Not eXactly C is a high-level programming language for the Lego Mindstorms NXT. NXC, which is short for Not eXactly C, is based on Next Byte Codes, an assembly language. NXC has a syntax like C.
There is a new version of the NXC Tutorial available at the Roberta Homepage. It is an extended german version of the tutorial original based on the work of Daniele Benedettelli.
his work is based on the assembly of ordinary objects, broken electronics,recycled materials and old toys.
Himatic see his work as a symbol of our out-of-control desire to buy things. At the same time, his work raise issues about the human desire to challenge nature through technology.
Andrea Petrachi was born in Lecce – italy in 1975,and began disassembling anything very soon.
He’s Actually based in Milan,where he work as a video editor for RAI TV.
On of the most common question by handling large data sets is „How to represented the data?“ and of course the answer is versatile. One of the most used solution is a tree like structure, organized by at least one sorting criteria.
KDTree++ is a c++ library which is supporting this feature. KDTrees are allowing to sort data by ‚k‘-Dimensional sorting criteria and the library implements a template based realization. KDTree++ is published under Artistic License 2.0.
Update: I was trying to use KDTree++ in on of our projects on Three-Dimensional perception and Point Clouds analysis. Therefore i was adding roundabout 30.000 Points (x,y,z-coordinates plus some extra informations) into such a tree. The first feeling was quiet positive. It was fast and did not consume that much resources. But by using the search functionality, provided by KDTree++ i was shocked. Every time i was placing a query the memory consumption did rise up dramatically, and even worse, it was staying that high. After investigating the KDTree code i figured out that the library does on each query create a copy of the found items and returns them. Unfortunately those items are never deleted and if i try to deleted them by my self the library produces a segmentation fault. So, summing up i would say that these library is really powerful, but bad documented and seems to have some serious bugs.
Roberta has a new companion, called Jeffrey. Jeffrey is able to find his dockingstation to recharge his battery. Here are some videos of Jeffrey, found on the Roberta Youtube Channel
Professor Dr. Satoshi Tadokoro from the Tohoku University presents his ASC. ASC is an search camera for usage in emergency situations and stands for Active Scope Camera. In basic it is a flexible endoscope which is able to move by it self. With the help of vibrating inclined cilia this endoscope can like a caterpillar crawl into smallest voids (>30 mm). Its maximum speed is 47 mm/s and the operating range is 8 m. This allows rescue workers to search in rubbles for victims or checking the structure of it.
The following video shows Professor Dr. Satoshi Tadokoro at the Tokyo International Fire and Safety Exhibition 2008 presenting the ASC.
During the Collapse of the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne (March 2009), Professor Dr. Satoshi Tadokoro, Professor Dr. Robin R. Murphy (Texas A&M University), Clint Arnett (Project Coordinator for Urban Search and Rescue in TEEX), members of the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems (IAIS) were trying to support the local fire department. Therefore I was able to test the ASC which was in use during this disaster.
ASC Teleoperator
Close-up of ASC
The ASC performs extremely well. It can crawl in a reasonable speed into the rubble and is (after a little training) easy to use. But the biggest problem is the user interface. The ASC camera system does not compensated tilting or turning if the „robot“ does flip/turn over, which happens quite often. Hence, it is hard for the Operator to keep track of the orientation. In addition the opening angle of the camera is extreme small, which does even more handicap the situational awareness.
