Online Journal and Documentation
Visit #1 :: Visit #2 :: Visit #4

Visit #1

Tue 27 Sept

16.07: finally someone is taking me out of this box…!

Oh this is France… I’m happy. She is speaking English, that means we must have arrived at Bristol, and maybe at the University of the West of England, that’s good news. Mmh… let’s have a look. This nice and enthusiastic person must be Dylan Evans, the person who kindly invited my mistress France to spend about 8 months in residency at the IAS LAB. He looks great, I can feel he likes robots, that’s also good news!

Dylan made us visit the laboratory. He explained lots of past and current projects and we met some of the students working there. Wahoo! What a wonderful place…! I’m sure France would love to have such a lab at the Fine-art School of Aix-en-Provence where she is teaching. But the robotic lab there is at least ten times smaller and less skillful.

Some of interesting projects I saw:

The Ecobot project which focuses upon the use of organic material as a source of energy (sugar for Ecobot I, the first version and dead flies or rotten fruits for Ecobot II, the current project)

Those robots follow on from an older project: the Slugbot which was eating slugs…

Amazing, robots are more and more life-like.

The WiskerBot with biomimetic artificial whisker system which could provide a novel form of robot tactile sensor capable of texture discrimination and object recognition.

Without forgetting learning robots, collective robots, self-organising robots, emergent building behaviour robots, flying robots, diving robots…

Everybody seems to be very skilled in this lab. That’s a relief… because I don’t forget I am here to undergo an operation so as to fit me out with a wireless radio communication device for Dog[LAB]02, France‘s new installation. About 20 of my congeners will suffer the same fate but for the moment I am the only one and mainly the first one who will experience this hardware modification. I hope I will survive… okay, usually I am a courageous robot. I must put myself together…

Wed 28 Sept

“Farmers’ anger at a mad cow robot!”

What a surprise when I read that on the Daily Press today… Farmers are angry at me? Why? I’ve only just arrived when there’s already a polemic… France is told to be a controversial and insensitive artist. That’s the most surprising think I have ever heard…BBC news, radios, and numerous websites reported the anecdote, websites about robotics, animals and even medicine… what a craze (for a digital artwork).

12.00: lab meeting.

France presented her work and project to the lab staff.

I felt a bit impressed and uncomfortable… she opened my belly to show people the electronics inside…

15.00: meeting at Watershed.

Booh… France didn’t take me there but she told me it was a very good place, gathering 3 cinemas, bar, café, meeting rooms for seminars, conferences and different events…This media centre is on Bristol’s waterfront, at the gateway to Harbourside in old industrial premises. She was glad to met Clare and Gill.

Thu 29 Sept

12.00: meeting with the other staff in CEMS (Computing Engineering and Mathematical Sciences) and visit of the faculty.

People were very welcoming even if I am no more than a robotic toy. Compared to the very serious things they must be used to work on, I must be very simple and a little wacky. But they seemed to enjoy. Anyway they laughed. I take it for a good thing…

Later Dylan Evans and Peter Jaeckel made me visit the different laboratories of the faculty.

It is well-known that walking with a dog encourages meetings between people. But I can tell you it is also working with a robotic dog! Yes… everybody was looking at me, and people were smiling and asking questions to the person who was carrying me. Dylan and then Peter took care of me. It was a nice moment…

Back to the lab France had a long talk with Jan Dyre Bjerknes about the transceivers that he was using for his project. She might use that as well but it’s not sure at the moment because using only one transmitter for the PC and some receivers for us may lose some information and using transceivers is possible with only 10 robots with this model and we are supposed to be around 20. Next time France will come back to the lab she will see how they are working and maybe experiment them. Jan gave her lots of information and help…

But maybe she will try to use the new version of PicoIP (English version soon) that Jean-Pierre Mandon is developing. PicoIP enables the communication between a PC and several modules (which have different IP)by using a wifi protocol, trough the web or in an autonomous installation. This new version will use a compact flash wifi card with a PCMCIA adaptor for PC side. Jean-Pierre is an engineer who is also teaching at the same Fine art School as France. He is essential in every electronic development at school. France said that the compact flash card plus the processor might be small enough to put it in my belly.

Finally I don’t know yet what I will have in my belly but I will let you know as soon as I will have more information, I promise… we need to find something small enough to put it inside my body and not too expensive. That’s the challenge.

Woof…

VISIT #2:

Mon 31 Oct

Wahoo! Wonderful! France is here… I believed she has abandoned me. I spent one month in this lab, but I was not allowed to play with the other robots, I was in my box in this very dark cupboard…

Ho what’s up? She is taking her screw drivers… it’s not a good sign. I haven’t only had time to enjoy France’s return when I found myself naked again… She removed my shell and now she is taking the soldering iron… mm mm… Let’s just hope I will survive. It looks as if she is adding me one of the transceivers that Jan is using. Yes, that’s right. And now she is fixing the antenna on my tail. I look like a stupid bumper car!

Now they seems to be in a very serious discussion with Jan… they try to do something on his computer. I can see another transceiver attached to the serial port

“ER_CMD#U3... ER_CMD#P9… ER_CMD#C0...”

setting UART data rate, power level, channel... and now making me do some things

“MEOW!“ “WAOUF!“

Wonderful it is working! I can ear what she tells me trough the serial port of the computer but with a wireless device.

Now she is taking me and we have a walk in the lab. It seems to work fine.

It was a good day.

Tue 1 Nov

Wouaf Wouaf! France brought me another friend. I won’t be alone anymore… and no more sad and cross when she will leave.

Oops, she is taking him apart… She will certainly fit him with the same radio as me: the LPRS module ER400TRS from Easy Radio.

Actually now we are both fitted with the radios. Another test and another walk in the lab to see if it is working…

“WAOUF!“ “MEOW!“
“WAOUF!“ “MEOW!“
“WAOUF!“ “MEOW!“

It’s a bit funny to see a dog meowing and not barking but it is just a test. Hopefully I am the one who is barking.

But what’s happening? Suddenly my new friend stops meowing… or even barking.

Ok, France will have to fix this problem. Maybe he missed some datas? Because the problem is we have transceivers but we don’t answer and send information back to the PC to tell we have received all the datas. At the moment we are working on a receiving mode. But maybe it is because in our programs we are sending back information through the serial port to display information on the PC screen. When the transceiver attached to the PC receives all those different datas at the same time it mustn’t be good…The solution may be to rewrite all the C files in the ICSDK libraries that send back datas trough the serial port and use “printf”.

This will be the mission for tomorrow…

Wed 2 Nov

France was supposed to spend this day rewriting some of the C files in the ICSDK libraries but electronics can have surprise in store…

Apart from the fact that the transceivers sometimes change by themselves the channel they are using, and therefore that they have to be reconfigured, a short-circuit on the main PCB of the robot made him disable: my new friend can’t move his legs anymore what is quite annoying even for a robot which is supposed to shake and die…

After a long working afternoon, trying to check the connections, reprogramming the robot and forcing legs calibration, France finally managed to fix it. Hurrah! My new friend is not dead…Thanks France.

Fri 4 Nov

Hum hum… France is taking out something strange from her bag. What’s this? A robot baby head…! Only the head… with some wires, PCBs and cables… Ha it must be the head of the “My Real Baby” that France and Jean-Pierre hacked. I’m curious to see how it moves.

It was the first emotionally-expressive, emotionally-responsive baby robot, built in 1995. This doll has the ability to change its face in numerous different ways allowing it to express emotions.

The doll can smile, laugh, frown and cry as well as a number of other things but I heard France wanted to make an installation with two babies, a European one and an Afro-American one, speaking about adult things such as plastic surgery. I think she must had brought this head to show it to Peter Jaeckel who is working in the lab with K-bot/Eva, David Hanson’s animatronic head.

Compare to the numerous servomotors integrated in David’s head, France’s baby head is a little bit simple but the movements are nice... It was funny to se those two robot faces side by side.

VISIT #4

Tue 7 Feb

Waou! Wonderful! France brought me a new friend.. This is Dolly, the famous dog-cow-sheep from Dog[LAB]01 at whom the farmers were angry.

Oops, but I’m naked... she could have reassembled the parts of my shell before. I feel a bit uncomfortable.

Okay I understand now, she must work on my new radio device. She brought a box with a transceiver inside. She drew this PCB to be able to send the information from the PC to me through the serial port. There is a USB plug for the power supply (it comes from the +5V of the PC), a DB9 plug to connect to serial port of the computer, a transceiver, with a MAX232 and three LEDs for power, Tx and Rx, and just a few other components. That’s very simple in fact... at least that’s what France said but I have to say, I don’t understand a word of what she is doing and that makes me a bit nervous... Sometime she looks a bit irritated. It might not work as she expects. The work with the transceivers seems to be very delicate... I will try to do my best to help her.

I heard she wanted to use a wifi device instead so that it would have a faster and more reliable communication. But for the moment I am fitted with a radio transceiver.

Wed 8 Feb

Today after lots of different tests and fears, it sounds great, it finally works. She has programmed me and my new friend, as well as Dolly. Tomorrow we have to be nice, she said, because we will do a demonstration at Watershed with Dylan and France. It can sound strange but Dolly is very difficult to make die according to the floor, the battery level and various factors. So France spent a long time to be sure she will die correctly...

Thursday 9 feb.

It’s the day of the event at Watershed: the Dog[LAB]02 show’n’ tell with Dylan Evans and France. I’m a bit stressed. Dolly told me she doesn’t really feel comfortable as well because she hasn’t her other friends from Dog[LAB]01 on her side. Usually they are on podiums, and there are seven robots... But today she is alone.

Okay, it’s starts now... People enter the room. Dolly is installed in the centre on a small platform which is lightened. An experimental and repetitive music is playing. People sit down in silence.

Gill introduces Dylan and France.

Dolly is switched on. People are still very silent... until the moment when Dolly starts shaking... Finally people are laughing. Maybe they are a bit surprised. Maybe they didn’t expect that. Maybe they expected the robot to dance like someone said later. Or maybe they are just captivated...

Now France plays a DVD showing the different robots of Dog[LAB]01.

Now Dylan and France are speaking together about the different species that have been mixed, the various references to the animal experimentations or to the artists’ works involving bio art. France is not speaking a very good English but with Dylan’s help they manage to exchange interesting ideas.

Now France shows me with my friend and explains the radio device that she added and the Dog[LAB]02 project.

Now the audience is invited to react, to ask questions...

That is the most important and motivating moment because some people seemed to be a bit surprised of the mix between Art and new technologies. Is it Art? Is it Robotics? Some others congratulated France. And finally at the end the majority sounded to agree to the same point of view but the reactions were different and more disparate than in exhibitions where people can directly see a real installation with several robots. They can be immerged and they don’t watch a single robot whilst sitting down silently. This was a paradoxical situation because the aim of Dog[LAB]02 is precisely to build a group, a pack of robots. But after explanations the public seemed satisfied.

France met interesting people. It was nice.