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Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

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Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#341

Post by kingcharles »

teej wrote: post #278
chidog12 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The limiting factor was Operator attention and issues with an environment. In a closed, mapped environment like a campus with minimal street crossings. The robot can make its way to the restaurant, get the delivery and make the delivery, with out operator input or attention… even if people block the robot, it can navigate around and interact. After a couple failed attempts, it alerts an operator and then manual actio…

This sounds like a cool idea for a game.

Immediately reminded me of this old Game and Watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQZtdXLWHk8

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#342

Post by addandsubtract »

jaclaz wrote: post #308
pjerem wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. That for sure fixes a huge problem of humankind. When I was young, we had to walk hundreds of meters to eat a pizza.

>When I was young, we had to walk hundreds of meters to eat a pizza. But - to be fair - your nowadays almost unbelievable athletic feat was compensated by being able to eat a hot pizza just out of the oven.

That robot is the oven (soon)

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#343

Post by dilippkumar »

teej wrote: post #278
chidog12 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The limiting factor was Operator attention and issues with an environment. In a closed, mapped environment like a campus with minimal street crossings. The robot can make its way to the restaurant, get the delivery and make the delivery, with out operator input or attention… even if people block the robot, it can navigate around and interact. After a couple failed attempts, it alerts an operator and then manual actio…

This sounds like a cool idea for a game.

This sounds like a cool idea for a Twitch stream. I would watch this.

Bonus points if you hook up the robot's control to Twitch chat, #TwitchPlaysPokemon style.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#344

Post by sizzle »

numpad0 wrote: post #280
agumonkey wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why they don't parametrize momentum with certainty. In any confusing situation, go into ultra slow environment scanning and when confidence increases, allow for a bit more.. rinse / repeat.

That's how to get a robot half feet into a choke point, immediately get stuck for half an hour surrounded by walls and confused people, until developer on an emergency Slack call along facility managers and company CTO verifies and communicates a likely-safe state of robot and surrounding equipment to field operators and a go is given to pull the thing out of the elevator.

This is so detailed, are you speaking from experience perhaps?

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#345

Post by dv_dt »

reaperducer wrote: post #135
bourgoin wrote: post #69

A couple of years ago, I was attacked by a Kiwi bot near a UC campus. This is my story. The bot and I were moving towards each other on a sidewalk, and when I came close it stopped, as they do when sensing an object in front of them. But there was an awkward moment as I tried to go around it and it repeatedly jerked forward an inch as its motor kicked on and off. Maybe I was walking around the very edge of its radius…

when I came close it stopped, as they do when sensing an object in front of them The security robots at one of the big skyscrapers down the street from me do not stop for people. My wife got knocked into by one when we were standing in the plaza looking up something on her phone. (They're not little delivery robots. They're about five feet tall.) Good thing she was confused by what happened, because she's also the ty…

2 out of 3 times I've seen one those robots, they've been lying on their side.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#346

Post by hermitdev »

throwhauser wrote: post #258
Tempest1981 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one I've seen in the wild. The K5 rocket-shaped model is heavy, 400 lbs (180 kg) https://www.knightscope.com/

What does it do that can't be accomplished with something the size of a remote controlled car?

Pure speculation on my part, but having it around 5 feet tall is presumably for the optical cameras to have a better view of the majority of adult human faces. If you're talking a remote control car (at least like the one I had as a kid), any camera is either going to get great photos of people's ankles & shins, up their noses if they're close, or lose detail because they'll have to be too far away to get a decent angle to look at a face.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#347

Post by sizzle »

jdlshore wrote: post #266
chillingeffect wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All I can say without breaking agreements is that these are products , not ideal models of conceptual engineering. They're not created by people who like the world and want it to be a better place. They're created by people with lots of money who want a lot more. They've found an avenue for this by persuading other wealthy, greedy people to give them a lot of money and promising they can give them more back. They'll…

That's an unnecessarily cynical generalization. Sure, maybe the leaders of the companies creating these things are profit-motivated, but is that really true of the individual engineers and designers who created it?

Both of what you said can be true at the same time (not mutually exclusive of each other) while OP’s assertions may still be true for certain individuals if I’m thinking logically.

We are talking about what motivates humans as human behavior, which tends to be varied, nuanced, and hard to reduce to mutually exclusive categories like being only profit driven or only driven by intellectual curiosity.

I think you can be both motivated by money and intellectual curiosity. If you are an engineer turned founder, you can be both?

Someone correct me if I’m wrong here.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#348

Post by vasco »

js2 wrote: post #284
bourgoin wrote: post #69

A couple of years ago, I was attacked by a Kiwi bot near a UC campus. This is my story. The bot and I were moving towards each other on a sidewalk, and when I came close it stopped, as they do when sensing an object in front of them. But there was an awkward moment as I tried to go around it and it repeatedly jerked forward an inch as its motor kicked on and off. Maybe I was walking around the very edge of its radius…

I’ve had this happen with actual humans. A human is coming toward me on a path. I zig. They zig. I zag. They zag. We walk into each other. It must be some kind of human path finding bug. :-)

Always go through the right side, is this not a rule in your country? I'm asking not knowing where I learned it, but it definitely is a social norm to take the right side of the sidewalk anytime this may happen. Everyone just does this and it works out great.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#349

Post by petra »

npteljes wrote: post #94
shiftpgdn wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're frequently driven by people making $1-3/hr in Colombia.

Now that's something else. Do you remember where you read that? I'd love to know more.

https://www.dailycal.org/2019/10/15/kiwi-hires-colombian-stu...

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#350

Post by dgivney »

vasco wrote: post #348
js2 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve had this happen with actual humans. A human is coming toward me on a path. I zig. They zig. I zag. They zag. We walk into each other. It must be some kind of human path finding bug. :-)

Always go through the right side, is this not a rule in your country? I'm asking not knowing where I learned it, but it definitely is a social norm to take the right side of the sidewalk anytime this may happen. Everyone just does this and it works out great.

It is the left side in my country. Which creates a problem when people from right-sided countries visit my city.

I noticed this in China, a densely populated mostly right-sided country. Whenever a British engineering firm would install escalators they would set the direction opposite to the flow of human traffic. You would walk up to it on the path on the right side and be forced to cross the path of oncoming people to use the escalator on the left before having to cross over again once at the top.

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