Robots Without Limit

"It folds up and walks away completely on its own."
"We all begin life as single sheets of cells that fold to develop complex organs."
"[Future robots'] brains [and] bodies [could be changed and designed to fit the job]."
Michael Tolley, Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory

The self-folding crawling robot in three stages Seth Kroll/Wyss Institute

"Our big dream is to really make the fabrication of robots fast and inexpensive."
Daniela Rus, director, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Daniela Rus, -- MIT News

My, how innovative science projects promise to change the world we live in! Although it's difficult to imagine the immense variety of ways in which the world will become accustomed to using robots -- used now extensively in manufacturing production lines, requiring far fewer human workers to toil at robotic jobs -- it would have been equally difficult for people forty years ago to imagine just how vastly the Internet and technology would change our lives, and now it's all commonplace.

Michael Tolley, a young Canadian scientist originally from Kingston, Ontario, who studied at McGill and then Cornell universities before ending up at Harvard three years ago, with the intention of spending his working life designing machines that self-assemble, shot a video of his "origami robot" which folded itself up and crept away like a well-mannered turtle.

The video was released by the journal Science, accompanied with a report on the "self-folding" machine, and its introduction has generated lots of interest in "real-life Transformers", simply complex machines capable of springing to life on missions that humans are unable to commit to. Or, imagine having possession of a robot that could be directed to perform household duties on command? Or take the family pet out for a daily constitutional?

Robot shops capable of designing self-assembling robots in a matter of mere hours, located within communities, just like coffee shops currently are, to sell the resulting products to the consuming public selecting the design most useful to them, is just around the corner, so to speak, of the near future. Buying the convenience of assistance in areas of life that can be both mundane and complex.

Michael Tolley now works with another scientist, Sam Felton, and together they created the first machine to begin its life entirely flat, then emerge through a pre-designed process as a three-dimensional object capable of walking and turning on its own. Rudimentary materials at low cost, like sheets of paper and sheets of Shrinky Dinks (children's toy made of "shape memory polymers") which harden when heated were used.

The 3D function was etched onto the polymer sheets representing a flexible circuit dictating where and when the robot should self-fold. A microcontroller and two tiny motors make the robot move. Power is battery-supplied to heat the polymers in vital locations to enable the robot to hinge and fold itself into shape. When the folds cool off and the robot becomes stiff, the microcontroller signals the robot to crawl off. This process took the demonstration model four minutes to complete.

In this successful experimental model, 82 of 84 hinges folded properly. The design for the 3D objects are readily adaptable to being altered or edited; their "brains" and "bodies" amenable to changed designs to match a particular job. Mr. Tolley envisions along with his colleagues, self-folding machines morphing into satellites self-assembling in orbit, or machines slipped flat into a collapsed building and once inside, assembling themselves for perhaps search-and-rescue missions.

Imagine going to your local Ikea store and bringing home a piece of furniture that has been blueprinted to assemble itself; no assembly required would be a huge boost to both sales and buyer-relief from having to figure out not-always-readily-decipherable assembly instructions for the clumsy-inclined.

"It's a breakthrough in terms of easy-to-lay-out and easy-to-manufacture using flat technology which then springs to 3D life. That's a really intriguing idea. It is not clear yet which is the one that is going to win [robot design]. I'm not sure this is it, but I am really excited to see the scientific exploration of the possibilities", said robotics expert Alan Mackworth of the University of British Columbia.

The self-folding robot is viewed as a "research milestone", leading to more competitive pricing of industrial robots and greater access for individuals to produce robots at home, feels Anqi Xu of the Centre for Intelligent Machines at McGill University. In which case, perhaps in the near-enough future a proliferation of 3D printers will lead to the home-manufacture of 3D robots. Where might it all lead to?

Conveniently Dying

"A detective is following up to make sure nothing suspicious occurred with her death. We're making sure everything is above board."
"Unfortunately, the victim passed away and this may change things for us with the state attorney and what charges they can proceed with. Grand theft may be out the window."
Captain Jeff Trylch, Palm Beach Police

"As long as we have sufficient factual basis, we will proceed. If we are missing an element that only the victim could provide, the state would then have to decide whether or not to proceed."
"We aggressively prosecute cases regardless of the economic or social standing of those involved."
Mike Edmondson, spokesman, Florida state attorney

Carrie Bradburn/Lucien Capehart Photography Nancy Tsai, Stephen Lindsay, Helga Marston in 2009. Tsai is accused of defrauding Marston.

 

In some ways this is a tale of two women born to relatively humble circumstances whose beauty and skills carried them into the higher echelons of society through felicitous marriages to wealthy older men. It is also a tale of one generation joining an earlier generation, both finding much in common within the scope of their life experiences and their attraction to high society and philanthropy, which high society venerates almost as much as social celebrity.

Two women, the first born in Romania who moved to New York in 1962 where she married an investment banker who died in 2004, leaving her immensely wealthy as a widow. "We've been lucky. There has been no heart disease in our families, they died simply from old age, at 93 and 94", Helga Marston was reported to have said in a social column dating to 1985. She died herself a few days ago, at age 92, and it could be said that age took her, but Alzheimer's had the first shot.

She was a great good friend of another woman quite like herself; beautiful, intelligently accomplished, wealthy by inheritance of marriage, moving comfortably in elite social circles, and having the distinction of founding the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, as well as being involved in advancing the arts, though of a later generation of her friend Helga Marston. Nancy Tsai, originally from small-town Ontario, also married well, not once but twice, first to a millionaire, then a billionaire.

They had been friends for many decades, growing old/er together, leaving one just past her prime, the other advanced into the status of the elderly frail. While Nancy Tsai retained her cerebral function intact, her older friend Helga Marston succumbed to Alzheimer's, her mind increasingly absent while her body strove to match her genetic familial history's penchant to long life. Helga trusted Nancy, and so Nancy had Power of Attorney of the older woman's estate, then became a Trustee.

The trouble was, the financial institution with which Nancy Tsai registered her friend's trust saw some alarming irregularities which concerned them and they, most uncharitably, but with an eye to their reputation, called in the police to investigate. It seemed to them evidently, unreasonable that while Ms. Marston languished during her end-of-days in a health-care facility (hospice), her trusted friend proceeded to make some peculiar investments on her behalf.

As, for example, by withdrawing $2,292,000 from Helga Marston's account for the purchase of a penthouse apartment; $302,000 to renovate that apartment; $270,000 to take possession of a Bentley Continental GT V8 coup; and $101,200 to pay for a 2013 Mercedes S550, an executive sedan. Jetting to Toronto and back, the sole passenger on a private jet, charging shopping and expensive restaurant invoices to the trust, that kind of, ahem,' irregularity'.

Palm Beach Police Captain Trylch looked up financial records, sought medical opinions and interviewed a cast of witnesses, all the while keeping in mind Ms. Marston's vulnerable state of health, teetering between being "on another planet" mentally in the words of a medical specialist, and departing this planet to remain permanently on that other planet whose plane of being we have no idea about.

"It is why we tried to move as expeditiously as possible", he explained. And so, he as lead investigator, established from the interview with that same doctor that Ms. Marsten's awareness simply was absent, she had "zero" mental capacity. Astonishingly, though that was the reality it would appear she managed somehow to approve legal and banking documents providing Ms. Tsai with access to her millions.

Even more amazing, in March of 2013, Ms. Marston amended her will, naming as beneficiaries Nancy Tsai and her daughter. A handsome inheritance indeed. And imagine, this is how peculiarly fortune would have it; a trusted, long-time friend who bought a costly property and vehicles to enrich her elderly friend's lifestyle, will now inherit it all.

Pure, blind luck!

Canadian Values

"Canadians seem to have a nice balance between a freedom to do what you want to do, a freedom from fear of poverty or violence and the freedom to be me. With Canadians, the multicultural diversity, sexual orientation diversity, the abled and disabled, we have a very inclusive attitude that everybody is in the family and we've got to help everybody."
"Not that we're that close to each other, what with the differences in provinces, Quebec, the Atlantic and so on, but that we are close enough to have the common programs that we all embrace."
Michael Adams, president, Environics Institute

PWGSC - Parliament Hill, Ottawa, View of Centre Block at night

In a speech delivered to the Wilson Center's Canada Institute Mr. Adams, whose firm is involved in "original public opinion and social research on important issues of public policy and social change" points out the variances in social culture between Canada and the United States. And his conclusions might seem counter-intuitive to many who have always regarded Americans as compassionate and kind, involved in community.

Stands to reason, after all, since Americans typically are more generously giving to charitable causes than are Canadians. And in the United States, social philanthropy is far more developed than it is in Canada. Some might suggest that this is guilt at play, not necessarily altruism, since the most generous of philanthropists in the United States have typically been fabulously wealthy industrialists who gained their fortunes riding roughshod over the public interest to attain them.

In any event, Mr. Adams spoke of research that led to certain conclusions. Pointing out that Americans and Canadians respond far differently to society's needs in their personal perceptions of how they should react. The differences, he says are stark. Canadians have a more robust sense of community, aligned with a greater sense of individual freedom than do Americans. It's the 'I'm All Right, Jack' syndrome, one supposes.

Americans, on the other hand, speaking with a broad brush of generalization obviously, are burdened with a strong sense of patriotism and conformism. Unlike Canadians, Americans tend not to consider their country representing one community pulling in tandem for the public weal. Americans have a religious belief that success is the result of virtue, and failure goes to the undeserving. In the American view, he posits, a just world is one in which the rich are admirable, the poor are not.

The south portico of the White House -- Wikipedia

"If you don't deserve it, then you really don't deserve my tax dollars and you don't deserve my charitable dollars", he explained. "So you are on your own." Rather a harsh condemnation of perhaps what came out of the frontier mentality and individualism. A new Pew Institute study posited the question : Is belief in God essential to morality? Fifty-three percent of Americans responded in the affirmation while 31% of Canadians did so.

Issues of authority, patriotism, work ethic, ownership, religion and patriarchy represent the important issues on the American values landscape. Separated out somewhat and moderated by necessity in view of whether Americans are drawn to the Republican or to the Democratic agenda in the public discourse, scale of priorities and realization of core needs. Perhaps going a long way to explaining why millions of Americans were left catastrophically adrift with no health insurance.

Republicans, averred Mr. Adams, attract conformists and authoritarians (conservatism), while Democrats are attractive to the idealists in society. And then there's this last little adjustment in the scale of opposites and political affiliations relating to ideology and moderation. The American Democrats are more aligned to the Canadian Conservatives in values and priorities. There really is no Canadian-style Republican party.

Canadians represent themselves as being more idealistic, self-reliant and open-minded socially and culturally. The American public retains its strong sense of duty and work ethic, risk-taking and attention-craving (think celebrity-culture!). Needless to say these are all issues that seep over from one camp to the other in varying degrees. But by and large it's safe enough to conclude that the two societies really are different.