We had done our laundry yesterday night and the dryer didn't really do much the first time. We coulnd't start it again, however, since it was 23:30 and it makes a lot of noise... Which meant that today we had to wake up at 6:30 to have enough time to run it again. After this run our clothes were still soaked. We told the owner of the hostel, and he offered us an additional run for free, but this time splitting the clothes equally between the two dryers they have. After this third run, the clothes were still wet, but since we had to catch our train, we just put them in some plastic bags and left, hoping to find a laundy shop somewhere in our way. We had already decided our next destination: Sendai. It was the best choice, since from there we can catch several local lines bound for Tokyo, and get off at any station we want along the way.
At Sendai station, we first looked for a tourist information office to get some maps and information about hostels. We also asked for the next post office to exchange some traveller cheques, since we were running out of cash. While we waited at the post office, we looked a bit through our guide to decide what places to visit. Unfortunately, those plans were cancelled as soon as we looked out of the window: it was raining again... We decided to go to the hostel first to leave our bags and then decide what to do. The map we had was really bad, however, and the scale was completely wrong, so it took a lot longer than we expected to arrive. That's when we noticed that our bodies were accumulating the tiredness. We even had to stop and rest for a while...
The hostel we went to, Sendai Maple Youth Hostel, is a small, family-run hostel. The owners were really nice, and let us check in and took us to the nearest laundry shop even though it was 12 am, and they were closed...
Since at Kawayo Green they didn't have any soap for the laundry, we decided to wash it again, this time with soap. We put our money in and the display said 35 minutes, so we decided to wait for it to finish. For some reason, however, the counter stopped at 33, and started counting down again after 20 minutes. This same thing happened several times. When we finally got out of there, it was 3 pm, which meant that our only plan for the day, a trip to Matsushima, got cancelled too...
With nothing left to do, we decided to go to the only point on our map that said "Internet access", the Sendai Mediatheque. When we arrived, we found a group of people building up a stage on the first floor. Since there were several posters on the walls announcing art expositions, we just though it was one of those and went up to the second floor, where they had several computers with internet access. We looked up the timetable for tomorrows trains, and after resting for a bit on some couches they had, we went down to the first floor again. This time, we took a look at the poster in front of where they were building the stage, and saw something like "Tohoku University Science Cafe: Intelligent Robots". Woohoo!
The conference started at 18:00, which meant that we still had an hour and a half left to walk around and have some drinks at a cafe.
When we came back to the Mediatheque, they had put up several desks. At each desk there was a stundent from the univeristy that would answer the questions of the public sitting there. Most of them were japanese, however, and didn't speak English... Luckily, a student from California who was studying abroad was around. He sat down beside us and started translating the most important things.
When the conference started, it looked more like biology than robotics. The professor that was giving the conference explained that current robots, such as Honda's "Asimo", are very advanced, but they still don't resemble humans. Thus, the main aim of their lab was to look at lifeforms, starting at the most basic ones, and try to simulate them with robots. He said that one of the main differences between lifeforms and current robot is that robots calculate everything in one core, while lifeforms have several different organs that perform their own tasks while cooperating with the others, thus decentralising.
One of the most impressive things he explained was that an experiment was made once with a cat, where the part of the brain that is responsible for the movement was cut off, leaving only the vital parts, so that the cat could still live. They put the cat on a treadmill. The cat could still walk and run without a brain, which meant that the act of walking was not only controlled by the brain, but also by the nervous system running through the muscles.
One of the lifeforms that they were looking at was some sort of yellow slime. I think it was some fungus, but I can't remeber it's name. The amazing thing about the slime was it's cell's way of comunicating with each other. It apparently could transmit information by using synchronised pulses that created a flow of liquid inside it. They were trying to recreate that using some robots positioned around a round, air filled balloon. The robots would then start creating pulses by pushing and pulling on the balloon. At first, these pulses would be completely random, but after a short time, the robots would synchronize, with the ones on one side pushing while the others pull, allowing the the whole group to move forward.
They had observed that same way of comunication in several other animals, such as snakes, which move using sychronized contractions of their muscles throughout their bodies. They had created a robotic snake that consisted of several segments. Each segment only had information about the position of the one in front of it and the one behind it, and received the electric pulses for the timing through a pair of cables that run through all of them. Even though those segments didn't "know" they were in a row, and where they were moving to, the whole snake could move as one unit because of that synchronization. They had a remote with which they controlled the direction of the snake and it's speed. The speed was basically the pace of the pulses that controlled the timing. The faster that was, the faster the segments would turn, making the snake move forward. They even let some of the visitors control it, but by the time I noticed that, the queue for it was already too long...
They also had a group of robots that "talked to each other" using light flashes. Whenever one of those robots emitted a flash, the others would try to get there. With two units it is really unimpresive, but a swarm of those robots would always group together. They showed a video where the makers separated them as fast as they could, but the robots would always manage to go back to the group by following the flashes. I think this is a very good example to show how many extremely simple entities with almost no functionality can accomplish complex tasks when they are grouped together.
After leaving the Mediatheque, we wanted to go to a shopping center nearby, but Pia had a bit of a headache, so we decided to just buy food for tomorrow and go back to the hostel. We don't know where we will be tomorrow and if there will be a department store nearby, which is why we bought breakfast, lunch and dinner for tomorrow, and breakfast for the day after tomorrow, as well as an additional bottle of water, even though we had just bought one and it was still fulql.
As usual, I got myself some of the free tea they offer at the hostel, and started to write the entry. I'm seriously getting addicted to it. Not to the tea itself, but to the habit of drinking a cup of tea while I write my blog in the evening...
At Sendai station, we first looked for a tourist information office to get some maps and information about hostels. We also asked for the next post office to exchange some traveller cheques, since we were running out of cash. While we waited at the post office, we looked a bit through our guide to decide what places to visit. Unfortunately, those plans were cancelled as soon as we looked out of the window: it was raining again... We decided to go to the hostel first to leave our bags and then decide what to do. The map we had was really bad, however, and the scale was completely wrong, so it took a lot longer than we expected to arrive. That's when we noticed that our bodies were accumulating the tiredness. We even had to stop and rest for a while...
The hostel we went to, Sendai Maple Youth Hostel, is a small, family-run hostel. The owners were really nice, and let us check in and took us to the nearest laundry shop even though it was 12 am, and they were closed...
Since at Kawayo Green they didn't have any soap for the laundry, we decided to wash it again, this time with soap. We put our money in and the display said 35 minutes, so we decided to wait for it to finish. For some reason, however, the counter stopped at 33, and started counting down again after 20 minutes. This same thing happened several times. When we finally got out of there, it was 3 pm, which meant that our only plan for the day, a trip to Matsushima, got cancelled too...
With nothing left to do, we decided to go to the only point on our map that said "Internet access", the Sendai Mediatheque. When we arrived, we found a group of people building up a stage on the first floor. Since there were several posters on the walls announcing art expositions, we just though it was one of those and went up to the second floor, where they had several computers with internet access. We looked up the timetable for tomorrows trains, and after resting for a bit on some couches they had, we went down to the first floor again. This time, we took a look at the poster in front of where they were building the stage, and saw something like "Tohoku University Science Cafe: Intelligent Robots". Woohoo!
The conference started at 18:00, which meant that we still had an hour and a half left to walk around and have some drinks at a cafe.
When we came back to the Mediatheque, they had put up several desks. At each desk there was a stundent from the univeristy that would answer the questions of the public sitting there. Most of them were japanese, however, and didn't speak English... Luckily, a student from California who was studying abroad was around. He sat down beside us and started translating the most important things.
When the conference started, it looked more like biology than robotics. The professor that was giving the conference explained that current robots, such as Honda's "Asimo", are very advanced, but they still don't resemble humans. Thus, the main aim of their lab was to look at lifeforms, starting at the most basic ones, and try to simulate them with robots. He said that one of the main differences between lifeforms and current robot is that robots calculate everything in one core, while lifeforms have several different organs that perform their own tasks while cooperating with the others, thus decentralising.
One of the most impressive things he explained was that an experiment was made once with a cat, where the part of the brain that is responsible for the movement was cut off, leaving only the vital parts, so that the cat could still live. They put the cat on a treadmill. The cat could still walk and run without a brain, which meant that the act of walking was not only controlled by the brain, but also by the nervous system running through the muscles.
One of the lifeforms that they were looking at was some sort of yellow slime. I think it was some fungus, but I can't remeber it's name. The amazing thing about the slime was it's cell's way of comunicating with each other. It apparently could transmit information by using synchronised pulses that created a flow of liquid inside it. They were trying to recreate that using some robots positioned around a round, air filled balloon. The robots would then start creating pulses by pushing and pulling on the balloon. At first, these pulses would be completely random, but after a short time, the robots would synchronize, with the ones on one side pushing while the others pull, allowing the the whole group to move forward.
They had observed that same way of comunication in several other animals, such as snakes, which move using sychronized contractions of their muscles throughout their bodies. They had created a robotic snake that consisted of several segments. Each segment only had information about the position of the one in front of it and the one behind it, and received the electric pulses for the timing through a pair of cables that run through all of them. Even though those segments didn't "know" they were in a row, and where they were moving to, the whole snake could move as one unit because of that synchronization. They had a remote with which they controlled the direction of the snake and it's speed. The speed was basically the pace of the pulses that controlled the timing. The faster that was, the faster the segments would turn, making the snake move forward. They even let some of the visitors control it, but by the time I noticed that, the queue for it was already too long...
They also had a group of robots that "talked to each other" using light flashes. Whenever one of those robots emitted a flash, the others would try to get there. With two units it is really unimpresive, but a swarm of those robots would always group together. They showed a video where the makers separated them as fast as they could, but the robots would always manage to go back to the group by following the flashes. I think this is a very good example to show how many extremely simple entities with almost no functionality can accomplish complex tasks when they are grouped together.
After leaving the Mediatheque, we wanted to go to a shopping center nearby, but Pia had a bit of a headache, so we decided to just buy food for tomorrow and go back to the hostel. We don't know where we will be tomorrow and if there will be a department store nearby, which is why we bought breakfast, lunch and dinner for tomorrow, and breakfast for the day after tomorrow, as well as an additional bottle of water, even though we had just bought one and it was still fulql.
As usual, I got myself some of the free tea they offer at the hostel, and started to write the entry. I'm seriously getting addicted to it. Not to the tea itself, but to the habit of drinking a cup of tea while I write my blog in the evening...
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At Mukaiyama Station, waiting for our train. We were completely alone. The only thing that broke the silence were the few cars that passed by from time to time...
In Sendai
Talking about task decentralization in robots
The projects his lab is working on
The robotic snake
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