A long time friend of the family, Betty Goodwin, died yesterday just 3 weeks after her husband Martin. She was a very well known Canadian artist and for many years a close friend of my mother. In the 1960's and 1970's they essentially lived in their place in the Laurentians (where she had a studio in the basement) and I remember visiting them many times there.
Particularly bizarre was the fact I was literally talking to my son Nicholas about her and her work when the news of her death came to us. I probably hadn't mentioned her name for a year prior to that.
Her work was a rather unusual bend of conventional objects and semi-abstract material. Back when I knew them better much of it centered on etchings, and she had a lot of traditional but complex-looking apparatus in her studio. It's rather a shock to have somebody die that was a longstanding fixture of your life, even when it is somebody you have not seen recently. It's a sobering moment to reflect on one's own mortality and the transient nature of existence. In this case though, she also leaves a non-transient, substantive and impressive imprint on the Canadian art scene.
2008
2008
Okay, now for something lighthearted. Here is a video clip of the best of the Austrian Hexpod Dance competition at Hagenberg Technical College (Upper Austria University of Applied Science). The competition is part of a course in hardware/software of system engineering (HSSE).
A hexpod is, of course, something with six legs. Hexpods can have their six legs configured is various ways, and in fact our Aqua swimming robot is also a hexpod, but quite different from the ones in this video. This dance competition doesn't have that much to do with brand-new science and puts a high premium on decorations, but getting the robots to do this is still no mean feat. As far as I know, there is a locally-developed standard base hardware platform provided to all teams. Programming the control is no-doubt difficult. I believe they are programmed in C and controlled by an Atmel AVR microprocessor.
2008
The Robotics Science and Systems 2009 conference is being held at the University of Washington this year. The web site just opened for paper submissions (with a submission deadline in mid-January). As always, the conference deals with the latest and greatest science and technology in robotics research, with a emphasis or hard science, elegant mathematics, and originality.
[Update: March 19, 2009 -- review process is complete for this year. It looks like the overall trends will be consistent, but the number of workshops may be down. ]
