Question: What would the robots help with?

Siobhan Duncan answered on 6 Mar 2017:

Dear Olivia,

This is a really great question!

My swarm robot would be used to solve any complex problems. Swarm robots can solve problems much better than any robot can do on their own.

For example, if it snowed outside and your class decided that you really wanted to build a large igloo to play in, would it be better if one person in your class did all the building? Or would it be better if everyone in the class helped to build the igloo?

But imagine an example where you teacher needs someone to go the class across the corridor and borrow a chair. Is it better if one student does this task? Or would it be better for the entire class to go and get the chair?

In the first complicated tasks, it’s much better when the entire class helps to create bricks out of snow and put the bricks in the correct place. But in the second simple tasks, it would be ridiculous to send an entire class to fetch one chair.

Well this is similar to what I study.

My robots will one day be really good at complex tasks. Such as building new homes or roads, or cleaning up our streets or beaches, or finding a lost person in a large area (like lost at sea), and other big complicated tasks.

However my robots will be really bad at simple tasks, such as going to get you a glass of water from the kitchen, or closing the door.

The area that I am most interested in, is how can I design and teach my robots to help save people from disasters. Like searching for people after an avalanche, or helping firefighters save people from a fire. Hopefully my robots will be really good at that one day.

Hope this answers your questions, if not, or if this just creates more questions, please ask me more and I will answer them.

Thanks
Siobhan