Robots and More Robots

Most people who know me also know that I write a lot of technical articles for mechanical and electrical design engineers. It’s a fun job and I get to talk with engineers from a wide variety of industries. Lately, I’ve been writing about robots a lot, and not just your ordinary robots, no sir. The robots I get to talk about vary as widely as their applications.

One such robot is the cool RHex robot being worked on and developed at the University of Pennsylvania. This thing has six legs, patterned after insects, and can move through almost anything. I love it when engineering students are developing what appears to be the next robots that will be going to Mars or the Moon. I often wonder why NASA doesn’t come up with similar designs. We have some immensely creative students out there. Check out the RHex here: http://kodlab.seas.upenn.edu/Main/Hom....

Another robot that I’m still working on an article about actually climbs up a furnace tube. The thing is an inspection robot (although that’s not exactly what they call it), and it can inspect a tube at about two feet per second. I love talking with the engineer over at the company (which I won’t mention until I’m finished with the article). Such an interesting guy.

Then there are the disaster robots that are being designed and built. A lot of companies are working on these types of robots. All the robots have video, their own lighting source, and the ability to go up and down stairs. These robots also carry all kinds of sensors for testing just about everything—poisonous gasses, liquids, temperature… Robots are replacing humans who have to wear environmental suits all the time now, and it’s something that will save lives in the future, I’m sure.

I’m also working on an article about a bionic leg. Many of you have probably already seen this in the news, but if you haven’t you can look it up fairly easily. The difference between what I’ll be covering and what other articles covered has to do with the mechanical aspects rather than the interface between man and machine. Every aspect of these projects are cool, though, so you can’t go wrong. I know there are a lot of other robots out there to write about, and I plan on finding more as time goes on. This is all just fodder for my next science fiction novel, as you can imagine. Talking with engineers and hearing how excited they get about their work always reminds me how wonderful it is to do a job that you enjoy.

May we all have that opportunity as we work our way through the maze of possibilities.

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Terry Persun holds a Bachelor’s of Science as well as an MA in Creative Writing. He has worked as an engineer, has been the Editor-in-Chief of several technology journals, and is now marketing consultant for technical and manufacturing companies. Seven of his novels have been published. His science fiction novel “Cathedral of Dreams” won a ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Finalist Award, and his historical novel, “Sweet Song” won a Silver IPPY Award. His latest science fiction space opera is “Hear No Evil”.