I'm Here

I just watched Spike Jonze's short, I'm Here. Which is about Robots. And if you know me, you know I am big on Robots. I was really excited for this because I saw Her and was a huge fan of it, especially from a technological standpoint (expect more of that later).

While it is very sweet, it's treatment of it's robot characters touches on something that always bugged me about the portrayal of robots. Despite not necessarily needing a human shape, we continue to force them into humanoid bodies. I get that that's because humans love to see everything as humans not to mention that it makes better narrative, but given the history that Sci-Fi has for predicting the future (or at least how it looks- just look at the evolution of flip phones) I think we're heading in the wrong direction robot-wise. I know from personal experience that bipedal motion is not an easy feat and it's a miracle that we stand. Now there are companies like Boston Dynamics that have very successful  Bipedal Robots, but I see more everyday robots more resembling the Roomba.

Print(Hello World);

And that is probably the closet I will come to actually talking about programming, so I hope you enjoyed what is literally one of the oldest jokes in the CS book. But, seriously I, like many before me couldn't resist the urge.

The reason I am not going to talk about programming is because although I possess the requisite skills, am not a programmer, though I am interested in tech (hence this blog). Although I was first introduced to programming through a slew of 100 level CS courses (and beyond), programming was never my cup of tea. It wasn't till I took a physical computing class where I discovered the likes of Arduino and the exciting world of microprocessors.

This pared with a Discreet Math class I was taking lead to me realize I really like physical computing and the more low level aspects of programming. As I mentioned being a fan of the Arduino I do have some interest in the Maker/Hacker community, although my real passion is in Robotics, which is why you will find a slew of dissected Furbys in my apartment.

So what are my credentials? Well being a twenty something who just graduated college means I don't have that much. But on top of being a whopping two courses short of a minor in CS, I was on my college's Robocup (robotic soccer) team, as well as a mentor for a local private schools' VEX robotics team. So if nothing else I have a lot of experience programming robots.

So what is this blogs deal, if not about programming? It's about technology and it taking unexpected turns, as well as just aspects of technology that I personally find interesting.

A good example of the sort of things I will be writing about is Chinese farmer and artist/engineer of sorts Wu Yulu. Wu Yulu builds these robots out of scrap parts, and they are really impressive. Above is one of his robots that I was lucky enough to see on display in London. Although he has other robots that can pull carts, light cigarettes, and climb up walls, I personally think it's one of the more impressive ones, because although it doesn't balance on it's own (see the wheels in back), one of the major takeaways from Robocup is that bipedal motion, even ignoring the balancing thing is hard, and it is nothing short of a miracle that we humans can do it so effectively.

Well if you made it this far, I hope you enjoyed my first post, and stay tuned for more.