Robot

Imagine building a robot so small that it looks like a fire ant, even when magnified by a factor of 50. Now picture the nano-sized David Beckham bot playing "soccer" on a field about one sixteenth the size of a quarter. Sound like a feat? For a handful of midshipmen and one recent graduate of the Naval Academy, it certainly was - given that there are no existing tiny robot parts, not to mention screwdrivers or hinges. The students spent much of the past year looking into microscopes and using chemistry and light to shape the tiny bots.

Robotic pet takes cues from your computerEver wanted a robot that could putter around the house, carry food and drinks around at a party, even vacuum, all for under $1,000? Well, just in time for the year 2000, you can have your wish -- sort of. Meet Cye, a mechanical pet on wheels (or spikes, to be exact).Unlike some other attempts at home robotics, Cye doesn't depend on fancy sensors or expensive on-board computers. It uses your PC's brain to power it. Cye has a radio receiver and your Windows PC is outfitted with an antenna that connects to its serial port.

He walks and barks, wags his tail and even kicks a ball. But this doggy is unlike any pooch you've ever seen.This pup doesn't make messes because it never chows down or laps up water. He doesn't require veterinarian visits, petting or treats.That's because he's powered by a battery and made of steel, with computer parts for innards: a 64-bit processor, internal memory chip, a camera in his head and touch, hearing, sight and balance sensors that allow its 18 joints to move its 3 1/2 pounds.

An article in the May 20 editions of The Sun erroneously named the robot in "The Day the Earth Stood Still." The robot's name was Gort.The Sun regrets the error.Pub Date: 6/03/98

BOSTON -- Next thing you know they'll be making a Beanie Baby named Sojourner.I mean, the country has had a romance with space before, but this is the first time we've found a NASA space traveler quite so, well, adorable. Ever since the 2-foot-long, 1-foot-high, 23-pound robot rolled out of its air bags and onto the rusty Martian soil, it's become a national mascot.The scientists are so excited that one described himself as in ''hog heaven,'' though that may be an insult to the real thing.

The robot that helped police end a siege at a Linthicum motel Tuesday afternoon probably saved the life of the man who Anne Arundel County police believed had a bomb in his room.The suspect was huddled under a sink in the bathroom. C. Mark Van Baalen, the deputy state fire marshal who operated the robot, could see him -- courtesy of two video cameras attached to the robot and a 9-inch television screen in front of him."He reached up and grabbed something off the sink and then got back under the blankets," said Mr. Van Baalen, a balding, red-haired man of 35.When the suspect pointed the object toward the door, tactical police assumed the worst: that it was a gun. Had they stormed the room, they may have shot the suspect, Mr. Van Baalen said.

Robocop saved the day in Linthicum last week.A squat, little, wheeled contraption with video-camera eyes, a metal claw for a hand and a shotgun mounted above its left arm wheeled into a Motel 6 and accomplished in three minutes what police couldn't do in 25 hours -- ferret out a man suspected of having a bomb without somebody getting hurt.Along with automatic teller machines and the remote control gadget for television sets, this could be one of the greatest technological advances of the computer age. It's the sort of thing some of us imagined as children as we contemplated a Jetson-like future filled with mechanical sidekicks that would perform all the chores we hated.

GREENBELT -- A spidery robot named Dante began inching its way down into an Antarctic volcano yesterday in a daring New Year's display of technology delayed earlier by cold weather and an unexpected eruption.But a computer glitch at the project's base camp brought Dante to a halt after the vehicle had traveled only about 21 feet. The setback dampened the initial excitement over the descent."Everybody watching it here is real excited," said Randee Exler, a spokeswoman at the Goddard Space Flight Center where scientists gathered to watch TV pictures transmitted by the robot.

WASHINGTON -- Entertainer Bette Midler summoned her lawyers after an advertising agency hired a sound-alike singer to evoke yuppie memories by imitating Ms. Midler's "Do You Want to Dance?" for a Mercury Sable commercial.Singer Tom Waits heard an imitator of his gravelly voice sing the praises of SalsaRio Doritos and became increasingly incensed by what he called "this corn chip sermon."One-role personality Vanna White sued the creators of an ad that put a blond robot in a TV game show.Ms.

A man performing a skit with a two-story-tall robot in front of 8,000 fans at a "monster truck" show at the Baltimore Arena was killed Saturday night when a pyrotechnic device strapped to his chest exploded.Robert J. Murphy, 36, of Painesville, Ohio, was rushed to University of Maryland Medical Center, where he died on the operating table about 45 minutes after the 10 p.m. accident.Most of the crowd watching the show, which was nearly finished, was apparently unaware of the accident, said an event sponsor and a spokeswoman for the arena.

The great Sam Peckinpah once said, "It's not just blowing up a bridge, it's the way you blow up a bridge." That's how I feel about apocalyptic or dystopian movies. It's not just blowing up the world, it's the way you blow up the world. Pundits are questioning Pixar's decision to base WALL-E on a trash-strewn Earth, a robot hero and humans who've evolved into pudding pops. The last laugh should be on the naysayers as audiences discover the inventiveness, wit, emotion - and, yes, hope - that director Andrew Stanton and his team have invested in every inch of their sometimes bleak and barbed design.

Imagine building a robot so small that it looks like a fire ant, even when magnified by a factor of 50. Now picture the nano-sized David Beckham bot playing "soccer" on a field about one sixteenth the size of a quarter. Sound like a feat? For a handful of midshipmen and one recent graduate of the Naval Academy, it certainly was - given that there are no existing tiny robot parts, not to mention screwdrivers or hinges. The students spent much of the past year looking into microscopes and using chemistry and light to shape the tiny bots.

Imagine building a robot so small that it looks like a fire ant, even when magnified by a factor of 50. Now picture the nano-sized David Beckham bot playing "soccer" on a field about one sixteenth the size of a quarter. Sound like a feat? For a handful of midshipmen and one recent graduate of the Naval Academy, it certainly was - given that there are no existing tiny robot parts, not to mention screwdrivers or hinges. The students spent much of the past year looking into microscopes and using chemistry and light to shape the tiny bots.

Brik Wisniewski hit a button on top of a homemade robot and it began gliding across a table, pushing a small box. He wanted the contraption to release a load of "dirt" from a dumper into the box, but the robot steered off course. "Almost!" the Deep Creek Magnet Middle School sixth-grader said, as he picked up the robot. "I think it needs some pieces replaced." The robot, the box and the dumper were all made of LEGO bricks. They are the work of the Deep Creek Nano Eagles, a team set to compete in the Maryland FIRST LEGO League competition scheduled for tomorrow at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Within six weeks, Woodlawn High School's Technowarriors tested prototypes, selected a design and constructed their 5-foot-tall robot. Now they're working the phones to overcome the last obstacle to participating in the FIRST Robotics Championship: finding the money to get there. "It's the biggest reward we can have for all the time we've put into building the robot," said sophomore team member Kwami Williams. The team lost a sponsor two weeks ago. As a result, they're struggling to raise at least $7,000 by Thursday to travel to Atlanta and prove themselves among more than 340 teams from the United States and other countries.

Though the purpose of the robot-building competition is to solve problems, a group of Aberdeen High School students had a tough one to tackle before they could even participate: They didn't have a team. The students from Aberdeen's Science and Math Academy magnet program brought plenty of technological skill to the table. But they lacked a suitable location and the resources to make a run at the Chesapeake FIRST Regional Robotic Competition. Enter the Park School in Baltimore County. Likeminded students at Park, a private school in Brooklandville, invited the Aberdeen students to join their team.

You don't often find scientists staging arm-wrestling tournaments - let alone competing in them. But then the match scheduled Monday at the International Society for Optical Engineering conference in San Diego is no ordinary bout. For the first time, researchers plan to pit man-made muscle against living tissue - in this case the sinewy limb of a San Diego high-school senior. The purpose of this unusual test of strength: to spur scientific interest in a little-known but promising class of plastics that expand and contract when jolted by an electrical charge.

Filmmakers have long had a fascination with robots. Robby in Forbidden Planet. B-9 in Lost in Space. C-3PO in Star Wars. And now, Sonny in I, Robot. Futurists have not ignored the pop-culture obsession and the race to produce the first - and this is key, affordable - humanoid unit. The few robots on the market are out of this world, pricewise. Neiman Marcus, for example, offered his-and-her robots in its 2003 Christmas catalog. Produced by Robotics International, they retailed for $400,000.

Over the years, American cinema has played host to a variety of bad guys. From tomahawk-wielding Indians to goose-stepping Nazis, Cold War communists, Italian mobsters and Japanese fighters, celluloid public enemies have tended to reflect and define chapters of our nation's history. In recent times, a climate of political correctness has made movie enemies harder to come by. Communists no longer generate much fear. Japanese fighters have become the heroes of martial-arts pictures. Nazis are still reliably evil, as they were most recently in Hellboy, but stereotypical images of Native Americans, Asians, Italians, Arabs, Muslims and other ethnic, religious or political groups open filmmakers to charges of cultural insensitivity.

Isaac Asimov's I, Robot was a cautionary tale and a rumination, a warning about intellect without soul and an exploration of what it means to be human. The movie I, Robot, based on Asimov's ideas but not directly on his work, is an action thriller that touches on those themes, but is mostly an excuse for Will Smith to show off his pecs and for CGI guys to strut their stuff. That's not necessarily a bad thing; the movie moves along with great speed and verve, and it's got just enough of a sci-fi sheen to make things interesting, if not provocative.