Robotics Night
“It is with horror, frankly, that he rejects all responsibility for the idea that metal contraptions could ever replace human beings, and that by means of wires they could awaken something like life, love, or rebellion. He would deem this dark prospect to be either an overestimation of machines, or a grave offence against life.”
This is how Karel Capek , one of the most influential Czech writers of the 20th century and a pioneer author of Science Fiction, argued against the practical usage of robots in the real world. Incidentally, he also happens to be the one to have coined the term ‘robot’. But today’s wide-spread application of robots to all fields from space probes and military applications to fruit harvesting and day-to-day household activities has shown the escalating predominance of robots in our lives.
Robotics is an extremely dynamic field with recent developments ranging from automated production and service systems and fully functional humanoids to abstract elements such as integration of emotional quotient. While amateur robots have human controllers, the advanced ones are being programmed to operate independently giving birth to “Artificial Intelligence”. Humanoids are another interesting category of robots with the first ones having been developed as early as the 1990s. The latest android programmed humanoids have been in use since 2002 and have cool features such as speech-recognition and communication capabilities. But there are several challenges facing researchers today as well, the most critical of them being the achievement of stability and fluidity of movement, not to mention integrating a human’s sixth sense into a computer.
What has been mentioned above is but a tiny piece of the whole picture. If you are getting excited by all these nitty-gritty details about robots, then you can delve deeper into the field of robotics at the “Robotics Night” event conducted by NUS Student Chapter Of the ACM. Our guest speaker, Prof.Prahlad, is the Associate Editor of “The International Journal Of Humanoid Robots” and the General Secretary of “Federation of International Robotsoccer Association”. He will be giving us an insight into the developments taking place in robotics today and also show live demos with the many robots that he has created. While all the exciting details mentioned before may fascinate robot developers, to a normal person they will convey an entirely different meaning. To non-developers, the pioneer robot refers to Robby in “The Forbidden Planet” and humanoids are visualised as “The Terminator” and “Transformers”. These movies have shown the extent of harm that a humanoid embedded with artificial intelligence could do to the earth, thereby biasing people against their development. But Prof.Prahlad believes that robots can coexist with humans in harmony. He hopes to develop a positive outlook towards robots among the student community. The judicious development of robots with care taken to ensure that they are being put to the right uses, can help humanity in enormous ways such as disaster scenarios to minimise human casualties. For the action-lovers, there is a Robotics Challenge immediately following this event where you will get to see robots face-off each other in a do-or-die battle.
Robotics is the one field that integrates design, programming, mechanics and what-not. So doesn’t matter which course you are studying, come join us at the “Robotics Night” for a memorable evening with our machine friends!! To register click here NOW!!
