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Egyptologists are hoping some 21st-century tech will help them unlock secrets from 4,500 years ago. They’re using a robot to explore the Great Pyramid of Giza. The robot will traverse two unexplored shafts leading from the Queen’s Chamber in the pyramid. Nobody knows where the shafts, which were discovered in 1872, lead.
Known as the Djedi project, after the magician whom the Egyptian king Khufu consulted when planning his pyramid, the robot will be able to drill through a secret door in the pyramid’s innards to see what lies beyond.
A robotics team from Leeds University in the UK is working with Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities to design the tomb bot, which is a follow-up to an earlier robotic mission that found the secret door in the first place.
The Pyramid of Khufu, after the king who built it around 2,560 BC, is the last remaining wonder of the ancient world. It involves a series of passageways and two rooms at its center, called the King’s Chamber and the Queen’s Chamber. Two shafts rise from the King’s Chamber at 45-degree angles toward the sky — as the Independent reports, they’re thought to be a passageway to the heavens.
The Queen’s Chamber has two shafts too, but they don’t lead to the outside of the pyramid.
In 1992, researchers sent a camera up the shaft and found it was blocked by a limestone door with copper handles. Ten years later, researchers drilled through the door, hoping to unlock a treasure trove of artifacts — but they found yet another door about 8 inches away. The Djedi project will drill through the second door and, researchers hope, follow the shaft to its end.
The team hopes to send the robot through the door by the end of the year, the Independent reports.
Robert Richardson, of the Leeds University School of Mechanical Engineering, says the team will continue the expedition until they reach the end of the shafts, and that they have no preconceptions about what they’ll find.
Known as the Djedi project, after the magician whom the Egyptian king Khufu consulted when planning his pyramid, the robot will be able to drill through a secret door in the pyramid’s innards to see what lies beyond.
A robotics team from Leeds University in the UK is working with Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities to design the tomb bot, which is a follow-up to an earlier robotic mission that found the secret door in the first place.
The Pyramid of Khufu, after the king who built it around 2,560 BC, is the last remaining wonder of the ancient world. It involves a series of passageways and two rooms at its center, called the King’s Chamber and the Queen’s Chamber. Two shafts rise from the King’s Chamber at 45-degree angles toward the sky — as the Independent reports, they’re thought to be a passageway to the heavens.
The Queen’s Chamber has two shafts too, but they don’t lead to the outside of the pyramid.
In 1992, researchers sent a camera up the shaft and found it was blocked by a limestone door with copper handles. Ten years later, researchers drilled through the door, hoping to unlock a treasure trove of artifacts — but they found yet another door about 8 inches away. The Djedi project will drill through the second door and, researchers hope, follow the shaft to its end.
The team hopes to send the robot through the door by the end of the year, the Independent reports.
Robert Richardson, of the Leeds University School of Mechanical Engineering, says the team will continue the expedition until they reach the end of the shafts, and that they have no preconceptions about what they’ll find.
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New Japanese telepresence robot pushes the boundaries of creepy
New Japanese telepresence robot pushes the boundaries of creepy
The Telenoid R1 is meant to be a minimalist human, so details are restricted to its eyes and face, which are strangely realistic. Its body is limited to flipper-like arms and a stylized torso that ends in a mermaid-ish taper.
It is the newest creation of Japanese roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro, a professor at Osaka University known for creating telepresence androids, designed to “transmit the presence” of people to another place.
Telenoid users interact with people at a distance through a laptop, as shown in the video below. The control system tracks the user’s face and head motion and captures his or her voice, then relays them to Telenoid, which expresses them. It’s about 78 centimetres tall and weighs just under 5 kilograms.
IEEE Spectrum says Ishiguro’s goal was to create a tele-operated robot that could appear male or female, old or young, and that could be easily transported.
His team admits it’s creepy at first, but they swear you get used to it: “If a friend speaks from the telenoid, we can imagine the friend’s face on the telenoid’s face. If we embrace it, we have the feeling, that we embrace the friend.”
It will go on sale in October, with the high-end model priced at $35,000USD and a lower-end model setting you back about $8,000USD, IEEE Spectrum reports.
PopSci contributor Clay notes that it resembles a creepy version of Casper the Friendly Ghost. I thought of Gloworm, a relic from my ’80s childhood.
Are we in the future yet? A robot astronaut is tweeting
NASA
You are here: Home / Features / Are we in the future yet? A robot astronaut is tweeting
Are we in the future yet? A robot astronaut is tweeting
Paul Adams
Published on Wednesday, August 4th, 2010 at 9:58 am
R2 was developed through a Space Act Agreement by NASA and General Motors. It is faster, more dexterous and more technologically advanced than its predecessors and able to use its hands to do work beyond the scope of previously introduced humanoid robots.
Robonaut-2, NASA’s robot astronaut, now has a Twitter account. Indeed, the space-bound humanoid machine is taking questions from humans, tagged #4R2 on Twitter, and will be posting its answers tomorrow morning.
The robot is scheduled to be launched in November.
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