Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2006 14:54:48 -0600 (CST) Subject: photo session in the park X-UID: 132 Content-Type: IMAGE/JPEG; name="img2592.jpg" Content-Type: IMAGE/JPEG; name="img2637.jpg" I took the robot into the park and took pictures. What was surprising is that only one person ever approached me and said anything. There was a large group preparing for a wedding in a nearby building. Many people were nicely dressed. They were very much Texans and except for one older gentleman, too busy to take much notice. After continuing to work, I could see the gentleman was not going away so we spoke a bit. I explained how the robot is motivated by the US military robot races in the desert, how the target is a 30% robotic ground force by 2015 and probably we'll trust robots enough to give them independent fire control authority (fire weapons) by 2030. I'm not sure what he thought as our perspectives were too different. My theory is that this is the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy SEP field effect (someone else's problem field). Inside a SEP field, you become invisible. Here's an example. A few years ago, I was walking in the park and heard a woman screaming inside a van. She was making animal noises and clearly in distress and trouble. No one paid any attention because she was in a SEP field. I decided to help and perhaps be killed but fortunately, before I reached the van, a door opened and she exited. A man then emerged and followed her. I could see though that she was heading towards the open gate of my apartment complex where there were more people. So at that point, she was ok and could obtain help (including courtesy police officer in the complex) should she so desire. Last year was the first time I took the robot out. It was much simpler than this second time it's been in public. I had not even started with any electronics back then. It was just the frame and drivetrain with the motors. I believe that the robot in this simpler form was friendly to casual observers. They felt comfortable approaching and relating to it. As it is now, especially without any kind of exoskeletal shell to cover the underlying mechanisms, it is too complicated looking. So people have no idea what it is. They can't identify anything that is familiar. A SEP field is maintained around it so that it is in a social sense invisible. Another analogy is immigrant labor, especially when speaking in Spanish or Chinese. They become invisible to society. Anything not understood or that is completely alien, like legalese, mathematics, foreign languages, etc. is tuned out and ignored. This is good for field robotics development. I had not anticipated the SEP effect. I think now that if a van were to stop in the park and ASIMO step out and start running around that it would be so astonishing as to be rendered invisible. I tested the sensors I wired last week. It's good. The Sharp IR distance measuring sensors work well. I wish they has more range. But that can't be helped. The gyro works. The robot is ready for some action. Given all of the work so far, I feel that I need to critically think through how to proceed now that development shifts towards mathematics and software. I have been completely focused on hardware for the last year so need to consider how to go forward. The robot barely fits in the trunk. The rear threaded rod that the antenna mast screws onto brushes the trunk's rubber seal as the rear is lowered into the car. If the rod were an inch taller, I'm not sure that I could get the robot in. Also, I think that the robot tends to be thrown around in the trunk. For security, it really needs to be strapped down to the bed. I may have to put a board in the trunk with tie down straps to hold it in place.