Embodying a future for the future: Creative Robotics and Ecosophical Practice

In recent years I have begun to integrate Creative Robotics into my Ecosophically-led art practices – which I have long deployed to investigate, materialise and engage thorny, ecological questions of the Anthropocene, seeking to understand how such forms of practice may promote the cultural conditions required to assure, rather than degrade, our collective futures. Many of us would instinctively conceive of robotics as an industrially driven endeavor, shaped by the pursuit of relentless efficiencies. Instead I ask through my practices, might the nascent field of Creative Robotics still be able to emerge with radically different frames of intention? Might creative practitioners still be able to shape experiences using robotic media that retain a healthy criticality towards such productivist lineages? Could this nascent form even bring forward fresh new techniques and assemblages that better encourage conversations around sustaining a future for the future, and, if so, which of its characteristics presents the greatest opportunities? I therefore ask, when Creative Robotics and Ecosophical Practice combine forces in strategic intervention, what qualities of this hybrid might best further the central aims of Ecosophical Practice – encouraging cultural conditions required to assure a future for the future?

Field and Service Robotics: Results of the 9th International Conference

The Field and Service Robotics (FSR) conference is a single track conference with a specific focus on field and service applications of robotics technology. The goal of FSR is to report and encourage the development of field and service robotics. These are non-factory robots, typically mobile, that must operate in complex and dynamic environments. Typical field robotics applications include mining, agriculture, building and construction, forestry, cargo handling and so on. Field robots may operate on the ground (of Earth or planets), under the ground, underwater, in the air or in space. Service robots are those that work closely with humans, importantly the elderly and sick, to help them with their lives. The first FSR conference was held in Canberra, Australia, in 1997. Since then the meeting has been held every 2 years in Asia, America, Europe and Australia. It has been held in Canberra, Australia (1997), Pittsburgh, USA (1999), Helsinki, Finland (2001), Mount Fuji, Japan (2003), Port Douglas, Australia (2005), Chamonix, France (2007), Cambridge, USA (2009), Sendai, Japan (2012) and most recently in Brisbane, Australia (2013). This year we had 54 submissions of which 36 were selected for oral presentation. The organisers would like to thank the international committee for their invaluable contribution in the review process ensuring the overall quality of contributions. The organising committee would also like to thank Ben Upcroft, Felipe Gonzalez and Aaron McFadyen for helping with the organisation and proceedings. and proceedings. The conference was sponsored by the Australian Robotics and Automation Association (ARAA), CSIRO, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Defence Science and Technology Organisation Australia (DSTO) and the Rio Tinto Centre for Mine Automation, University of Sydney.

Engaging students (and their teachers) in STEM through robotics

Robotics@QUT is a university outreach program aimed at building pre- and in-service teacher capacity to encourage interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects with school children from low socio-economic status areas. Currently over 35 schools are involved in the outreach program. Professional Development workshops are provided to teachers to build their knowledge in implementing robotics-based STEM activities in their classrooms, robotics loan kits are provided, and pre-service teacher visits arranged to provide the teachers with on-going support. The program also provides opportunities for school students to engage in robotics-based on-campus activities and competitions and is seen as a way to build aspirations for university. This paper presents an interim evaluation that examines the value of the Robotics@QUT program for the teachers, pre-service teachers and school students participating in the program. Surveys were administered to determine the participants’ perceived benefits of being involved and their perceptions of the program. The data gathered from the teachers showed that they had gained knowledge and confidence and felt that the Robotics@QUT program had assisted them to deliver engaging robotics-based STEM activities in their classrooms. The pre-service teachers’ responses focused on benefits for themselves, for their future teaching careers and for the school students involved. The school students’ responses focused on their increased knowledge and confidence to pursue future STEM studies and careers.

Sensors and control for mining robotics

This paper discusses some of the sensing technologies and control approaches available for guiding robot manipulators for a class of underground mining tasks including drilling jumbos, bolting arms, shotcreters or explosive chargers. Data acquired with such sensors, in the laboratory and underground, is presented.

Voice, deliberation, resistance and persuasion through networked journalism

The pervasive use of the World Wide Web by the general population has created a cultural shift in “our living world”. It has enabled more people to share more information about more events and issues in the world than was possible before its general use. As a consequence, it has transformed traditional news media’s approach to almost every aspect of journalism, with many organisations restructuring their philosophy and practice to include a variety of participatory spaces/forums where people are free to engage in deliberative dialogue about matters of public importance. Moreover, while news media were the traditional gatekeepers of information, today many organisations allow, to different degrees, the general public and other independent journalism entities to participate in the news production process, which may include agenda setting and content production. This paper draws from an international collective case study that showcases various approaches to networked online news journalism. It examines the ways in which different traditional news media models use digital tools and technologies for participatory communication of information about matters of public interest. The research finds differences between the ways in which public service, commercial and independent news media give voice to the public and ultimately their approach to journalism’s role as the Fourth Estate––one of the key institutions of democracy. The work is framed by the notion that journalism in democratic societies has a key role in ensuring citizens are informed and engaged with public affairs. An examination of four media models, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Guardian, News Limited and OhmyNews, showcases the various approaches to networked online news journalism and how each provides different avenues for citizen empowerment. The cases are described and analysed in the context of their own social, political and economic setting. Semi-structured in-depth interviews with key senior journalists and editors provide specific information on comparisons between the distinctive practices of their own organisation. In particular these show how the ideal of democracy can be used as a tool of persuasion as much as a method of deliberation.

Football supporter cultures in modern-day Brazil: Hypercommodification, networked collectivisms and digital productivity

This thesis analyses the implications for football cultures of the profound socio-economic changes that Brazil has experienced in the last decade. It explores two major impacts: the economic boom of the domestic football sector, and the large-scale adoption of new technologies in fans' activities. The study identified a new phase of football culture in Brazil, characterised by the domination of market logics and intense commercialisation. The empirical findings also showed that new technologies are changing how supporters coordinate activities that challenge the gentrification of the game.

Characterisation of the Delphi Electronically Scanning Radar for robotics applications

Mm-wave radars have an important role to play in field robotics for applications that require reliable perception in challenging environmental conditions. This paper presents an experimental characterisation of the Delphi Electronically Scanning Radar (ESR) for mobile robotics applications. The performance of the sensor is evaluated in terms of detection ability and accuracy, for varying factors including: sensor temperature, time, target’s position, speed, shape and material. We also evaluate the sensor’s target separability performance.

A deadline-constrained 802.11 MAC Protocol with QoS differentiation for soft real-time control

As one of the most widely used wireless network technologies, IEEE 802.11 wireless local area networks (WLANs) have found a dramatically increasing number of applications in soft real-time networked control systems (NCSs). To fulfill the real-time requirements in such NCSs, most of the bandwidth of the wireless networks need to be allocated to high-priority data for periodic measurements and control with deadline requirements. However, existing QoS-enabled 802.11 medium access control (MAC) protocols do not consider the deadline requirements explicitly, leading to unpredictable deadline performance of NCS networks. Consequentially, the soft real-time requirements of the periodic traffic may not be satisfied, particularly under congested network conditions. This paper makes two main contributions to address this problem in wireless NCSs. Firstly, a deadline-constrained MAC protocol with QoS differentiation is presented for IEEE 802.11 soft real-time NCSs. It handles periodic traffic by developing two specific mechanisms: a contention-sensitive backoff mechanism, and an intra-traffic-class QoS differentiation mechanism. Secondly, a theoretical model is established to describe the deadline-constrained MAC protocol and evaluate its performance of throughput, delay and packet-loss ratio in wireless NCSs. Numerical studies are conducted to validate the accuracy of the theoretical model and to demonstrate the effectiveness of the new MAC protocol.

A model eliciting framework for integrating mathematics and robotics learning

Robotics is taught in many Australian ICT classrooms, in both primary and secondary schools. Robotics activities, including those developed using the LEGO Mindstorms NXT technology, are mathematics-rich and provide a fertile round for learners to develop and extend their mathematical thinking. However, this context for learning mathematics is often under-exploited. In this paper a variant of the model construction sequence (Lesh, Cramer, Doerr, Post, & Zawojewski, 2003) is proposed, with the purpose of explicitly integrating robotics and mathematics teaching and learning. Lesh et al.’s model construction sequence and the model eliciting activities it embeds were initially researched in primary mathematics classrooms and more recently in university engineering courses. The model construction sequence involves learners working collaboratively upon product-focussed tasks, through which they develop and expose their conceptual understanding. The integrating model proposed in this paper has been used to design and analyse a sequence of activities in an Australian Year 4 classroom. In that sequence more traditional classroom learning was complemented by the programming of LEGO-based robots to ‘act out’ the addition and subtraction of simple fractions (tenths) on a number-line. The framework was found to be useful for planning the sequence of learning and, more importantly, provided the participating teacher with the ability to critically reflect upon robotics technology as a tool to scaffold the learning of mathematics.

Autonomous greenhouse gas sampling using multiple robotic boats

Accurately quantifying total greenhouse gas emissions (e.g. methane) from natural systems such as lakes, reservoirs and wetlands requires the spatial-temporal measurement of both diffusive and ebullitive (bubbling) emissions. Traditional, manual, measurement techniques provide only limited localised assessment of methane flux, often introducing significant errors when extrapolated to the whole-of-system. In this paper, we directly address these current sampling limitations and present a novel multiple robotic boat system configured to measure the spatiotemporal release of methane to atmosphere across inland waterways. The system, consisting of multiple networked Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASVs) and capable of persistent operation, enables scientists to remotely evaluate the performance of sampling and modelling algorithms for real-world process quantification over extended periods of time. This paper provides an overview of the multi-robot sampling system including the vehicle and gas sampling unit design. Experimental results are shown demonstrating the system’s ability to autonomously navigate and implement an exploratory sampling algorithm to measure methane emissions on two inland reservoirs.

Anti-bribery disclosures: A response to networked governance

This study examined the posited link between networked governance (the activities of NGOs and the media) and the anti-bribery disclosures of two global telecommunication companies. Based on a joint consideration of legitimacy theory, media agenda setting theory and responsive regulation, the findings show that anti-bribery disclosures are positively associated with the activities of the media and NGO initiatives. The findings also show that companies make anti-bribery disclosures to maintain symbolic legitimacy but are less prominent in effecting a substantive change in their accountability practices.

Theatre, networked performance, and notions of ‘democratised’ spectatorship

The potential to cultivate new relationships with spectators has long been cited as a primary motivator for those using digital technologies to construct networked or telematics performances or para-performance encounters in which performers and spectators come together in virtual – or at least virtually augmented – spaces and places. Today, with Web 2.0 technologies such as social media platforms becoming increasingly ubiquitous, and increasingly easy to use, more and more theatre makers are developing digitally mediated relationships with spectators. Sometimes for the purpose of an aesthetic encounter, sometimes for critical encounter, or sometimes as part of an audience politicisation, development or engagement agenda. Sometimes because this is genuinely an interest, and sometimes because spectators or funding bodies expect at least some engagement via Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. In this paper, I examine peculiarities and paradoxes emerging in some of these efforts to engage spectators via networked performance or para-performance encounters. I use examples ranging from theatre, to performance art, to political activism – from ‘cyberformaces’ on Helen Varley Jamieson’s Upstage Avatar Performance Platform, to Wafaa Bilal’s Domestic Tension installation where spectators around the world could use a webcam in a chat room to target him with paintballs while he was in residence in a living room set up in a gallery for a week, as a comment on use of drone technology in war, to Liz Crow’s Bedding Out where she invited people to physically and virtually join her in her bedroom to discuss the impact of an anti-disabled austerity politics emerging in her country, to Dislife’s use of holograms of disabled people popping up in disabled parking spaces when able bodied drivers attempted to pull into them, amongst others. I note the frequency with which these performance practices deploy discourses of democratisation, participation, power and agency to argue that these technologies assist in positioning spectators as co-creators actively engaged in the evolution of a performance (and, in politicised pieces that point to racism, sexism, or ableism, pushing spectators to reflect on their agency in that dramatic or daily-cum-dramatic performance of prejudice). I investigate how a range of issues – from the scenographic challenges in deploying networked technologies for both participant and bystander audiences others have already noted, to the siloisation of aesthetic, critical and audience activation activities on networked technologies, to conventionalised dramaturgies of response informed by power, politics and impression management that play out in online as much as offline performances, to the high personal, social and professional stakes involved in participating in a form where spectators responses are almost always documented, recorded and re-represented to secondary and tertiary sets of spectators via the circulation into new networks social media platforms so readily facilitate – complicate discourses of democratic co-creativity associated with networked performance and para-performance activities.

Detection of multiple source locations using a glowworm metaphor with applications to collective robotics

This paper presents a glowworm swarm based algorithm that finds solutions to optimization of multiple optima continuous functions. The algorithm is a variant of a well known ant-colony optimization (ACO) technique, but with several significant modifications. Similar to how each moving region in the ACO technique is associated with a pheromone value, the agents in our algorithm carry a luminescence quantity along with them. Agents are thought of as glowworms that emit a light whose intensity is proportional to the associated luminescence and have a circular sensor range. The glowworms depend on a local-decision domain to compute their movements. Simulations demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed glowworm based algorithm in capturing multiple optima of a multimodal function. The above optimization scenario solves problems where a collection of autonomous robots is used to form a mobile sensor network. In particular, we address the problem of detecting multiple sources of a general nutrient profile that is distributed spatially on a two dimensional workspace using multiple robots.

Publishing in the Networked World: Transforming the Nature of Communication, 14th International Conference on Electronic Publishing 16-18 June 2010, Helsinki, Finland

The title of the 14th International Conference on Electronic Publishing (ELPUB), “Publishing in the networked world: Transforming the nature of communication”, is a timely one. Scholarly communication and scientific publishing has recently been undergoing subtle changes. Published papers are no longer fixed physical objects, as they once were. The “convergence” of information, communication, publishing and web technologies along with the emergence of Web 2.0 and social networks has completely transformed scholarly communication and scientific papers turned to living and changing entities in the online world. The themes (electronic publishing and social networks; scholarly publishing models; and technological convergence) selected for the conference are meant to address the issues involved in this transformation process. We are pleased to present the proceedings book with more than 30 papers and short communications addressing these issues. What you hold in your hands is a by-product and the culmination of almost a Year long work of many people including conference organizers, authors, reviewers, editors and print and online publishers. The ELPUB 2010 conference was organized and hosted by the Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland. Professors Turid Hedlund of Hanken School of Economics and Yaşar Tonta of Hacettepe University Department of Information Management (Ankara, Turkey) served as General Chair and Program Chair, respectively. We received more than 50 submissions from several countries. All submissions were peer-reviewed by members of an international Program Committee whose contributions proved most valuable and appreciated. The 14th ELPUB conference carries on the tradition of previous conferences held in the United Kingdom (1997 and 2001), Hungary (1998), Sweden (1999), Russia (2000), the Czech Republic (2002), Portugal (2003), Brazil (2004), Belgium (2005), Bulgaria (2006), Austria (2007), Canada (2008) and Italy (2009). The ELPUB Digital Library, http://elpub.scix.net serves as archive for the papers presented at the ELPUB conferences through the years. The 15th ELPUB conference will be organized by the Department of Information Management of Hacettepe University and will take place in Ankara, Turkey, from 14-16 June 2011. (Details can be found at the ELPUB web site as the conference date nears by.) We thank Marcus Sandberg and Hannu Sääskilahti for copyediting, Library Director Tua Hindersson – Söderholm for accepting to publish the online as well as the print version of the proceedings. Thanks also to Patrik Welling for maintaining the conference web site and Tanja Dahlgren for administrative support. We warmly acknowledge the support in organizing the conference to colleagues at Hanken School of Economics and our sponsors.