A robotics conference

I wanted to say a bit about the robotics conference I attended, IROS 2012.

 

  I saw lots of robots moving about the floor, some small, some as tall as met and looking sort of human like.  A former colleague from Mitsubishi lab showed me a video of his "little" round robots that change colors and form into groups to represent an image (like a fish swimming in the sea).  They act like a small animation!

   An aerial robot that won a best paper award for the technical institute in Zurich.  Below is my robot which I discussed in my paper.




I heard two general talks, one about the nuclear disaster in Japan, and one about robots in medicine that others may find interesting.  Robots turned out to be very useful in the Tokyo nuclear plant that had meltdowns after the tsunami.  They are being used to provide video data to humans who are safely away, to do some cleanup of debris from roof damage and the like.  No one ever planned to use robots this way, but luckily some robots can operate in high radiation circumstances (again they weren't designed with that in mind--it's just lucky.)  The robots are mostly American, which is very embarassing to the Japanese robotics community (but personally I don't think they should have been embarassed--it was just luck that someone had the right stuff).  But what shocked me was how long it will be before the plant is safe.  At present there is still high radiation leakage in one direction from the plant to an area of 8 km near the plant.  And it will be 30 years before they can fully repair the broken tanks, with the assumption that they can do new research needed on how to use robots to actually fix the facility (it will not be possible for humans to ever enter it).  That talk made it clear to me that nuclear plants must be designed to have a way to use robots to make repairs in the case of meltdowns.  Meltdowns will happen and robots are the only safe way to do it!

The second talk was about robots in medicine.  As I already knew, robots in surgery in the world are very valuable tools.  They can do all kinds of cuts very precisely, as well as clamp off in tricky spots.  Mostly the robots are just robot arms and they are controlled by surgeons.  But as time goes by, they will do some things without surgeons directing them completely.  Other uses of robots are small pills that you swallow that can search for polyps and cancers in the intestines (that is already a reality, which I did not know).    The hope is that they will eventually have tiny legs, so that they can swim and crawl in various parts of the stomach and intestines.  And eventually to have a tiny knife so that doctors can make cuts without opening the body.  Other uses of very small cutting tools will make it possible to do scarless surgery.  So there will be robots in the body probably before there are really useful ones (other than vacuum cleaner robots) in our houses. 

Of course conferences aren't all talks. I met a number of my colleagues from around the world in the hallways, and had dinner with a few of them.  That part is of course great fun!

Tiles and pots from Algarve Portugal

If you like pottery, this post is for you.

I took a lot of pictures of tiles on buildings (doable because it doesn't get cold in Algarve).  You can see a slide show of them at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/candysidner/collections/72157631747511971/
The pots are unearthed from the Moorish castle in Silvas and the tiles on buildings from Lagos (see my earlier posts).

Photos from Monchique and Cape St. Vincent

Peddler Shops at Cape St. Vincent

Lighthouse at Cape St. Vincent

Cape St Vincent me

Cape St Vincent view

Monclique Peak view to sea

Monchique Cork forest

Moor Castle at Sangres

A day to tour Algarve, Sun Oct 7, 2012

Algarve is the region of Portugal on the south coast.  It is dominated by towns on the coast.  Vilamoura is about mid-way along the coast.  The trip took in the western portion of the area. Since I was traveling alone, I figured I might have a large part of the day alone, but lucky for me, the only other person, a woman my age, named Chris, from Hertfordshire, England got on the bus and sat next to me (all the other passengers were in pairs or groups).  We struck up a conversation and hit it off, so we spent the rest of the day seeing the sights together.

The bus trip took over an hour to pick up tourists from hotels in all around Albuferia after first picking me up at 7:45 am.  Then we headed to Silvas, which served as the first capital of the region during the time of the Moors. The remains of Moorish towers and a castle (in reasonably good shape) exist in the town and we walked from the river area uphill to the castle.  The Moors settled in the late 900s upon the ruins of the Roman capital and occupied the area until the 1200s, when the Portuguese Christians battled and won control of the area.  They built a cathedral, just a stone's throw from the castle, in the early 1400s that stands in excellent condition today.  The inside is a standard Gothic layout, very small for a cathedral and relatively plainly decorated.  Since it was Sunday, there was a service about to begin, but it was still possible to walk about inside.

The Moorish castle was remarkable.  The walls are intact, and my companion and I circumnavigated the entire castle along the walls--great views to the countryside, so you can see why the castle was built there.  In the center, it is mostly bare, with one small part that has been excavated showing where rooms must have once been.  I'm guess there will be more excavation as funds permit. A small museum showing pottery and implements dug from the site was provided in one part of the castle.  Naturally I have pictures of the pottery!

Like all bus trips, we had to be back on the bus by a certain time, and we made it just barely back.  The next stop was not a coastal town, but up to the top of the local hills called Monchique to the highest point, at 903 meters.  Along the way our bus tour guide told us all kinds of details about the area, what crops are grown locally etc.  Turns out that much of the region is very dry, so carob beans, almonds and a few other beans are local specialties.  I saw oranges, pomegranates, and persimmons (irrigation grown).  It took me a while to figure out what the persimmon bushes were because the guide used the English culture name, which is Sharon!  When we got to the peak of the local hill, there was a tourist show where we were given free tastes of several kinds of liquor (almond, honey and coffee) and a brandy made from a local bean (45% alcohol).  I had really tiny tastes of only two since it was before lunch, and I couldn't handle a lot of alcohol.  I also saw lovely pottery and bought a small vase, which I hope will fit in my small rollerboard til I get to the US in 1.5 weeks.

Our next stop was lunch.  It was additional but reasonable 13 euros for a huge meal with bread, salad, a choice of main dishes, two kinds of wine, french fries, choice of local desserts (all yummy), and almond liquor and espresso after lunch.  I sat with Chris and two other women traveling together joined us.  They were from near Kingston, Ontario so we had a lively lunch discussion.  On our way down the mountain we saw the cork forests that serve for wine bottles, flooring and other purposes.

After lunch we had an hour ride to the Cape St Vincent area, near Sangres, where a lighthouse and small tourist building exist on the most southwest point of the European continent.  The views were terrific.  The ocean is more than 150 feet below the land here and you can see the erosion.  It's much like the cliffs of Mohar in Ireland.  I saw a mom and her little kid who were sitting way to close to the end for my comfort!  Of course the locals used the road to the point to set out booths with goods and food.

Our day was not over yet.  Though it was 4 pm and we had to start back, we did so by driving to Lagos a town on the coast that is very lovely and quite old, dating back 2000 years.  It was the site of a major slave market for African slaves and the town has retained the building used for the slave market with a museum about the people who suffered there.  The town also has lovely streets for walking and a good number of buildings with tiled pictures or tiled walls (see the photos).  Also famous in this town is a small church built by King Henry the Navigator.  The interior is covered carved wood of angels, flowers, and Christian images, all of which are overlaid with gold leaf.  It is now part of the town museum, which is a surprisingly good museum for a town of 30K people.  No photos as they were not allowed.

The day was finally drawing to a close but it took 2 hours to get back to the two towns and the many hotels where my fellow passengers were staying.  I got home about 8 pm, tired but having seen something of southern Portugal.

Photos of Silvas, Portugal

me at Castle gate

Silvas: view of town

Silva castle excavations

Silvas cathedral

along the road past Silvas

Silvas: castle walls inside

Silvas-typical street

Silvas-up the hill to the castle

Silvas: old tower gate

I have now discovered the disadvantage of a blog.  I haven't had time to record my wanderings around Algarve yesterday because we got back at 8 pm and I was dead tired (it was however a wonderful day).  Today I've spent the whole day at talks, getting in a walk to buy some food at the local grocery store (because I can't just eat bread for breakfast), and going to a buffet dinner this evening for everyone at the conference (that's 1300+ people).  So I'm too tired to tell of my travels or upload photos.  Maybe tomorrow!

Day 1 Portugal

Well, I made it!  I am in Vilamoura Portugal.  This is a resort town, and the hotel is a rather fancy resort hotel.  My room is on the 5th floor with a balcony, and the view is to the swimming pool below and the beach on the Atlantic Ocean.  The ocean is deep blue here.  It's breathtaking because the sun sparkles off the water.

Getting here was interesting:  My bag got safely to Portugal (I had to check it on the flight to Newark and the layover there was short).  When I got to Lisbon, I had 1.5 hours to figure out how to get to the train station, buy a ticket and get to the train gate.  I had to figure out how to use the Metro to get from airport to train station (it was that or stand in a line of 50 people waiting for cabs).  Metro was easy to use (English everywhere), and clean.  At the train station, I got a ticket more easily than  I expected.  The train to this area was very comfortable (and I did see some countryside as well as sleep a bit).  When I got to the destination station, there weren't hardly any cabs to get to Vilamoura.  Fortunately I had been talking with a woman who is a staff for IEEE (international society of electrical engineers),  which runs the conference I"m attending.  She had a cell that works in Europe, and called and got a taxi.

Tomorrow I've managed to get a tour to see the historic sites of the Algarve area.  It's a 12 hour tour that starts at 7:45 am.  I'm psyched and will have some photos by the end of the day.