Robot

More so than any movie in recent memory, Transformers insists that audiences just go with it. Do that, and you might be surprised how much fun you'll have. Resist, and this probably wasn't a wise filmgoing choice in the first place. Opening tonight in some theaters and tomorrow everywhere else, the action flick has so much going for it - namely, the supremely cool spectacle of watching cars and trucks rearrange themselves into giant robots - that its very real problems are easy to overlook.

Moving at "creep speed" amid a business lunch crowd yesterday, the miniature tank-like machine aroused little curiosity. Diners barely noticed as the contraption passed, unaware that it was monitoring temperature, humidity and air quality. An Army engineer operated the unit remotely, occasionally raising its arm above the diners to get a better view. After reviewing the data, he pronounced the atmosphere on the patio at Harford Community College safe -- even healthy -- for diners. "Oxygen is at 20.9 percent, right where it's supposed to be," said Shawn Funk, a mechanical engineer with the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

The Poly boys figured they had the "petite slalom" all sewn up when their robot was the only one to clear the first heat without jostling any cones - in a blistering 18 seconds. Likewise, last year's "mystery course" champions from Hereford High School were predicting an easy repeat victory - a full hour before the secret course was unveiled. "I'm pretty sure we're going to win," said Justin Zelinsky, 15, with a shrug, as he plunked a pair of infrared sensors into his car-like "bot." Happily for the competition - and their nervous parents and coaches - the day had in store thrilling upsets, spectacular crashes, even disqualification for illegal robot enhancements.

One of the region's newest law enforcement gadgets is an all-black, ball-shaped camera that swivels 360 degrees like R2-D2 in Star Wars. The Eye Ball R1 is the size of a softball and is often launched through a window or rolled on the floor to help tactical officers see around corners or behind walls. The camera automatically rights itself when it stops rolling and, day or night, beams back audio and video to a hand-held color screen. Howard County, Montgomery County, Annapolis and Baltimore police own the gadget, which an Israeli-company developed for military use and Remington's Rockville-based technology division brought to the American market last year.

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.

Amit Evron looked down at his creation yesterday with admiration. There was his robot, M&M, fulfilling his classroom assignment by designing works of art. Competing against eight other robots, M&M won top honors, the People's Choice Award, with its multicolored spiral designs splashed across white poster boards. "I don't think I could do that," the Johns Hopkins University senior said of the efforts of the robot, which he created with partner Alican Demir. Perhaps he can't. But Evron and Demir created something that could, merging academic areas that are often considered opposites: art and science.

One day not long from now, planes without pilots could share the skies with commercial airliners. Equipped with infrared imaging, these flying robots could patrol the nation's borders for illegal immigrants and fly over storm-ravaged regions looking for survivors. With a digital video camera, they could spot illegal activity on street corners and spy backups and bottlenecks on roads. One local company, Hunt Valley-based AAI Corp., is poised to benefit from the emerging domestic market for unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs.

CHICAGO -- The most surreal gadget in Mitra Hartmann's robotics lab, the one that prompts an instinctive double-take from visitors, is a jumble of metal sensors and wires attached to a single, wispy rat whisker. It looks like part of a freakish rodent cyborg, but that's not the goal for Hartmann and her team at Northwestern University. They're after something more practical - robotic whiskers that can pick out the shapes of objects by touch, just as rats do. NASA researchers say rovers bristling with metal whiskers may one day aid the exploration of Mars or other worlds.

The University of Maryland Medical Center recently acquired a robot that will enable surgeons to perform multiple-vessel heart bypass surgery using minimally invasive, beating-heart techniques. The da Vinci S Surgical System, which has been used in prostate cancer surgery, has robotic arms controlled by surgeons using a computer console in the operating room. Three dime-sized incisions are made for the instruments and a high-resolution camera. Patients are able to go home within a few days and recover more quickly than with traditional open-heart surgery, which often requires six or seven days in the hospital.

Linebacker Bart Scott is one of the big reasons the Ravens are one of three remaining undefeated teams in the NFL, and now we know it's because he and fellow starting linebackers Ray Lewis and Adalius Thomas have fashioned themselves after Japanese cartoon super robots. I'm not making this up. Scott was describing the differing personalities of the team's linebacking triumvirate - Lewis is the leader, Thomas is the dominating all-around athlete who can play any position and Scott is the "crazy" one - when he suddenly tried to sum up the way they work together.