Humanoids run world’s first robot marathon race

OSAKA, Japan: Robovie-PC, a toy-sized humanoid, won the world’s first full-length marathon for two-legged robots by a whisker Saturday, beating its closest rival by a single second after more than two days of racing.

Five bipedal machines began the non-stop 42.2-kilometre contest on a 100-metre indoor track in the western Japanese city of Osaka Thursday morning after doing knee bends or raising their hands to greet spectators.

One of the competitors retired after finishing only the first lap, but the others continued running day and night, getting up by themselves every time they fell to the floor or got into collisions with rivals.

Robovie-PC, 40 centimetres tall and weighing 2.4 kilograms stormed into first place with only a few laps to go after Robovie-PC Lite, which had established a comfortable lead and appeared to have secured an easy victory, suddenly locked up.

Robovie-PC Lite managed to return to the track and fiercely chased the leader, but after 422 laps Robovie-PC crossed the line in 54 hours 57 minutes 50 seconds, organisers said, one second ahead of its rival.

Their average speed was 0.77 kilometres per hour.

After the dramatic finish the two robots — both made by Vstone Co., a robot technology firm based in the industrial city which also organised the “Robo Mara Full” race – waved their arms and bowed, to wild applause from the crowd.

According to the event’s regulations, competitors were allowed to change batteries and the servomotors which control the robots’ speed and other functions.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/27/humanoids-run-world%E2%80%99s-first-robot-marathon-race.html

Human values and professional ethics to be part of PTU curriculum

Chandigarh: Similar to the model that had been implemented by the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) in Delhi and Kanpur, around 306 colleges affiliated with the Punjab Technical University (PTU) have decided to teach "human values and professional ethics" as part of their curriculum. Out of the 306 colleges, 49 of them are in theChandigarh region alone. PTU Vice Chancellor Rajneesh Arora was at the Panjab University campus for the valedictory function of and international conference that had been organized by students of the varsity. He said that the inculcation of values was important for students in order for them to apply their technical knowledge in the right direction. He said that the academic council at the university had resolved that it would be necessary for students who had enrolled after the year 2011 to study thefoundation course in human values and professional ethics that is being introduced at the university. "The inspiration for the introduction of the course had been drawn from the National Resource Centre for Value Education in Engineering (NRCVEE) at IIT-Delhi. Several technical institutions now have already realized the importance of inculcating such a course as part of the curriculum such as IIT-Kanpur, Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT)-Hyderabad and UP University," Arora stated. Apart from value education, the foundation course would include topics such as harmony in nature and society and widening the vision of students from a family order to the world family order. Seven chapters of the course would be devoted to harmony with self, family, body, nature, society and existence. The new course would also be involving subjects such as self-exploration and would focus on the importance of right understanding and other topics such as professional ethics in light of right understanding. Coordinator for the value education cell at PTU, R.P. Bhardwaj emphasized on the need for the introduction of such a course and said that the syllabus for thefoundation course in human values and professional ethics would be framed not only in English, but also Hindi, Punjabi and other languages. "The purpose for the introduction of the course is to address the real purpose of education. A series of workshops have been organized by PTU commencing in May 2011 along with eight-day workshops for teachers and students.

source:http://indiaedunews.net/Punjab/Human_values_and_professional_ethics_to_be_part_of_PTU_curriculum_13557/