What have you done in your work that no one’s done before?

Question: What have you done in your work that no one's done before?
- Keywords:
  invention
Asked by Julia to Ollie, Iulia, Katie, Mateusz, Siobhan on 7 Mar 2017. This question was also asked by katieX.
- Siobhan Duncan answered on 7 Mar 2017:
  
  Dear Julia and katieX,
  
  This is a really good question, because a PhD degree is all about doing something new that has never been done before.
  
  I am trying to teach robots to work together in the same way that bees, ants, termites, etc… work together. They use very special ways to talk to each other that are very different from the ways people speak to each other.
  
  My PhD will involve teaching robots how to talk to each other in the same way that ants or bees do. So although I haven’t done anything new yet, I will do during my 4 years of PhD study.
  
  Thanks
  Siobhan
- anon answered on 7 Mar 2017:
  
  Much like Siobhan, I have to do something new for my work to count. I study existing robots and similar technologies for home by way of giving those to people. This approach is rarely used, and because I use new robots, I am producing new, unique work.
  
  So far, I have come up with some conclusions about how domestic robots should look and act like, which is not mentioned anywhere else.
- Iulia Motoc answered on 7 Mar 2017:
  
  For my PhD I am developing grasping algorithms for humanoid robots. So the robot can grab thinks like humans can. All the research in this area is about grasping for industrial robots, or assembly robots, which perform the same task over and over again. Whereas my research is specifically for humanoid robots. With a humanoid robot, you cannot know where the object that it needs to grasp is located. That means you need to find the position, you need to move the arm there, you need to decide how should the object be grasped, and all of this has to be as human-like as possible. You wouldn’t want to wait 15 minutes for a robot to try and grab something for you, would you?
  
  This is actually quite new subject in the field.
- Katie Pavey answered on 7 Mar 2017:
  
  This year I worked with a customer making a car out of plastic & glue with robots. It doesn’t sound strong enough does it?
  
  Plastic is much lighter than metal, so it means the car can use much less fuel.
  
  It was a big challenge to build a plastic car, but you should see it on the road later this year!
- Mateusz Jozko answered on 7 Mar 2017:
  
  With my engineering work experience so far I can tell that in 80% use a technology available on the market so there is always some example to look at (or someone more experienced to help). However recent project I was involved (with help of more experienced engineer) in creating Virtual Environment for our system. This project used this technique for a first time in our company. That took a lot of thinking and designing to make sure everything would work.

Question: What have you done in your work that no one's done before?

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