The drug dispenser removes the need to queue at pharmacies, and means people can collect them anonymously.
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Intro Video
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
Plant Silhouettes Foreshadow the Effects of Climate Change
Maya Pope-Chappell shares her LinkedIn staff intel about how to prosper in your career
Maya Pope-Chappell, a senior editor at LinkedIn, is the host and producer of an online series called How I Got Here where she interviews successful people about the zigs and zags along their career paths. Recently, Chappell chatted with theGrio to talk about how she got here.
The bubbly, California native shared her own story, career lessons she’s learned along the way, some of her favorite How I Got Here episodes and what she’s learned so far from her time at LinkedIn
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theGrio: Before we get to your show, I wanted to talk about how you got here. How did you get started?
Maya Pope Chappell: I’m from Oakland, CA. Went to college at UC Santa Cruz. In college, I realized I wanted to become a journalist and tell stories. Once I started writing for the school paper, I fell in love. I had an internship at Kaiser Permenente through a program called InRoads. I worked there straight out of college and the plan was to save up my money, move to NYC and become a journalist. I figured the best way to do that was to go to grad school, so I went to CUNY in New York.
theGrio: How did New York impact your career journey?
Maya Pope-Chappell: I interned at CNN, NBC, the New York Amsterdam News, and Essence. I even wrote a few pieces for theGrio. When I started grad school, I thought I wanted to go into magazines, but then the school was focused on new media and digital storytelling. It changed my view of what I wanted to do. I got a job at the Wall Street Journal four months after I graduated. I started out as the founding assistant web producer for the New York section and then transitioned to being the online news editor for WSJ.com based in Hong Kong and then eventually went on to become the founding social media and analytics editor for Asia.
theGrio: Such a bold move! You had never even been to Hong Kong before, right? What did your family think?
Maya Pope-Chappell: Right. I had never been there before. My mom had been there when I was a kid, so I have memories of the souvenirs from that. Something that I notice is present in my own career is that I like to take on things that are new and exciting. I like to create things and start from scratch. My mom was super supportive of my move. Most people spoke English so that wasn’t an issue. I lived there for a little over two years.
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theGrio: Eventually you made your way back to the United States. I’m told you came across the LinkedIn job on LinkedIn? Normally people find other jobs on that platform.
Maya Pope-Chappell: I was ready to move back to New York and take on a new challenge and you’re right, I came across the LinkedIn role on LinkedIn. I’ve been on LinkedIn since they started. It’s nice to have your network. I had someone who knew someone who worked here, so I had that. At the time, they were looking to expand the team. I like that it’s a different approach to news and original content. I also really liked the mission of the company, which iss to create economic opportunity for everyone in the global workforce. It’s not only the opportunity to tell stories, but to tell stories that could create opportunities for other people. I worked for the New York office for a year and then moved back to the Bay Area about two years ago.
theGrio: For LinkedIn, you have a couple ‘founding’ adjectives in there for your various roles. This lines up with your previous experience of getting of going all out.
Maya Pope-Chappell: Around here things changed up all the time. I’m really able to take on different tasks and I appreciate that. I have the space to do that. That’s how the How I Got Here series came about. It’s an opportunity to showcase real stories of people and success and give people something to aspire to.
theGrio: Has your own experience impacted how you approach this series?
Maya Pope-Chappell: I’ve always been fascinated by people’s stories and how they got to where they are. I consider myself to be a very ambitious person. I always want to do well and be successful. So I’m always attracted to those types of people and wondering what their stories were and how they got where they are. I want to feature not only people who are big names, but also “hidden gems.” They are people whose names you might not know, but they’ve done really extraordinary things in their careers and have really interesting stories about how they got to where they are.
theGrio: How can LinkedIn members contribute to the series?
Maya Pope-Chappell: I want to members on LinkedIn to share their own How I Got HEre stories. There are things that could benefit someone else. I’m really calling on members to share their own storeis whether that’s in the form of a post, video or whatever it might be.
theGrio: What’s our biggest challenge with How I Got Here?
Maya Pope-Chappell: The biggest challenge is scheduling. It requires a lot because it’s not just a sit-down interview, it’s also gathering b-roll with that person, following them around. It requires that person to invest a lot of their team. We have a small team, but we make it work.
theGrio: I understand if you don’t want to point out favorites, but do you have favorites?
Maya Pope-Chappell: Ha! One of my favorites is Melissa Butler. She is the founder of the Lip Bar. I really like her story. She talked about rejection from Shark Tank to VCs telling her that her idea would never work. But, she persevered and ended up being very successful because she defied the odds.
Another one that stands out is Van Brooks, the founder of this non-profit in Baltimore called Safe Alternative. He suffered a really tragic accident in high school when he was playing football and ending up being paralyzed in a wheelchair. His story is so inspirational. He talks about finding his why and his purpose for doing what he’s doing nad how that accident really contributed to that. I alike all of them, but those are two of my faves.
theGrio: With all of your own experience and the super dope bird’s eye view of other people’s career paths, what advice do you have to people who are contemplating making a sharp turn in their career?
Maya Pope-Chappell: I would say do it. Take that turn. That’s something that is true for me and the series. One of the themes is don’t be afraid to deviate from your intended career path. Be willing to take chances. It’s about where you move from one level to the next or one experience to the next. Take that left turn whenever possible. Trust your gut.
On top of that, it’s just saying yes to opportunity. First and foremost, everything starts with work ethic and focus. All of the people who I feature are super hard workers who stretch themselves to be the best and stand out. There’s a willingness to learn and seek out information. Stay curious.
Check here for the latest How I Got Here episode.
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Caster Semenya: IAAF wants 'swift reversal' of Swiss court's suspension of testosterone rules
St. Louis and Philadelphia police investigate racist, violent and anti-Muslim Facebook posts by officers
St. Louis and Philadelphia police departments are investigating reports of racist, violent and anti-Muslim Facebook posts by some current and former city officers.
—Central Park 5 prosecutor resigns from nonprofit boards—
The Philadelphia-based The Plain View Project started examining thousands of shocking posts in 2017 from law enforcement officials in St. Louis and Philly. The group reviewed more than 5,000 posts they deemed could, “undermine public trust and confidence in police,” according to the group’s website.
“We prioritized jurisdictions that are already having conversations about police community relations. And the other consideration is geographic diversity. We didn’t want only large cites … (but) something that represented what America looked like,” said Emily Baker-White, founder and executive director of the project.
The posts included images of the Confederate flag, hateful rhetoric against Muslims, criticism of immigrants who can’t speak English and promoting violence, The Daily Mail reports.
Some supported shooting criminals and expressed hate against women.
Other big cities reviewed included Dallas and jurisdictions like Lake County, Florida, CNN reports.
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According to the St Louis Post-Dispatch, a sergeant named Ron Hasty, who goes by the name “Ron Nighthawk” on Facebook appears more than 30 times in negative posts outlined in the Plain View Project’s report.
Hasty spoke with the outlet and defend himself by saying: “I’m not a racist. You can talk to any of my friends.”
“We strongly condemn violence and racism in any form. The overwhelming majority of our 7-thousand officers regularly act with integrity and professionalism,” Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #5 President John McNesby said in a statement.
The investigations are still underway.
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Lee Daniels confirms Jussie Smollett will NOT appear on the final season of ‘Empire’
The final season of Empire will move forward minus Jussie Smollett, its showrunner Lee Daniels tweeted on Tuesday.
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Daniels took to Twitter to clear up a Variety report that alleged writers were prepping for the embattled actor’s Season six return.
“This is not factual. Jussie will NOT be returning to Empire,” Daniels wrote.
@Variety @JoeOtterson This is not factual. Jussie will NOT be returning to Empire. -LD
— lee daniels (@leedanielsent) June 4, 2019
Last month, Fox announced the sixth season of the popular show will be its last.
Jussie Smollett had been indicted on 16 felony counts by a grand jury for falsely reporting a hate crime but the charges were later dropped.
Even though the singer and actor has always maintained his innocence, the City of Chicago still filed a lawsuit against him to recoup the cost of what they believe was an unnecessary police investigation.
Fox Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Television have since confirmed that while they extended the actor’s option for Season 6, there are currently no plans for him to take part.
His last appearance on the popular drama was in an episode where Smollett’s character, Jamal Lyon, married to his partner.
—Fourth Black transgender woman murdered in Dallas—
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Spike Lee to present Denzel Washington with AFI Award
Spike Lee will honor Denzel Washington’s career by presenting his friend and collaborator with the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award.
AFI said Tuesday that Lee will present the actor and director with the honor at a gala Thursday at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
Lee has directed Washington in four films, including “Malcolm X” and “Inside Man.” He also worked with Washington’s son, John David, on the 2019 Oscar best-picture nominee “BlacKkKlansman.”
It’s a role reversal for Washington, who has helped present Lee with an honorary Oscar in 2015 and an NAACP Hall of Fame Award in 2003.
Mahershala Ali will join a star-studded list of presenters including Morgan Freeman, Chadwick Boseman and Julia Roberts.
The tribute will air on TNT on June 20 at 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific.
The 64-year-old Washington joins the ranks of Mel Brooks, Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep and Alfred Hitchcock. Last year’s AFI honoree was George Clooney.
The post Spike Lee to present Denzel Washington with AFI Award appeared first on theGrio.
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Charges against members of violent white supremacist group tossed by judge
Federal charges against three alleged members of a violent white supremacist group accused of inciting violence at California political rallies were dismissed by a judge who found their actions amounted to constitutionally protected free speech.
Prosecutors said members of the Rise Above Movement conspired to riot by using the internet to coordinate hand-to-hand combat training, traveling to protests and attacking demonstrators at gatherings in Huntington Beach, Berkeley and San Bernardino. The group also posted videos to celebrate violence and recruit members.
Despite the group’s “hateful and toxic ideology,” a rarely used criminal statute passed during civil rights and Vietnam War protests went too far in regulating free speech, Judge Cormac J. Carney ruled Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
Carney said the Anti-Riot Act of 1968 — most famously used to prosecute the “Chicago Eight,” including Abbie Hoffman, Bobby Seale and Tom Hayden for conspiring to incite a riot at the ’68 Democratic National Convention — was unconstitutional in part because it criminalized advocating violence when no riot or crime was imminent. He said prosecutors cited social media posts the men made months before and months after the rallies.
“Some posts express repugnant, hateful ideas,” Carney wrote. “Other posts advocate the use of violence. Most, if not all, are protected speech.”
The judge threw out the charges and ordered the release of alleged RAM leader Robert Rundo and suspected member Robert Boman. Charges against Aaron Eason, who was free on bond, were also dropped.
Defense attorney John McNicholas, who represented Eason, said his client was never a member of RAM and committed no crime.
He said the men thought they were doing good going to conservative rallies to counter the anti-fascists known as Antifa who were “committing acts of violence to suppress speech they disagreed with.” He criticized prosecutors for not pursuing charges against Antifa members that he said instigated violence and doused rally participants with pepper spray.
“Beyond the unconstitutional nature of the statute, nothing about the case makes sense because the people inciting the riot were never charged with a federal offense,” McNicholas said.
The Los Angeles ruling alarmed groups that track white supremacist activity and fear the court victory could empower the group known for espousing anti-Semitic and other racist views.
RAM’s account on Gab, a social media network known as a haven for racists and anti-Semites, hailed the dismissals and announced it would relaunch its Right Brand clothing line.
“It underscores their sense of vindication,” said Joanna Mendelson of the Anti-Defamation League. “This court victory has the great potential of giving them renewed energy and will reinvigorate the group overall.”
Prosecutors were disappointed with the ruling and reviewing grounds for appeal, spokesman Ciaran McEvoy said.
A federal judge in Virginia reached a conclusion opposite of Carney’s in a similar case involving other California members of RAM who participated in violent white nationalist rallies in both states.
Four alleged members of the group pleaded guilty and admitted punching and kicking counter-protesters as white nationalists led a torch-lit march at the University of Virginia and at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in August 2017.
Defendants in those cases plan to appeal on the grounds that the statute is unconstitutional because it is overbroad, vague, and infringes on protected First Amendment activities, said Lisa Lorish, assistant federal public defender in Charlottesville. She expects the appeals court will agree with Carney’s reasoning.
There are plausible arguments in support of both decisions — with Carney taking a broad interpretation of the law and Judge Norman Moon in Virginia taking a narrow one, said Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The conflict between the rulings on opposite coasts could rise to the Supreme Court if both rulings are appealed and circuit courts reach different conclusions, he said. But that’s far from certain.
In the California case, a fourth defendant, Tyler Laube, who pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge in November, filed papers in court Tuesday to withdraw his guilty plea and have the charges against him dismissed after Carney encouraged him to do that, attorney Jerome Haig said.
Laube was facing nearly three years in prison after he admitted that as a member of the group he assaulted counter-protesters at a “Make America Great Again” rally in Huntington Beach in 2017.
Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, said if members discussed a criminal plan and took steps to carry it out their speech was not protected.
“The Supreme Court has basically held that hateful speech is protected, however violence and conspiracies are not,” Levin said. “That’s where I think the judge may have gotten this one wrong.”
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Central Park 5 prosecutor resigns from nonprofit boards
A former prosecutor in the Central Park Five case has resigned from at least two nonprofit boards as backlash intensified following the release of the Netflix series “When They See Us,” a miniseries that dramatizes the events surrounding the trial.
On Tuesday, the president of Vassar College posted a letter on its website saying that Linda Fairstein had resigned as a Board of Trustees member.
“I am told that Ms. Fairstein felt that, given the recent widespread debate over her role in the Central Park case, she believed that her continuing as a Board member would be harmful to Vassar,” Elizabeth H. Bradley wrote.
The victims-services agency, Safe Horizon, also confirmed Fairstein’s resignation on Tuesday, thanking her for “her decades of pioneering work on behalf of victims of sexual assault and abuse.”
Messages requesting comment from Fairstein were not immediately returned.
Fairstein was the top Manhattan sex crimes prosecutor when five teenagers were charged with the 1989 rape and beating of a female investment banker jogging in Central Park.
The attack became a national symbol of urban mayhem at a time when New York City’s murder rate was nearing its historical peak.
The teens said they were coerced into confessing their involvement in the attack. Their convictions were overturned in 2002 after convicted murderer and serial rapist Matias Reyes confessed to committing the crime alone, and DNA linked him to it.
Fairstein observed the boys’ 1989 interrogation, conducted by another prosecutor and police. She didn’t personally try the case.
Since its collapse, she has denied the teens were coerced and has defended authorities’ conduct in the case, explored in a 2013 documentary by Ken Burns.
The city reached a roughly $41 million settlement with the five the next year, while not admitting any wrongdoing.
In an interview with the New York Post published on Tuesday, Fairstein said she also resigned from the boards of God’s Love We Deliver and Joyful Heart Foundation, a group founded by actress Mariska Hargitay that helps survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse.
Messages requesting comment from these groups were not immediately returned.
Fairstein told the Post she was forced to act due to the “mob-mentality reaction” to the Netflix series, which has sparked a #CancelLindaFairstein movement and calls to withhold funding.
“Each of these organizations does great work,” she said. “It’s so foolish of the bullies to punish the charities. Totally pig-headed and stupid.”
Last year, the Mystery Writers of America withdrew a major honor from Fairstein, known for her best-selling novels featuring prosecutor Alex Cooper, after other authors condemned her role in the Central Park Five case.
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Tracy Morgan involved in NYC fender bender in his Bugatti
Comedian Tracy Morgan was involved in a minor traffic crash while driving his 2019 Bugatti in midtown Manhattan.
Police say the fender bender happened Tuesday afternoon near Tenth Avenue and 42nd Street.
Police say the mishap involved the 50-year-old Morgan and his white Bugatti, reportedly worth around $2 million, and a 61-year-old man driving a Honda CR-V.
A representative for Morgan says the comedian bought the vehicle an hour before the minor crash.
Police say both vehicles sustained minor damage and all parties refused medical attention, although photos of the scene show Morgan sitting in an ambulance.
In 2014, the former “30 Rock” and “Saturday Night Live” star suffered severe head trauma when a truck slammed into the back of the limo van he was riding in. Comedian James McNair, his friend and collaborator, was killed.
The post Tracy Morgan involved in NYC fender bender in his Bugatti appeared first on theGrio.
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For Apollonia Kotero, Prince was a king ‘When God created Prince, he composed the most perfect song’
Former Prince protege and longtime friend Apollonia Kotero said the Purple One had major plans for her before his untimely death in 2016, including new music, a possible film and even a book to follow-up his upcoming memoir.
He had even given Kotero and her Apollonia 6 bandmates the trademark to the group’s name to keep the legacy alive.
“My first thought was like, ‘Damn, I gotta hit the gym now,'” Kotero said. “We gotta rehearse. We gotta go back in vocal classes. Get this (expletive) party started, man. I was excited. He was happy. He had so many plans.”
But things changed once Prince died, sending Kotero into a “rabbit hole of severe depression” — as she put it in her first interview since Prince died on April 21, 2016.
“I just physically couldn’t cry and I was feeling ill, really ill. I just didn’t know if I was going to make it,” she recently told The Associated Press by phone in Los Angeles. “It sounds strange for me to be saying it for the first time publicly. I’ve never discussed this, other than with my loved ones. I didn’t think I was going to make it. I’d never felt that way before. I never suffered such severe depression.”
Kotero co-starred in 1984’s “Purple Rain” and was in the trio Apollonia 6 with Brenda Bennett and Susan Moonsie, former singers in Vanity 6. Kotero said she’s still in touch with her bandmates and she’s finally speaking publicly since it has been three years since Prince’s death.
“Prince and I never dated — we’re family, we were friends,” she said. “There’s a different type of respect that he had for me. He had that for me for 33 years. We had our difficulties, and I always stood up to him. I believe that’s what he respected, that I wasn’t a pushover. I said no to him for a lot of reasons professionally.”
Kotero recalled some of her last conversations with Prince, saying they talked about “family, his parents, politics, love, death, dementia, our marriages.”
“We discussed the issues that we had. All of the things that we didn’t discuss before,” she continued. “I just looked, like, ‘Man, we’re growing up. We’re old folks now.’ He gave me the look like, ‘Ain’t no old folks here.'”
She said when he asked her to be in the “Purple Rain” sequel, “Graffiti Bridge,” she turned him down.
“He sent me the script. I remember I read it. I said, ‘Oh my god, this is horrible,'” she recalled. “I said it, ‘This is a piece of (expletive).'”
She said she worked on a real sequel and pitched him the story when she visited Paisley Park in 2014.
“He liked it. It was a little bit dark because he dies in it. I gave him two reasons why he would die and he just gave me this blank look. It was just kind of, I mean, the irony of it,” she said.
Kotero said Prince wanted her to write a book after he finished his (Random House will release Prince’s “The Beautiful Ones” on Oct. 29).
“He said, ‘I want you to stop telling the priceless stories because you’re going to write a book, your biography,'” she recalled. “He said, ‘Yes, you’re going to release yours within the year after mine.'”
She also said in his vaults, Prince left her a house music album and began working on an Apollonia 6 film.
Kotero credits her faith in God for pulling her out of her depression after Prince’s death. Writing a lengthy letter to Prince — posted to her Facebook page four months after his death — was also therapeutic.
Now, she’s ready to get back to her career.
“My passion is work, singing, acting dancing, producing, writing. I’m a songwriter,” she said. “I’m feeling better about life. My life has changed. Prince changed my life when I first met him and he had me in his film. He changed my life again when he was taken away from us too soon.”
“I really believe that when God created Prince, he composed the most perfect song,” she said. “That comes from my heart. I really believe that. He is music.”
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Tuesday, June 4, 2019
Autonomous boats can target and latch onto each other
The city of Amsterdam envisions a future where fleets of autonomous boats cruise its many canals to transport goods and people, collect trash, or self-assemble into floating stages and bridges. To further that vision, MIT researchers have given new capabilities to their fleet of robotic boats — which are being developed as part of an ongoing project — that lets them target and clasp onto each other, and keep trying if they fail.
About a quarter of Amsterdam’s surface area is water, with 165 canals winding alongside busy city streets. Several years ago, MIT and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute) teamed up on the “Roboat” project. The idea is to build a fleet of autonomous robotic boats — rectangular hulls equipped with sensors, thrusters, microcontrollers, GPS modules, cameras, and other hardware — that provides intelligent mobility on water to relieve congestion in the city’s busy streets.
One of project’s objectives is to create roboat units that provide on-demand transporation on waterways. Another objective is using the roboat units to automatically form “pop-up” structures, such as foot bridges, performance stages, or even food markets. The structures could then automatically disassemble at set times and reform into target structures for different activities. Additionally, the roboat units could be used as agile sensors to gather data on the city’s infrastructure, and air and water quality, among other things.
In 2016, MIT researchers tested a roboat prototype that cruised around Amsterdam’s canals, moving forward, backward, and laterally along a preprogrammed path. Last year, researchers designed low-cost, 3-D-printed, one-quarter scale versions of the boats, which were more efficient and agile, and came equipped with advanced trajectory-tracking algorithms.
In a paper presented at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation, the researchers describe roboat units that can now identify and connect to docking stations. Control algorithms guide the roboats to the target, where they automatically connect to a customized latching mechanism with millimeter precision. Moreover, the roboat notices if it has missed the connection, backs up, and tries again.
The researchers tested the latching technique in a swimming pool at MIT and in the Charles River, where waters are rougher. In both instances, the roboat units were usually able to successfully connect in about 10 seconds, starting from around 1 meter away, or they succeeded after a few failed attempts. In Amsterdam, the system could be especially useful for overnight garbage collection. Roboat units could sail around a canal, locate and latch onto platforms holding trash containers, and haul them back to collection facilities.
“In Amsterdam, canals were once used for transportation and other things the roads are now used for. Roads near canals are now very congested — and have noise and pollution — so the city wants to add more functionality back to the canals,” says first author Luis Mateos, a graduate student in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) and a researcher in the MIT Senseable City Lab. “Self-driving technologies can save time, costs and energy, and improve the city moving forward.”
“The aim is to use roboat units to bring new capabilities to life on the water,” adds co-author Daniela Rus, director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “The new latching mechanism is very important for creating pop-up structures. Roboat does not need latching for autonomous transporation on water, but you need the latching to create any structure, whether it’s mobile or fixed.”
Joining Mateos on the paper are: Wei Wang, a joint postdoc in CSAIL and the Senseable City Lab; Banti Gheneti, a graduate student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Fabio Duarte, a DUSP and Senseable City Lab research scientist; and Carlo Ratti, director of the Senseable City Lab and a principal investigator and professor of the practice in DUSP.
Making the connection
Each roboat is equipped with latching mechanisms, including ball and socket components, on its front, back, and sides. The ball component resembles a badminton shuttlecock — a cone-shaped, rubber body with a metal ball at the end. The socket component is a wide funnel that guides the ball component into a receptor. Inside the funnel, a laser beam acts like a security system that detects when the ball crosses into the receptor. That activates a mechanism with three arms that closes around and captures the ball, while also sending a feedback signal to both roboats that the connection is complete.
On the software side, the roboats run on custom computer vision and control techniques. Each roboat has a LIDAR system and camera, so they can autonomously move from point to point around the canals. Each docking station — typically an unmoving roboat — has a sheet of paper imprinted with an augmented reality tag, called an AprilTag, which resembles a simplified QR code. Commonly used for robotic applications, AprilTags enable robots to detect and compute their precise 3-D position and orientation relative to the tag.
Both the AprilTags and cameras are located in the same locations in center of the roboats. When a traveling roboat is roughly one or two meters away from the stationary AprilTag, the roboat calculates its position and orientation to the tag. Typically, this would generate a 3-D map for boat motion, including roll, pitch, and yaw (left and right). But an algorithm strips away everything except yaw. This produces an easy-to-compute 2-D plane that measures the roboat camera’s distance away and distance left and right of the tag. Using that information, the roboat steers itself toward the tag. By keeping the camera and tag perfectly aligned, the roboat is able to precisely connect.
The funnel compensates for any misalignment in the roboat’s pitch (rocking up and down) and heave (vertical up and down), as canal waves are relatively small. If, however, the roboat goes beyond its calculated distance, and doesn’t receive a feedback signal from the laser beam, it knows it has missed. “In challenging waters, sometimes roboat units at the current one-quarter scale, are not strong enough to overcome wind gusts or heavy water currents,” Mateos says. “A logic component on the roboat says, ‘You missed, so back up, recalculate your position, and try again.’”
Future iterations
The researchers are now designing roboat units roughly four times the size of the current iterations, so they’ll be more stable on water. Mateos is also working on an update to the funnel that includes tentacle-like rubber grippers that tighten around the pin — like a squid grasping its prey. That could help give the roboat units more control when, say, they’re towing platforms or other roboats through narrow canals.
In the works is also a system that displays the AprilTags on an LCD monitor that changes codes to signal multiple roboat units to assemble in a given order. At first, all roboat units will be given a code to stay exactly a meter apart. Then, the code changes to direct the first roboat to latch. After, the screen switches codes to order the next roboat to latch, and so on. “It’s like the telephone game. The changing code passes a message to one roboat at a time, and that message tells them what to do,” Mateos says.
Darwin Caldwell, the research director of Advanced Robotics at the Italian Institute of Technology, envisions even more possible applications for the autonomous latching capability. “I can certainly see this type of autonomous docking being of use in many areas of robotic ‘refuelling’ and docking … beyond aquatic/naval systems,” he says, “including inflight refuelling, space docking, cargo container handling, [and] robot in-house recharging.”
The research was funded by the AMS Institute and the City of Amsterdam.
from MIT News http://bit.ly/2QL6DGB
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