I conduct research at the Robotics Institute as part of my Ph.D, as well as working on several outside projects. Some of the more current ones that are keeping me busy are:
TeRK is the initiative of the newly renamed CREATE lab on which I spend most of my graduate school time. The idea is built around a Qwerk, a powerful robot controller which seeks out and connects to wireless internet networks - hence the Qwerk forms the nucleus of an out-of-the-box telepresent robot which can be controlled from any internet connected terminal. Anywhere.
Botrics is a company that a couple of friends of mine and I started to develop robots and robotics-related electronics for hobbyists, educators, and researchers. The company spun off of the CMU Robotics Club, and is currently and perhaps perpetually in its infancy. Botrics is always in search of the next big thing, mostly because the last big thing was smaller than expected... Botrics used to sell the Cerebellum microcontroller, and supports the Fun with Robots class with a custom microcontroller dubbed the Firefly.
I am working on an electronic slate for the Braille Tutor project. The slate will detect stylus motions usually used to write Braille on paper, but will provide immediate auditory feedback, as well as connecting to a computer to allow computer software to know what a student is writing and provide lessons or correct mistakes the student makes. The braille tutor is set to be piloted in the Mathru school for the blind in India in summer of 2006.
LEDs
I have an unhealthy obsession with LEDs, especially full color ones. I can't tell you when my obsession began, but it is clearly a progressive addiction. I'm currently enthralled by Lamina's new line of extraordinarily bright LEDs - they emit as much light as a normal incadescent bulb! I am very interested in creating LED art, and also in using LEDs as interesting ways to display information.
Gadgetry 101 is a new course being offered for fall 2007 at CMU through the Student College. I am co-teaching it with Brian Kirby. Together we've amassed a fair amount of experience designing simple electronic gadgets, and we hope with this course to pass on basic gadget designing skills like circuit board design and how to interface sensors and actuators.
Here are some of the projects that I haven't worked on for a year or more:
The Ballbot is a dynamically stable robot that balances on a single point of contact with the floor. It's similar to a Segway, in that it keeps upright by sensing in which direction it is falling, and then driving to stop that fall. Except instead of two wheels, this robot balances on a rubber-coated ball about the size of a bowling ball. I worked on simulating the controller to make this happen, and learned a good deal of math in the process. It is currently capable of balancing in place and moving from point to point.
Cerebellum is a low cost microcontroller intended for hobby robotics and small embedded applications. It uses a programmable PIC processor and integrates motor driving, downloading, serial communications, and servo control on one printed circuit board. Botrics is currently selling Cerebelli.
Fun with Robots is a class I taught with fellow robotics club president Brian Kirby through the Carnegie Mellon Student College. We had 30-60 students per semester, teaching the course for three semesters. Each student builds a small robot that uses a Cerebellum to control the robot to follow light, avoid obstacles, etc. The course was perpetuated by several enthusiastic members of the robotics club, who have taken it much farther than Brian and I - the course now uses a revamped microcontroller with a full color LED, beeper, a better, faster robot base, and has several creative course. Fun with Robots is also the subject of an ICRA'06 conference paper written entirely by the undergraduate instructors.
Cordless courier is part of the minifactory project at the Microdynamic Systems Lab at the CMU Robotics Instititute. I worked on this project from August 2002-July 2003. Couriers are small robots that roam about on a magnetic surface. Currently the couriers are controlled by a box the size of a PC which does all the motor control and processing. I miniaturized the processing and power aspects so that it all fits on top of the courier - getting rid of the nasty cord.
I used to spend a lot of time at Robotics Club, so much so that I've become a lifetime officer, or at least, they haven't removed me from their officers mailing list, and I haven't asked to be removed. Fun with Robots is taught at the club, and the Cerebellum was partially developed there. Projects I've done at club, in chronological order, include robotic volleyball, a tele-operated rover thing called Mr.T, a closed loop control diff drive, a mobot, the Cerebellum, Urban Search and Rescue, an encoder counter board, and finally, Robotic Volleyball (again, but much better). Needless to say, I probably spent more time here as an undergrad than I did on classes...
My Resume - a bit out of date since I'm not currently looking