InspiredRobotics.com

When I woke up on Thursday morning, I got dressed, had some breakfast and went to the local community centre to cast my vote in this years general election.
Walking into the the hall I was greeted by a selection of people sitting at their table, ready to take my details and check me off their list. They gave me my two pieces of paper and pointed me over to the plywood stall that had been erected especially for this event. I made my choice, placed my paper into a box, smiled, thanked the very relaxed people and left.
As my day went on, I didn’t give my voting experience too much thought. It was easy and quick and very convenient. Just the way the voting system should be, but I can’t help thinking that maybe I was just lucky.

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So, it seems that Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon are doing a little bit of research into new ways of controlling devices. The video below shows something they are working on right now, which is a system that takes inputs from vibrations within the body, such as tapping the arm in certain places.

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So, earlier on I saw this video and it got me wondering about the future of our gadgets such as our mobile phones.

This funky little fella was developed at the Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT) and apart from being a little annoying it is quite inspiring.
At the moment, from what I know about it, Cally (as he’s known) mainly reacts to incoming calls and text messages by jumping around in some pre-programmed way. It responds to certain emoticons such as sad and happy faces by posing or dancing around in its respective way.
This can be seen here.

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So today I saw this news report from the bbc about a school over the other side of the pond in San Diego and it got me wandering about whether schooling should or could become a projects based environment.
I know that this idea of schooling would not be suitable for all and I know that academia is a very important aspect of learning, but it does seem to me that after the schooling years much of that academic learnt knowledge can go to the wayside and may never get used again. I know that when I was at school apart from our CDT(Craft, Design, Technology) lessons, which took up a very small part of our curriculum, there wasn’t much else for us to really get our teeth stuck into. I was a bit different from most of the others of my years and put in the extra time to do other things, but really I was only able to do this because I got on so well with the teachers and they were willing to give me a little extra attention.

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When I was young we, as a family, were ‘forced’ to watch sci-fi programmes because my dad was a ‘bit’ of a fan. It seemed like every evening after 6pm (except for 7.30 to 8 which was Eastenders or Coronation street for my mum) the television would be dominated by strange beings from others planets and laser beams. The strange aliens would be bringing their messages of peace or, more often, being blown out of the airless vacuum of space.

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Welcome one and all to Inspired Robotics.
This site is currently in its infant stages and in the following weeks, months and probably years will be going through some changes to the look and feel of the site. This will happen as and when I find the things that work and all the others that do not.

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