Life in the robotic lab

1. The beginning

Memory is a bitch.
When you live a moment of your life that is very important, you think that you will never forget it.
The emotions that vibrate in that very moment are so intense that it is hard to believe that they will disappear "as teardrops in the rain".
I lately realized that I remember what happened to me, but sometimes the episodes of my life are grayscale snapshots of facts. The emotions associated with the facts are gone.
I hope that this blog will help me to store my memories somewhere, before time takes them away.

I have always dreamt to be a scientist. Today this definition sound silly to me... I am just an engineer. But "scientist" is the word I was using when I was 7 years old and I used to spend my afternoon watching TV and Japanese cartoons.
When you are a kid, people ask you about the profession that you want to take when you growth up. Football player, fire fighter, astronaut, singer?
My answer was: " a scientist that builds robots".
When you are a kid, the only idea of robot that you have is humanoid robots.
Well, 23 years later, this is what I do: I build robots.
Everything comes with a price... but I will talk about that in the future.
When I became a boy, adults started to tells me that robots are (were) just science fiction and that what I really wanted to be is an engineer.
Ok, I thought I will be an engineer, but I will build robots.
But when I landed at the University Politecnico of Turin, the only robots around were industrial manipulators building cars in the production line... kind of boring.
What was I supposed to do then?
Something was going to change in 2001...

2. Up north (2001/02)

When I try to determine the beginning of the "domino effect" that changed my life, the first date that I can remember is August 2001.

That summer, I packed my luggage and I took a flight from Turin (Italy) to Goteborg (Sweden).
The years before I had been studying at Polytechnic of Turin with little enthusiasm; but in 2001/2002 I was supposed to spend a whole academic year at Chalmers, Sweden.
When I got off of the airplane I had a wonderful feeling of freedom and curiosity: what was going to happen? I was going to meet new people, speak a new language and see different places...

I will not tell you about what was for sure the best year of my life, since it has little to do with robotics.

What is relevant for this blog is that I joined the Master In Complex Adaptive Systems, an International Master Program related with dynamic systems, artificial intelligence and some robotics.
For the first time in a long time I started to have fun studying engineering and I have got more and more motivated. I realized the importance of hard work when you want to achieve a result and that lesson was going to be very useful in the future.
One of the courses of the Master was dedicated to autonomous robots; of course it was VERY basic, but it was enough to wake up my forgotten love for robotics. And the best is yet to come: our professor proposed to all of his students (about 20 people) to build a couple of small humanoid robot in few months and to participate at ROBOCUP 2002, the World Championship of Robotic Soccer...

3. Fukuoka, Japan (spring 2002)

So, the idea was that: to design from scratch two different humanoid robots (about 40 cm and 60 cm of height), build them and make them perform something related to football in less than 4 months.
Of course, without any previous knowledge about robotics.
And then... we would all fly to Fukuoka, Japan, to participate to Robocup in the newly launched "humanoid league".

Completely crazy!!

I was supposed to write the software to make walk the robots.I must confess that I realized later that my effort to accomplish this task was poor (anyway, the hardware platform have never been really able to walk).
Our teacher, Peter Nordin, told us that he was looking for some sponsor to pay our trip to Japan, but he was having little luck.

What happened was quite expected: people worked very hard until the very last day, but the small humanoids were not able to move.
The unexpected thing is that we ACTUALLY went to Japan, even if the robot was still unfinished. No one knows where the money came from; the most believed hypothesis is that the professor paid with his own money the journey to 20 students...

Who would do such a thing? I believe very few people. Consider, as well, that this was the ONLY year in which the students of the Complex Adaptive System (my Master) tried to participate to Robocup.

The probability that something like that might happens are very low, but this event was determinant for my story and my life.

The took the flight for Japan at the end of June. It was as well the end of my academic year in Sweden and I remember the precise moment in which I realized that a chapter of my life (the best one so far) was closing and a new one was going to start soon.
Wondering about my future, I was smiling by myself, with a feeling of truly happiness...

This is Elvis, one of the two unlucky robots.

4. Robocup (June 2002)

I will be straight: Robocup in Fokuoka was a bloody disaster!

(By the way, the day I arrived in Japan the Italian football team lost against Koreaduring the World Championship… no comments).

The RoboCup was indeed very cool: we were located in a baseball stadium (indoor) and there were several football fields with robots of any size (including the robot dog Aibo) playing football by themselves.

That week I had few opportunities to visit Fukuoka (but a nice one to meet Japanese girls ). Japan is a very nice place to visit, and I hope I will have the opportunity to come back there as tourist.

Anyway, let’s talk about robots!

 

During the 4 days of setup before the competition my and the rest of the class mates tried hard to make move the robot but, even if we worked until late night all the days, there was no way to make our “champions” stand by themselves. We could not compete (but anyone expected it) and I can remember that I was quite sad and disappointed that all that work was a waste of time.

I clearly remember that I was lying on a bench, looking at the ceiling and thinking: ”we are stupid! This was too bad, I don’t want to see a robot for the rest of my life!”.

In that precise moment (it is true, I am not trying to make the story more interesting) I heard a voice from the closing ceremony saying:”the next robocup will be given in Padova, Italy".

I get up at once and I though: “fuck, Italy! I can have my revenge! I know what to do: I will come back to my university in Torino and I will create MY OWN Robocup team!”.

One more time I ask to my readers: how many probabilities did I have that EXACTLY the following year Robocup would be given at few kilometers from the place were I was going to spend my last academic year?

Few my friend, very few… but you can not stop destiny when it has decided what to do with your life.

5. The italian job (September 2002)

Well, I was back in Italy and I was enthusiastic: I was going to create an Italian team of RoboCup that would be just mine. Looking behind my shoulders, I wonder why I was SO sure that I could made it.
After all, it would be bloody difficult to find money, people and time to do it all... but I have never doubted about myself.
I started hanging posters at the faculty with the phrase: "do you want to participate to the robotics soccer world championship? Join our team and build a humanoid robot".
(I am not sure it was written EXACTLY with these words, but it was something like that).
I received a dozen of "CV" and one day I had a meeting with the people that answered my call to explain them what RoboCup is and which was the "plan".
Then, I selected 5 of them... the core that few weeks later become the ISAAC TEAM (the name "Isaac" comes, of course, from Isaac Asimov).
Then, one of trickiest parts of my project: to find money and support from my University (that is not famous for funding bold projects...).
I decided to go to the department of Robotic and Automation, but at the beginning I have found just a lot of professors looking at me like I was drunk.... "nice idea, but... try to knock to the next door".
So I did: I knocked to all the doors, until I get to professor Giuseppe Menga.
Our chat it is still indelibly written in my memory, and it was more or less like this:

Me:" I would like to build a humanoid robot to participate to the world robotic championship and I need the support of Polytechnic."
Prof.: "Hummm... look, I am doing a little project to build a small Segway using Lego, why don't you give me an hand with that?"
Me: "No, I guess I didn't explain myself very well. I want to build a humanoid robot. You know, with legs, arms, torso..."
Prof.: "That is far too hard, it will need at least 10 motors".
Me: "Well, actually we must use 12 motors just on the legs..."
Prof.: "you will need 2 more people helping you."
Me: " Actually I have planned to have a team of 6 people, and I have already found most of them."

Few seconds of silence...

Prof.: "You are not able to do it!"
Me: "I am!!!"
Prof.: "You will not find the money."

I laughed.

Me: " may be you are right just on this point."
He took some seconds to reflect, then he told me: "Ok, I will help you".

And that was the really beginning of the Isaac Project.

6. The Isaac Team ( October 2002 - May 2003)

An happy team of humanoid robot developers should be made of 7 people.

2 mechanical engineers.
1 electronic guy.
1 person involved in walking algorithms.
1 software guru.
1 person that takes care of computer vision.
1 project leader.

The Isaac Team was more or less composed like this (actually, I shared the role of project leader and biped walking programmer at the same time and there was 1 more electronic guy).
The people which joined me in that bold adventure are still friends; as happens with many friends of mine, we are not in touch any more, but we still exchange some e-mails sometimes remembering how intense and exciting was that period of our lives.
Our first brainstorming was in a PUB. I had prepared some documentation to start introducing to them what I had learned the year before about robots, and my plan was to make everything relaxed and funny.
Actually, it was quiet funny to discuss about legs' kinematic, gyro sensors and embedded computer in front of a pint and a burger.
We started working on the project in October 2002, and our robot (named "Isaac" of course) was taking shape month after month. Unfortunately, it was actually harder than I expected, especially from the mechanical point of view: the design took more then I expected and the construction took MUCH more than I expected.
I was trying my walking algorithms in simulation, but I was already sure that it would not be enough without a large period od testing on the real robot.
Winter flew away in the blink of an eye and summer was getting closer and closer: Robocup was getting closer!
I did want to succeed. I so eagerly wanted it!
All my life, I thought that I could demonstrate what I can do if I would have the possibility, and that possibility was given to me. If I would fail with the Isaac Project, I would felt that I would have failed.
Once I shared my opinion about leadership with a friend of mine that wants to become a movie director. We detected many similarities between his job and mine.
He said: "the real leader/boss is the one that share the merit of success among all the team but takes just on himself the responsibility in case of failure".

I can't remember if it was May already, when it happened. We was doing some experiments in the lab with the newly constructed Isaac: the body was built already and we were mounting the computer, the electronic boards and doing the cabling.
I was checking with an oscilloscope one of the serial lines, when the "cocodrile clip" were ground voltage was, accidentally touched the main computer of Isaac.
Immediately we heard the sound of a short circuit and white smoke come from the CPU.
The switch was on the other side of the robot respect to my position.
I took the cables that connected the robot to the power supply and I snatched them with my own hands...
But the computer was burnt and we did not have any replacement to go on working.

The ugly but beloved Isaac