (an official “BBC micro:bit product champion”) – it opens up more possibilities for imaginative uses. For example, selfies. Kids could code their Micro Bit to launch their phone camera remotely to take a picture at the push of a Micro Bit button. Or they could code their device to act as a remote control to play music on their phone. Basically opening up the functionality of their phones to exchange data and commands, enabling users to play games and share their creations.
Samsung will also publish an app that will support the Micro Bit coding environment on (Android) mobile devices, supporting on-the-go programming. Samsung says it “will help introduce the Internet of Things and the future of connected technologies into the classroom”.
In the BBC’s own words:
ARM – providing mbed hardware, software development kits and compiler services
Barclays – supporting overall product delivery and outreach activities
element14 – sourcing components and managing the manufacturing
Freescale – supplying the sensors and USB controllers
Lancaster University – creating and writing the micro:bit runtime
Microsoft – providing the TouchDevelop web-based programming tools and hosting service as well as teacher-training materials
Nordic Semiconductor – supplying the main processor and enabled Bluetooth Smart
Samsung – connecting the BBC micro:bit to phones and tablets, and developing the Android app
ScienceScope – distributing to schools and developing the iOS app
Technology Will Save Us – designing the shape, look and feel of the device
The Wellcome Trust – providing learning opportunities for teachers and schools
Why not simply work with the Raspberry Pi Foundation? The BBC says the simpler Micro Bit is aimed at helping younger children to start learning how computers work, and will then be a springboard for relatively more advanced devices like the Raspberry Pi and Arduino.
Hands on demo of Micro Bit
Dara Ó Briain was host of the launch event, and coincidentally he pops up in a video I was recoding of the BBC Micro Bit coding interface:
Note that The Micro Bit no longer contains a slot for a watch battery, which was featured in the prototype.
The BBC has launched its Micro-Bit (micro:bit) programmable device, which will be given free to all Year 7 children in the UK. Here we see a demo of the BBC Micro-Bit user interface.
Dara Ó Briain was host for the launch event at the BBC, and coincidentally joins me for the the Microsoft Touch Development Environment.
ARM, Nordic Semiconductor, Samsung, Microsoft, Freescale, Farnell element14 and Lancaster University were among those who supported the project.
There are actually two code editors with the Micro-Bit: Microsoft Block Editor, for younger users, and the Microsoft Touch Development Environment, for more advanced users. In the video, we see the latter.
This month features cloud-based set top box services. Michael Jaeger, patent attorney at leading UK patent and trade mark attorneys Withers & Rogers LLP, writes:
GB Patent Number: GB2476668 Granted to: Sony Europe Limited
We’ve all heard of (or been unfortunate enough to have experienced) the ‘blue screen of death’, when a computer suffers a fatal system error. In a variant of this phenomenon, last week I encountered the ‘green screen of death’. This came to me courtesy of a Whatsapp message from my son accompanied by the message “Dad, the TV’s broken”.
Following a phone call to our service provider, a replacement set top box was speedily despatched and my son was happy again. My son was happy again, until I informed him that he had lost his collection of Top Gear recordings. Thankfully, he didn’t punch me after hearing that bad news.
A few days later I attended the Connected TV World Summit conference, where the technologies underpinning the next generation of television evolution were discussed. One of the speakers presented their cloud-based set top box service and explained that a key selling point for TV service providers is eliminating the cost of providing physical set top boxes and replacing them when they develop a fault. In addition, service providers are able to offer a ‘TV anywhere’ service to their subscribers, allowing users to view content on their phones, tablets and TVs, all with a consistent user interface and experience.
This month’s patent, granted on 17 June 2015 to Sony Europe Limited, addresses a similar need, but goes one step further.
Follow-me viewing
We are used to ‘consuming’ content on different devices, whether we are on the move or at home. The patent describes a scenario where a programme is being watched in the lounge and the viewer decides to continue watching in the bedroom. Having reached the bedroom, the viewer should be able to seamlessly pick up from the same position where they left off, with the programme ready to go as soon as the play button is hit.
This type of activity is known as “follow-me” viewing and the patent observes that the solutions currently available possess a number of drawbacks. For example, they may require the viewer to “summon” the content, which could take some time to load and buffer. As well as applying to content which is streamed from the cloud, ideally solutions should also work with live (known as “linear”) programming.
Cloud-based set top box and Casting
Finally, the invention should be able to deal with a scenario where the target device is in standby mode but also when the display device has been turned off.
To address this problem, the patent covers a situation where a viewer has at least two display devices connected to a network, which also includes a storage device where the content is stored.
The patent protects a method where a person watches content on a first device and then selects a second device to continue watching the programme. Once the target device has been selected, the programme stops on the first device and playback continues on the second.
This technique may sound familiar to you and I was quite surprised to see that a patent has been granted to Sony for this invention. I have in mind the ease with which I can view a YouTube video on my phone or tablet and send it to my television (known as “casting“) which seems to fall fairly and squarely within the scope of this patent.
Letters from Sony’s lawyers
I must say that it’s not often that I come across a patent and think “crikey, there are quite a few devices which infringe that” but in the case of this patent, it seems to be so. The patent dates back to 31st December 2009, so it’s very possible that it pre-dates the types of casting with which we are familiar today. It may be that the technology is being licensed from Sony. If not, companies using it may soon be receiving letters from Sony’s lawyers before you can say “see you upstairs”.
Michael Jaeger is a patent attorney at leading UK patent and trade mark attorneys, Withers & Rogers LLP.
Michael Minall, of Vendigital, sees the adoption of 3D-printing technology gaining momentum in the aerospace and defence sectors.
Easyjet’s announcement of its intention to use 3D printing to produce replacement cabin parts is further evidence that a technological revolution in the sector is gaining momentum. And it is already having a significant impact on supply chain and procurement strategies.
While the low-cost airline’s decision to use 3D printing to produce basic cabin parts, such as arm rests and other on-board features, is not a game-changing development in itself, it is a further sign that adoptionup of the technology is gaining momentum.
At a time of significant downward pressure on prices and concern about production capacity, the announcement also sends a clear message to the supply chain that airlines are ready for change and are keen to benefit from the efficiencies such production methods can bring.
3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is already being used to produce lighter-weight, precision components that are integral to the operation of modern aircraft. The Airbus A350 XWB, which was launched by Qatar Airways at the start of the year, contains more than 1,000 3D-printed parts made using a production system developed by Stratasys. Manufacturing parts in this way is helping airlines and tier one suppliers to minimise costs by allowing them to produce replacement parts to order and reducing operating costs due to their lighter-weight design.
Other new model aircraft are expected to follow suit; by using even more 3D-printed parts, including potentially larger components. A recent report by McKinsey Global Institute predicted that 3D printing could have an economic impact of up to $550bn a year by 2025.
The aerospace and defence industries are currently structured around just a small number of OEMs whose needs are fulfilled by an established global network. From a supply chain perspective, 3D printing technology will disrupt this chain and while this is likely to be painful for suppliers at every level, first movers stand to secure a significant competitive advantage.
Among the early adopters are General Electric and United Technologies – both have been using 3D-printing for prototyping for some time and Airbus signed a cooperative agreement with China’s Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) last year to explore ways to extend 3D-printing technology to the commercial aviation sector. Others, such as Raytheon, are using 3D printed parts to make missiles and the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, has been using 3D-printed parts to make the rockets it sends to space.
In order to start realising the potential of 3D printing, OEMs need to rethink their supply chain strategies and adopt a ‘super local’ model. This model comprises an eco-system of innovative local suppliers who are close enough to fulfil demand for replacement parts at short notice.
Currently, if a component on a UK-based in-service aircraft needs replacing, the airline operator has to order the replacement part from what is often a single, approved supplier. If it turns out that the required component is a ‘legacy’ part, and is stocked by neither the OEM nor their supplier, it would need to be manufactured, a process that could take months, especially if the supplier is in another part of the world. During this time the aircraft could be out of service.
There are many advantages of 3D-printing technology but the main one for this sector is that precision-engineered replacement parts can be printed in situ and in a matter of hours. This means the new part could be installed and the aircraft ready-to-fly same day.
Other benefits include the fact that there is no need for OEMs to stock pile a wide range of spare parts, just in case they are required at some point in the future. Instead, they will have to nurture local supply relationships spanning a wider geography to ensure their 3D capabilities can be used wherever and whenever need arises.
The full impact of 3D-printing technology on the aerospace and defence supply chain is yet to be fully realised, however. Developing markets are still very much driven by volume over choice, due to their rapidly growing economies and increasing consumer demand. For this reason, most manufacturers that are serving such markets find mass production and low labour costs are still appealing.
In developed markets, however, the reverse is true and there is growing demand for more personalised, customised products and services. This requires a more agile approach and 3D-printing is expected to gain traction in these markets more quickly.
Michael Minall is Director and aerospace and defence sector specialist at Vendigital, a firm of procurement and supply chain specialists.
The explosion of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket mere minutes after launch on Sunday was strike one for US hopes of rebooting crewed space flight: this is the very type of rocket the company wants to use to send people into space in 2017.
“You want a really, really reliable rocket before you put people on it,” says Jonathan McDowell of Harvard University. Now that SpaceX has lost its perfect launch record with this rocket, it will need to quickly convince people that the rocket can be trusted, he says. “Yesterday [the Falcon 9] was 18 for 18 and looking pretty good. Now it is 18 for 19. That’s a 5 percent failure rate.”
But if another 10 launches of Falcon 9 proceed without incident, that will bring the failure rate to 3.5 per cent, which could be acceptable, he says.
Among almost two tonnes of supplies and equipment in the Dragon capsule atop the rocket were two docking stations, intended for Space X to dock its crewed Dragon capsule to the International Space Station (ISS). It was also carrying several plant and animal experiments.
The failure shouldn’t force a delay in plans to launch the first crewed space mission on US soil since 2011, said William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration, at a press conference. “It could help us to nail down designs and move forward,” he said.
The Falcon 9 rocket exploded 2 minutes and 19 seconds after launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida. In a tweet, Elon Musk said it was triggered by too much pressure in a liquid oxygen tank in the upper stage of the rocket, adding: “Data suggests counterintuitive cause,” without further explanation.
“It was in the upper part of the rocket, not the part that was firing at the time,” says McDowell. “That’s representative of a class of failures associated with structural and aerodynamic problems.”
McDowell says there are probably no safety procedures that SpaceX would undertake during a crewed flight that could have prevented this explosion. “But Crew Dragon would have an escape system that would save the capsule, so you wouldn’t have killed the crew.”
Another SpaceX rocket spectacularly exploded during an attempt at landing it as part of a plan to make the Falcon 9 reusable. That attempt was highly experimental and appears unrelated to yesterday’s explosion during launch.
“SpaceX have been careful to do the experimental tests after the operational part of each mission is over,” says McDowell. “So playing with new stuff in the stage 1 re-entry phase shouldn’t make the all-important launch phase more dangerous.”
The explosion also follows a number of failures of other ISS supply rockets.
“There’s really no commonality across these three events other than the fact that it’s space, and it’s difficult to go fly,” said Gerstenmaier. “We’re essentially operating systems at the edge of their ability to perform and operate.”
Watching from on board the ISS, US astronaut Scott Kelly summed up the sentiment in a tweet: “Space is hard.”
A concise roundup of the latest news from around Electronica 2014, which runs 11-14 November in Munich, at the Messe Munchen.
At Munich? You are welcome to meet the Electronics Weekly team at stand Hall A6 Booth 569. (If you drop by you can pick up a free copy of the magazine, but there are also a couple of competitions running.)
Cyborg cockroaches may be the search-and-rescue teams of the future. The enhanced roaches can pinpoint the source of a noise using electric pulses delivered to their antennae, and then crawl towards it.
The insects are the work of Alper Bozkurt and his team at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. They have built two types of audio-sensing “backpacks” that can be strapped on to Madagascar hissing cockroaches.
One has a single high-resolution microphone that can identify sound sources fairly accurately. The other has a three-microphone array that gets a precise fix on the source using the amplitude information from each microphone.
Using a computer to integrate the data from a network of 10 to 15 insects, the cockroaches are then guided towards the sound source via automated electric pulses to their antennae. The nerve stimulation causes the insects to turn left or right, essentially by simulating contact with obstacles in front of them. Bozkurt presented the work at a conference in Spain last week. Watch a video of them crawling here.
Hacking cockroaches like this is nothing new. Bozkurt and his group have been working with them for the past five years, and last year a Kickstarter project made “RoboRoaches” commercially available for the very first time. But Bozkurt’s newest project moves the field into more practical applications. His team hopes the cyborg cockroaches may be used to find disaster victims, for example people buried under rubble in the aftermath of an earthquake.
“Cockroaches as a platform are certainly better in terms of performance than anything we are currently able to build, and that will remain true for many years,” says Shai Revzen at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “But one of the problems with these approaches is that they work well in the lab, where there are no distractions, but are much more tricky to apply reliably in real-world environments.”
That’s why the next stage of Bozkurt’s research is to take the insects out of the lab – though not to a terrain as complex as a dense pile of rubble, as yet. Once the lab phase is complete, his team plans to use cyborg roaches equipped with geiger counters to search for leaks in nuclear power plants.
“There are a number of applications where we can get insect-bot sensors out into the field to collect useful information,” says Bozkurt. “But in the next five or six years, we think this project will be ready to be fully deployed under the rubble.”
The Elektra Awards 2014 are just a few weeks away, and there are only a few places left. The event takes place on the 26th November at the Lancaster London hotel, W2 2TY, to discover who the 2014 Elektra winners will be.
The shortlists have been drawn up, online voting for the Product Innovation and Technology Blog awards have closed, and winners have now been selected. All that is left is to ensure your seat at the industry’s biggest night out of the year!
To help get you in the mood for the evening take a look at some pictures from the 2013 Elektra Awards.
Developers wanting to work with CSRmesh, the company’s Bluetooth Smart-based mesh networking protocol, can now use a CSRmesh Development Kit.
The company’s goal is “to place the smartphone at the centre of the Internet of Things” because Bluetooth Smart is implemented by default on all the major mobile platforms.
The CSRmesh protocol itself was launched in February 2014 and allows for a large number of Bluetooth Smart-enabled devices to be networked together and controlled from a smartphone or PC.
Bluetooth Smart is used to send messages to other devices in the network, which in turn can relay them onward. Note that individual devices or groups of devices can be addressed. Devices can also belong to multiple groups.
Possible uses? Imagine controlling a series of lights within a large single area, such as a conference hall or an event space. You might, for example, control individual lights or set different colours for different areas of the room such as front, middle and back, on the basis of grouping.
Think of it as a hub-free Bluetooth Smart answer to ZigBee.
The SDK comes with software supporting networked lighting applications, with CSR promising updates for home automation and other IoT applications based on CSRmesh later in the year.
The configuration and control protocol works with CSR’s Bluetooth Smart devices, such as the CSR101x family
“We are seeing Bluetooth Smart underpinning many more products as the Internet-of-Things shifts from concept to reality,” says Rick Walker, Marketing Manager for IoT at CSR.
“By launching the CSRmesh Development Kit we are equipping developers with the tools they need to innovate and take advantage of the many opportunities offered by the IoT. We are helping them to bring networked devices to market as quickly and simply as possible.”
The CSRmesh Development Kit includes:
3x CSRmesh Bluetooth Smart development boards
1x USB programmer
Batteries
Setup Guide with example applications
Available from distributors, the kit costs £175 and additional CSRmesh development boards can be purchased, for fuller mesh effect testing.
“Unlike other home automation connectivity solutions, such as Zigbee or Z-Wave, CSR Mesh ensures direct control from mobile devices anywhere in the home, because it doesn’t have a limited range or require a hub,” said Anthony Murray, Senior Vice President, Business Group at CSR, back in February.
“CSR is committed to driving Internet of Things innovation. We believe this Bluetooth Smart solution will be a real game changer for developers because it means they don’t have to turn to proprietary solutions or add anything else to create products that give consumers what they want – complete home automation they can control from anywhere that ‘just works’.”
More information on the CSRmesh Bluetooth Smart development kit can be found at forum.csr.com and WiKi.csr.com.
Engineers at Harvard University have created a 3D-printed robot that can leap about six times its own height.
