By Richard P. Morin
They couldn't sing or dance, but they were certainly entertaining in their own mechanized kind of way.
The robots of CS 148, "Building Intelligent Robots," strutted their stuff last week in the course's annual robot talent show. There was Momo the soccer-playing robot, Toto the robot that played tic-tac-toe, as well as Bart and Lisa who followed one another around.
Not all the robots performed gracefully or even skillfully, but they all brought cheers. Close to 100 people crammed into the fourth-floor atrium to watch the talent show. They hooted and hollered and clapped for each contestant and handler.
"People really get into it," said Leslie Kaelbling, assistant professor of computer science and founding instructor of the course. The students "have worked so hard that they really want to show off."
At the beginning of the semester, students pair into teams. They are then given a box of Legos, sensors, motors and a small on-board computer that uses a program created by Kaelbling. From these seemingly innocuous parts robots emerge.
"These are autonomous robots who have to think and do everything on their own," said Tony Cassandra, one of the course's instructors. "Just to get the robots to move is a task in and of itself."
Before bringing their robots on stage, the teams explained their robots' tasks. A panel of three judges hurried the contestants along with a shrill horn. "It is not going to seem like very much," said Dave Blei '97, introducing Momo. "It's very subtle, like all intelligent life."
While Blei kept the crowd laughing, his partner, Nat Rahar '97, tried to coax Momo into pushing along a ball. But one of Momo's eyeballs soon fell off, sending him off course. "Sometimes he backs up and spins around indefinitely," cracked Rahar.
The judges, chosen from the computer science faculty, rated the robots on the completion of the task and the flair in which it is done. (Momo was presented the illustrious "I get a kick out you" award.) All contestants were awarded prizes, ranging from squirt guns to Frisbees to plastic lizards.
Although the talent show is meant to be light-hearted, what students are studying is serious stuff. "We are trying to get them to learn the problems of creating an autonomous robot," said Cassandra, who with Kaelbling and fellow instructor James Kurien say that creating a robot that can function independently is difficult in a world filled with noises, moving objects and changes in landscape. "This isn't like industrial robots," said Kurien. "If you get in the way of an industrial robot that paints cars, you are going to get painted."
The robots created in CS 148 use a host of sensors to continuously modify their actions. So if a robot is programmed to navigate a hallway, it will use light sensors to gauge its distance from the walls and touch sensors to navigate around objects. The robots, according to Kaelbling, are very much like insects feeling their way along with antennae.
"You can't predict anything that is going to happen," said Blei, a computer science concentrator. That is exactly the point. "This may be the most tangible course that CS concentrators take," said Kaelbling. Blei agreed: "When you're programming on a computer, if anything goes wrong, you know you've made the mistake. Here, even if you write the best program, it might not always work."