dendrite studios

Android like robots have been the fascination of science fiction writers for many years. From C-3PO in Star Wars, Andrew in Bicentennial Man to Sonny the ‘special’ NS-5 robot in I Robot. Many academic researchers have complained that these fictional and cinematic creations have made people expect too much from robotics early on, and when engineers failed to deliver they lost interest in the subject.

Yet, steady progress has been made continuously and the last few years have seen the first emergence of household robotics – although few of them humanoids. The most ubiquitous household robot is Roomba, a vacuum cleaner manufactured by iRobot of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Other ‘helping’ robots that have made it into households are the Aquabot Turbo for cleaning swimming pools and the Zuchetti Lanwbot that mows the lawn. According to a recent Forbes magazine article, cleaning, lawn moving and pool cleaning robots are expected to be a $1,8bn industry by 2014.

Beside these ‘helper’ robots, a range of robots for entertainment or companionship has also become popular. These include Sony’s AIBO robotic dog, the cute and furry Furby by Tiger Electronics and iRobi, a robot that reads the news and recipes to you and even acts as a karaoke machine. One of the most advanced domestic humanoid robots, Honda’s ASIMO, has not yet become commercially available.
Outside the household, robots have also found their way into the military. There are more than 700 bomb-disarming robots deployed by the US Military in Iraq and Afghanistan. iRobot has also recently been awarded a $286million contract to deliver 3000 robots to be used for surveillance and scouting missions by the army.

But the ultimate vision for roboticists is complete self-navigating robotic helpers and robotic vehicles. These ambitions are currently actively pursued in research labs and competitions. The 2007 DARPA Grand Challenge entailed university teams having to make actual vehicles function completely driverless and then self-navigate around a 96km urban area course. The 2007 challenge was won by Carnegie Mellon University with Stanford in the second place.
Another major contest is RoboCup. This annual event seeks to promote research and education through a competition where teams design multiple robots that play variations of soccer against each other. The overall aim of RoboCup  is to “by the year 2050, develop a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can win against the human world soccer champion team.”
Over and above these challenges and competitions, robotic companies and research labs are popping up everywhere, a new one being Willow Garage funded by eGroups founder and early Google architect Scott Hassan.

Dendrite Studio’s interest in robotics is slightly less ambitious but just as exciting. We believe that robotics is a very engaging and successful way for children to learn mathematics, science, applied physics and technology in a context requiring design, innovation, problem solving and teamwork.
Working with robotics teaches or reinforces several concepts such as: ratios, diameter, radius and circumference, friction, light and the electromagnetic spectrum, basic electricity and circuits, control systems and logic.
In a country where the shortage of students with the interest in and adequate skills for science and engineering is bemoaned daily, robotics is great way to excite and equip students in these fields.

After the great success of our summer holiday program, Dendrite Studios will launch a full scale robotics academy, Rossum Robotics, on 13 February 2008. Classes will be at the MTN Science Centre and you can find more information on the PRODUCTS page.