BEN: Hey, this is Ben again, and we are at the Google I/O
After Hours Party.
We've got amazing things to see here.
Let me find my collaborator here.
Hey!
FITZ: Hey, Ben!
BEN: How was that?
FITZ: That was great!
This is a VirtuSphere.
It's a virtual reality in a sphere, and
they've got two of them.
And people are going to be going head-to-head combat here
at the After Hours Party for Google.
BEN: Fantastic.
There's a bunch of other crazy robotic things we're going to
show you tonight.
FITZ: What else do we have?
BEN: Brainwave games that read your brain and lets you do
amazing things.
FITZ: We've got a 38-foot mechanical snake.
BEN: And we've got a bunch of autonomous flying helicopters
that do amazing things.
FITZ: Build things, play ping pong, it's pretty incredible.
So we're looking forward to showing you guys around to see
what we can't find to share with you that's happening here
at Google I/O After Hours.
BEN: Let's take a look!
FITZ: Let's take a look!
We're over here now with what looks like a giant snake.
Can you tell us what your name is?
CHARLIE BRINSON: Yeah, my name is Charlie Brinson, and I'm
the initiator of this project.
The project's called Titanoboa, and it's a massive
recreation of this ancient snake that used to exist 60
million years ago.
FITZ: And just how big is this snake?
CHARLIE BRINSON: Right now, this one is
about 40 feet long.
But it's still in the process of growing, so we're going to
lengthen it to 50 feet to represent the original kind of
beast that was roaming the Earth.
BEN: Now, when you say this project, who is this group
that you're in charge of here?
CHARLIE BRINSON: So I'm the initiator of the project, and
we have a team of about 15 or 20 people.
We're all working under the support of a foundation called
eatART, which is Energy Awareness Through ART.
And we build huge kinetic sculptures that have
energy-related themes to them.
BEN: What is the energy-related
theme for this sculpture?
CHARLIE BRINSON: Well, we figure since the story goes
that Titanoboa went extinct 60 million years ago because the
climate cooled down, right?
So now the climate's warming back up, so we're resurrecting
this beast to get discussions going about climate change and
showcase electric vehicle technology.
FITZ: What kind of locomotion--
does this actually move like a snake?
CHARLIE BRINSON: Yeah.
So you can see down the spine there's all these hydraulic
cylinders, which are muscles of the snake.
And they contract in such a way that it enables it to
propel itself.
So it's all controlled by a series of microcontroller
brains all down the spine and controlled
wirelessly from the driver.
FITZ: And how fast does it go?
Should we be concerned?
CHARLIE BRINSON: Yeah, sometimes it gets a little bit
of a temper going, and it can lash out its tail.
But you could probably outrun it pretty easily, at least at
this stage.
We're planning on modifying it and upgrading it so that it
can really cruise.
BEN: Are any of the attendees here going to get a chance to
drive this thing, or is it experts only?
CHARLIE BRINSON: There's a pretty big learning curve.
Because it can flick its tail out and stuff, you've got to
go through a rigorous training program before you can
actually get behind the--
BEN: Excellent.
FITZ: So other people out there who are interested in
building really awesome stuff like this, what's
your advice for them?
CHARLIE BRINSON: Just do it.
Like I had this idea, and we had no idea whether it was
going to be possible.
But we just kind of persevered.
And at times it looked really like, what are we doing?
But once you get to the end and you've got your product
that looks really awesome, it's just the
best feeling ever.
BEN: Where can people see this if they want to see it in
person outside of the show?
Is it going to be in a museum or exhibit?
CHARLIE BRINSON: We take it to various exhibits around--
like maybe five or six different major exhibits
throughout the year.
So you could look it up online at titanoboa.ca, and then
we'll have posts where our next show is.
BEN: Titanoboa.ca.
FITZ: Awesome.
BEN: If you want to learn more about that.
FITZ: All right, so that's Titanoboa, and we're going to
move on and see what else we can find around
here to show you guys.
Thanks a lot.
Appreciate it.
BEN: Thank you.
CHARLIE BRINSON: No worries.
BEN: Love your attire, by the way.
FITZ: Yeah, that's a nice coat you got there, I have to say.
It looks very distinguished.
BEN: Styling.
FITZ: Excellent.
All right, let's roll.
OK, we're over here with something incredible.
BEN: I think we're not in Kansas anymore.
FITZ: So what's your name?
CHRISTIAN RISTOW: Christian Ristow.
FITZ: And Christian, tell us a little bit about what we're
standing in front of, and are we in danger?
CHRISTIAN RISTOW: You are not actually in danger.
It might be fun to think you are, but I have other pieces
that would endanger you more than this one is.
This piece is called Face Forward.
And it's a 12-foot tall animatronic human face made
from aluminum and stainless steel.
It's radio-controlled.
There are 12 points of control on the face that correspond to
different elements of human facial expression.
And each of those control points is controlled from a
control station.
And they're spaced and arranged in such a way that
one person can really only operate one at a time.
So the idea is that it takes 12 people to bring
the piece to life.
BEN: Can you tell us what inspired you to build this?
CHRISTIAN RISTOW: Basically, I started getting, at some
point, very interested in the idea of human facial
expression and the musculature associated with it because
it's fascinating.
We have this amazingly sensitive, expressive
musculature in our face, which is devoted to one thing and
one thing only, and that's
communication with other people.
And it functions in ways that are more subtle and intricate
than we realize.
And we can even occasionally express things to other people
that we don't really mean to.
And so it's just fascinating, and I really wanted to build a
piece that captured that somehow.
And then, almost as an afterthought, I came up with
this idea of spreading out the controls and making it
something that would require 12 people to
really bring to life.
And there's an element of an experiment in cooperation
built into the piece.
There's a degree to which I have always hoped that
spontaneous cooperation would emerge among groups of people.
And certain people would perhaps take on the role of
leader, like OK, everybody, let's do anger!
And so I have really wanted to watch the groups of people
controlling the face and wait and see if something like that
would happen.
It has happened.
It has happened much less frequently than
I thought it might.
BEN: It's fantastic.
The whole idea of emergent collaboration is something
that's very near and dear to our heart, in fact.
It's fascinating stuff.
FITZ: So where can we go see this?
Is this on permanent display somewhere, do you travel
around with it?
CHRISTIAN RISTOW: I do travel around with it.
It's not on permanent display.
It usually goes back home to my ranch in northern New
Mexico between shows.
It will be, however, at an event called Artscape which is
a large-scale outdoor public art festival in Baltimore in
late July, July 20, 21, 22.
FITZ: Great.
CHRISTIAN RISTOW: It will probably be the Voodoo Fest,
which is a music festival in New
Orleans right on Halloween.
And it might show up at Maker Faire, New York.
I'm not sure yet.
BEN: Fantastic.
FITZ: Well, listen, thanks a lot for taking the
time to show it.
I just hope you a great time tonight.
CHRISTIAN RISTOW: I thank you.
BEN: I think Googlers are going to have a great time
with this tonight.
CHRISTIAN RISTOW: Thank you.
FITZ: Let's move on to the next guy.
BEN: Thank you.
FITZ: All right, thanks.
BEN: Holy smokes, where are we now?
FITZ: We are here inside the giant cage
with some flying robots.
Hi, so what's your name?
PROF.
RAFFAELLO D'ANDREA: It's Raffaello D'Andrea.
FITZ: And where are you from, and what
exactly is going on here?
PROF.
RAFFAELLO D'ANDREA: I'm a professor at the Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology.
And what you're seeing here is a demonstration of
multi-vehicle control.
These flying vehicles are collaborating to throw a ball
up in the air and then collaborating to
move and catch it.
FITZ: They're really good.
PROF.
RAFFAELLO D'ANDREA: Yeah, they're quite good at it.
There's no way that you could have human beings control
these vehicles to do this.
They're fully autonomous.
They're not remote-controlled by human beings.
And the precision required to do this is not
achievable with people.
It has to be done autonomously with sophisticated algorithms.
BEN: Are they actually tracking the ball as it falls
back down to the ground?
PROF.
RAFFAELLO D'ANDREA: They are.
The vehicles themselves are not.
Because we're indoors here, we have an indoor GPS system,
which is the equivalent of GPS outside.
And that is what we're using to track the vehicles.
The ball is being tracked as it flies, and then the
vehicles figure out exactly where they need to be to
intercept it.
BEN: That is amazing, absolutely amazing.
FITZ: And so how big is your team?
PROF.
RAFFAELLO D'ANDREA: So we have a rather large team here.
We have about six people here.
We have another 10 folks back home.
We do research on autonomous systems,
not just flying vehicles.
So it's a team of about 15 people.
FITZ: And now for the real question.
How many of these things have you destroyed in
learning all this?
PROF.
RAFFAELLO D'ANDREA: Right.
So these things are actually quite robust.
A lot of times, we fly them, they bounce on the ground, and
they get back up.
But we've probably gone through 10, 20 vehicles.
BEN: Our people who are watching this at home, they
are developers.
Are they able to play with autonomous systems like this?
Are there kits they can buy or things?
PROF.
RAFFAELLO D'ANDREA: Yeah, there are.
So, I mean, to do this level of autonomy is beyond--
this is cutting-edge research that we're doing.
However, you can buy kits for flying vehicles.
They're rather inexpensive now.
And if you're willing to do things with a remote control,
human-piloted, right now it's very difficult to have fully
autonomous systems, but give it another two or three years.
BEN: I was thinking about the things like XB, point-to-point
communication of small robot insects.
I've seen things like that and wondering if that's something
people can play with at home, if it's a
similar sort of problem.
PROF.
RAFFAELLO D'ANDREA: The big difference with the flying
vehicles, of course, is that they're unstable.
And if something goes wrong, they will crash.
So yes, that's great advice for any hobbyist.
First, start with vehicles on the ground, so if something
goes wrong, they just kind of stay put.
Or at worst, they drive away from you.
But, I mean, five years ago, we wouldn't even have been
able to come close to what we're doing now.
So every year more capabilities are coming around
the corner.
FITZ: I see you've got blocks over here on a platform.
So these are the robots.
We've seen awesome videos on the web, and they're building
things, is that right?
PROF.
RAFFAELLO D'ANDREA: That's correct.
So what you saw right now is just one of about 10 demos
that we're going to demonstrate tonight.
One of the other demos is we're going to build a tower
with our flying vehicles.
And we're going to play cooperative ping pong.
We're going to balance sticks.
We're going to learn how to do triple flips.
We're going to do some slalom.
What else are we going to do?
We're going to do a choreographed dance to music.
BEN: Yeah, this is incredible.
PROF.
RAFFAELLO D'ANDREA: There's going to be a
bunch of fun stuff.
BEN: Really, really fun.
FITZ: This is officially amazing.
We're going to have to move on to catch up with some other
robots, but thank you for your time and have a great night.
BEN: See you.
Thank you very much.
Hey, hello again.
Here we are at another station.
And what is your name?
GIL WEINBERG: My name is Gil Weinberg.
BEN: And what are you doing here for us today?
GIL WEINBERG: We developed a robotic docking station.
We believe that every part of your house should become
robotic, and we'd want to try with a docking station.
So we think that a docking station that's not only
playing your music but actually enjoying the music as
much as you do would be a nice way to start.
BEN: So you've designed a docking
station that enjoys music?
GIL WEINBERG: We tried to have it dance and enjoy music and
be your companion.
So it can recommend music to you.
It can tell you what he thinks about your taste.
If he doesn't like what you like, he can have a gesture or
a sound, something that you can interact with, learn about
music, and enjoy music more when you listen to it.
BEN: Sounds like what Fitz does with me all the time.
FITZ: Can we take a look at it?
Can we get a little demo here?
GIL WEINBERG: So one quick demo would be me trying to
clap a song.
And it goes through the cloud trying to find a song that is
matching my clapping.
And let's see if it works.
FITZ: We've got a lot of noise here.
Let's see what it does.
BEN: All right, you're going to clap a tempo?
GIL WEINBERG: Yeah.
Oh, we don't have sound.
This is something we've found.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
BEN: It's boogying.
GIL WEINBERG: Try it again.
FITZ: Try it again?
All right.
BEN: One more time.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
GIL WEINBERG: Well, that was the rhythm that I wanted at
the same beat.
BEN: Yeah.
GIL WEINBERG: It detects the beat.
It detects the tempo, and brings you songs that fits.
FITZ: So it detects the beat and the tempo, and it finds
something in the cloud, and it starts playing?
GIL WEINBERG: Right.
And another thing that I wanted to show you is we have
all the robots dancing together.
FITZ: So they synchronize?
GIL WEINBERG: Yeah.
What's nice about it is that all the brain of the robot is
on the phone.
So it has all the computation, the networking.
It has all your input, the vision.
When you move, the robot always know where you are, so
you're always in the center of the stereo field.
FITZ: So it's a peripheral, basically, for your phone?
GIL WEINBERG: Basically.
BEN: And it's tracking you, you said, as you walk around?
GIL WEINBERG: Because you have a phone here, we have a lot of
capabilities that make this robot pretty cheap.
This can be a $100 robot.
BEN: Wow.
GIL WEINBERG: And all the brain is pretty
much in your pocket.
When you take the brain from the pocket and put it in the
dock, suddenly the robot becomes smart.
It can communicate.
It can network with each other.
It can look at you, and you're always in the center of the
stereo field.
BEN: Can these coordinate for us?
GIL WEINBERG: Yeah, these coordinate.
Mason, you want to try to make them coordinate?
FITZ: Yeah, let's give it a try.
BEN: Yeah, one more time.
Let's watch.
FITZ: So how do we do that?
GIL WEINBERG: They just started.
FITZ: There they go, OK.
I see there's two of them going, and
there's the middle one.
All right, that's pretty cool.
So if I really wanted to buy one of these, can I go buy one
today at the store?
GIL WEINBERG: We hope to make them affordable.
As I mentioned, this can be a $100 robot.
We want to have it ready by January of 2013.
What's nice about it is that it can use sounds that it
makes by itself or sounds from your music library.
In this case, as you hear right now, it actually
synthesizes in real time based on the gestures.
The gestures actually generate a sound.
FITZ: OK.
BEN: Wonderful.
And this is programmable, I assume?
GIL WEINBERG: It's programmable.
We want to have an application for kids, for
education, for gaming.
There will be an API.
And I think just now, they're about to play together, so
maybe we can finish with a little song that
they all play together.
BEN: Let's watch the very end here.
Thank you so much.
FITZ: All right, thanks.
For all you engineers out there who don't want to dance
like me, you've got something to dance for you.
Let's move on and see if there's anything else to see.
Thanks a lot.
GIL WEINBERG: You'll be fine.
FITZ: Have a good night.