E-Rycovy stránky

Promotion article published in local newspaper.

Barbara Sherman (Wilsonville Spokesman)
Gary Lee Betts and his team of Czech scientists bring a $600 machine to life.
The kids riding bikes around Gary Lee Betts' neighbourhood are pretty nonchalant about sharing the street with robots. After all, not many kids can claim having a scientist on the block who work on robots at all hours of the day and night along with a group of Czech roboteers.

The working day and night, well that is true, but the "scientist" part... :-) Well, ok.
If this sounds more like "Star Wars" than "Miracle on 34th Street," it's because Betts and crew realy are working on commercial applications for robots.

It looked more like a throwing a lots of money Gary's wifes has made out of the window than commertial applications developement.
Although this might be a bit unusual home-based business, the hardworking group is sincere about developing a universal robotics inteligence that would sell for under $1000, according to Betts.

Yes, we've heard this fairytail many many times...
"The intelligence will then be able to guide any vehicle, such as a cleaning machine in an airport or mall, or a vacuum cleaner or lawn mower, or even a robotic waitress," Betts said.

Tak tuhle pohádku jsme slyšeli asi tisíckrát.
The cost of current intelligence beeing developed by his team is around $600, according to Betts.

According to the background information the real expenses spent on developement are about $80,000 (including recruitment trips to Czech Republic). The cost of the Blue robot (hardware-only) is about $600.
The team actually is working on two different robots: "Blue" is a vehicle 3-feet-by-4-feet in size that drives and steers like a car.

... and you need at least two people just to put down from bench.
"White" is a smaller robot that bears a remarkable resemblance to R2D2 from "Star Wars." It has only two driving wheels, which enables it to completely spin around on his own radius.

... a recycle bin on wheels, unmodular and neary impossible to disassemble.
The obvious questions are: Why have robots taken over the house and garage owned by Betts and his understanding wife, Virginia Blakelock, and how did a group of Czechs get involved with the project?"What really happened was that I was working in Beaverton and stuck in traffic," said Betts, who has lived in Wilsonville for six years. He also has a farm on Ladd Hill where he lived from 1969 to 1994.

Stuck in the traffic jam, Betts said he asked himself what he would really rather be doing.

"I wanted to work on robots but couldn't find any venture capital," he said. "Billions had been invested in artificial intelligence, and people had been burned."

I don't want to sound cynique but I would say that the project is in exactly the same state (except the billions spent).
Ironically, the word "robot" is Czech, coined by Karl Capek in his novel, "R.U.R." (Rossums's Universal Robots), which was written in 1920s.

Where is the irony? I don't get it. Probably the fact that the term "robot" has tot been invented in the U.S.
Betts, who had been a software designer for 15 years, zeroed in on the Czech Republic because of its training programs for budding young scientists and the affordability of working on projects there.

...and because of cheap human resources ;).
He and Blakelock had already travelled there so Blakelock could buy beads to import to Oregon and sell worldwide. Blakelock also uses the beads in the jewelry she designes.

While on a trip there, Betts talked to different universities about starting the robotics program. The funding to start the robotics program in Prague came from an advanced-graphics-aplications computer language Betts wrote and subsequently sold to a large company.

Betts started the robotics program in 1991, after the end of Czech Velvet Revolution, in the Department of Informatics at Karlov University, which is a Czech National University in Prague. He initially provided modern computers and grants-in-aid to professors in the departments of mathematics, computer science and philosophy.

I don't know anyone who has ever seen this "modern computers".
"Their education is really good, but they have poor equipment," said Betts, who speaks fluent Czech as well as several other languages. "They spend a lot of time working on theory instead of working on hardware. They also spend a lot of time on mathematics and are interested in linguistics. They're ahead on this."

Could it be that we value the theory more than the hardware? Anybody can buy the hardware...
"People say the Czechs have 'golden hands.' They think they can do anything."

...when nobody is tieing them...
The first Ph.D. from the program Betts started was just awarded this year to Martin Dlouhy, 28, for work done with Betts in Wilsonville in the summer of 1999. Dlouhy continued post-doctoral studies with Betts this summer, his third visit to Wilsonville, together with four other graduate students in the program.

Each of the students, who must speak English, was personally selected by Betts, who pays all their travel and living expenses.

Any computer scientist in has to speak English (more or less). The personal selection selected four people out of five volunteers. But at the end the expenses have really been paid.
"They are the best of the best," he said. "It's a privilege to work with them."

We have seen proof of the "privilege" during the last week in Wilsonville. I suggest you to read the diary of the day when we were wrongfully accused of steeling of I-do-not-even-know-what and kicked out on the street...
Zbynek Winkler, 23, spent his senior year of high school in Chicago as an exchange student and spent this summer with Betts studying robot navigation systems. He originally got interested in robots reading Kapek and the American science fiction writer, Isaac Asimov, who wrote several books about robots.

IMHO Asimov is Russian.
Tomas Ullrich, 22, is pursuing robotics because he wants "to make a big hole in the world." He has done original work on how robots drive and steer themselves as well as in the post-processing of sonar information about the world to make it more usefull to robots.

The quoted text is Czech phrase for setting the Thames on fire. But Tom didn't know that and neither did the reporter.
"With what we have learned here in Wilsonville, we will be far ahead of all the other students in Prague," said Ullrich.

Jaroslav Sladek, 22, appreciated working on real robots in Wilsonville after studying the in theory in Prague. Sladek, who spent his junior year of high school as an excahnge student in North Carolina, has been studying how information can best be stored and retrieved in a robot world map.

Kamil Rezac, 21, is studying computer science and robotics but also is proficient in electronics. He spent most of the summer developing and assembling the electromechanical parts for the robots and experimenting with electronic subsystems for sonar imaging.

"It's great to get some practical work after studying all the theory in school," Rezac said.

Ironically, Betts has found little interest in robots except in the Czech Republic. But to him and the Czech students, designing and improving robots are the wave of the future.

According to Betts, robots get their information about the world from ultrasonic echoes similar to what bats use - a pitch higher than human hearing can detect.

This information is then processed and turned into what roboticsts call a world map.

The robots use this information to plan routes for deliveries, to clean an area cluttered with obstacles or even to avoid humans walking in a busy restaurant.

"When we started, everyone thought we were out of out minds to set a $1000 price," Betts said. "Robots capable of doing what ours do usually cost $80000. The key is using Windows as the operating system. We use eight or 10 little microprocessors that cost $10 each that do the work. They do the real work. If we had use a real-time operating system, it would cost $2,000 to $5,000."

Robots function in a two-dimensional world, and for training exercises, Betts' team marks off a perimeter to set boundaries and avoid obstacles such as stairs.

"We concentrate on them learning about the world and planning their way through it," Betts said. "When they are out in the street, and a kid walks up, the robot will stop and say in Martin's Czech-accented voice, 'Object detected.'"

"Our next step will be for the robot to drive around the object and then figure out which way a moving object is going and steer around that. Martin integrates what everyone else is doing."

While Betts has financed all the robotic development to this point but said he will be looking for "mezzanine financing" towards the end of the year in order to bring the robots to market.

The finnancing has been discussed before.
And he already has a prospective client - a New York-based firm. The company is interested in using the robots as waiters in a series of night clubs and delivered pizza to the Czechs every Friday night as a way to of keeping up with the progress the team made each week.

Betts' robots also may end up much farther from home, as there is the possibility they could go on a mission to Mars.

I like the idea of NASA sending the robot running MS Windows... ;)
The team worked almost nonstop around the clock in different shifts, and some of the best testing on the robot was done at night.

"Some of the best" is not the description I would use (according to the results).
Sometimes the robots roamed through the Washington Square mall after it closed, and at other times, the robots suprised startled customers at Lamb's Thriftway between midnight and 2 a.m. as they rolled up and down the aisles.

We haven't been on Washington Square (there were some tests on WS two years ago). In the Thriftway the Blue robot rolled more into the shelfs than douwn the aisles.
Betts often picked up a few groceries while he was there, joking that one of the biggest expenses was feeding the hungry Czechs.

Big surprise, since the food and the flight tickets were the only expenses he had. Not mentioning the tents on the garden were we have slept...
"These young men eat a lot," he said.

You know you can guess that it's a bit difference cooking for eight instead of three...
When they were not eating, sleeping or working this summer, the Czechst took advantage of the oportunity to explore Oregon and watch current movies.

Yeah, but nobody told us that the exploring part was just tolerated (but certainly not appreciated). The videotapes have been supplied by Carol. Before we came to U.S. Gary lured us on going to the movies at least once a week (among other things). In reality we went there twice (and once even paid it ourselves).
But their first love is robots, and in Betts' garage workshop hangs the creed they live by - the laws of robotics from the 56th edition of the (fictional) "Handbook of Robotics," published in 2058 A.D.

"First law - A robot may not injure the human beeing or through inaction allow a human beeing to come to harm."

"Second law - A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law."

"Third law - A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law."

And that is the motto Betts and Czechs follow as they pursue their goal of designing the perfect robot.

"That is why we are developing two such radically different vehicles - to keep us honest and to make sure we really are developing a trully universal intelligence that is capable of controlling any type of robot," Betts said.

Taking this rule to the absurdity is not a good idea. Take my word for it (based on experience). Maybe it would be more useful if someone who's more literate with h/w and s/w design would not make this mistake...