Are Humans Just Smart Bugs?

Humans are all soft and gushy inside, and when it comes down to it, we're really not designed to take a lot of trauma. So some people have been inspired by nature to try to make us tougher, stronger, more (fill in the blank). One neat idea that has taken a long time in coming but that may be worth the wait is robotic exoskeletons. It appears that we may soon be able to work hard like an ant, for a price.
http://blogs.spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/2008/05/29/berkeley_bionics_accepting_orders_for_prototype_exoskeleton.html
When we watch ants filing along, ferrying food/resources back and forth to their colony, they seem pretty predictable. Food, home, food, home. Well, so are we.
http://staging.spectrum.ieee.org/jun08/6330
Maybe an understanding of just how like big smart bugs we are could help us fix some of society's problems, or at least engineer better solutions to them.

Maker Faire

I've never been to the Maker Faire, but I think I would love it. People take all their homemade engineering projects and show them off, and the list of stuff gets pretty high-tech actually. At the link below, you can find reference to robots, mechanical computers, and digital music-making, among other things. Sounds like my kind of people.
http://blogs.spectrum.ieee.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.fcgi?tag=Maker%20Faire%202008&blog_id=2

Engineering and Autism

A few months ago, I attended a talk on uses of virtual reality. One that caught my attention was a computer game for teaching autistic children how to escape if their home were to catch fire. I think the idea is that one trait that some autistic individuals exhibit is a strong reliance on memorization or routine as opposed to what most people would consider independent reasoning or abstraction of information to new situations. This is certainly true of my son's early language abilities, although he continues to make good progress. I kind of had to laugh though - wouldn't it be more helpful if they came up with a VR application to teach these kids to dress themselves or use the bathroom properly or something with more everyday utility that many of them struggle with? I'm much less concerned about the house catching on fire than I am about timely achievement of basic life skills.
I just ran across a news article describing software for the diagnosis of autism. Often, getting a proper diagnosis can be difficult since autism is a spectral disorder with many different manifestations. So a young engineer in India has come up with a screening software that uses input from caregivers along with performance data from an AI gaming system used by the child in order to score the child's probability of falling on the autism spectrum. I thought this was pretty cool.
http://www.theinstitute.ieee.org/portal/site/tionline/menuitem.130a3558587d56e8fb2275875bac26c8/index.jsp?&pName=institute_level1_article&TheCat=1016&article=tionline/legacy/inst2008/may08/profile.xml&
They have also written a couple articles on the system, one entitled "Exploration of Autism using Artificial Intelligence Techniques" (Veeraraghavan & Srinivasan), available from IEEE.

Some Semiconductor Advances

I just read 2 interesting articles on semiconductor technology. This is about all the 2 articles had in common though.
Although I'm not fully versed in industrial engineering, there are a number of techniques typically taught in IE curricula that I have a fondness for due to their impact on design. The first article summarizes the effects of applying the Toyota Production System (TPS), a kind of common-sense philosophy for maufacturing, to a semiconductor facility. I like these types of solid design philosophies - they just resonate with me. One thing that is pointed out in the article is that tools (application) are not the same thing as the principles of the philosophy itself. For all the students out there, that translates roughly to "don't use an equation until you make sure the corresponding assumptions are valid." :)
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/may08/6179
The other thing I learned was that I need to redo all my notes for MECH 350 next semester. Apparently there is a 4th basic circuit element called a memristor - basically a resistor with varying resistance and memory of what its former resistance was. I sure would hate to be a EE and have to relearn everything. But apparently there are some cool applications for memristors that could make life nicer. Kudos to HP for discovering that this formerly theoretical element actually exists.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/may08/6207
Quote of the week: apparently former president Bush recently said that the FIRST robotics program is like "the WWF, but for smart people." I like that. :)

Cheater!

I stumbled across a report yesterday on Nightline about a guy who is an aspiring Olympic runner. The catch - he doesn't have any feet. He uses special "Cheetah" prosthetic feet, which have a very high efficiency in transmitting the spring energy stored in them. You might have also seen one of these on a recent season of The Amazing Race. Unfortunately, whereas the human ankle is 88% efficient, the Cheetah foot is 91% efficient, so the Olympic officials have barred this guy from eligibility for using performance aids. I say just customize his feet to be a bit less efficient and let him run. He's obviously naturally fast and would be with natural feet or prosthetics. Anyone else with me on this?

Congrats

Congratulations are in order!
David successfully defended his PhD dissertation yesterday and will soon be known as Dr. Dave. And kudos to Mrs. Miller on her chocolate chip cookies.
Also, congratulations to Christy for the ongoing success of her fundraising efforts in behalf of Autism Speaks and Walk Now for Autism. There are still plenty of days left in Autism Awareness Month for those who want to help out. I'm looking forward to the big event May 24. (More details on Christy's blog.)
Oh yeah, and happy Earth Day. Congratulations to all those earth-lovers out there.

Biomimetics

This is a fascinating article on biomimetics and touches on some research already mentioned in a previous post.
Thanks to Chi Min for sending this article my way.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/04/biomimetics/tom-mueller-text