Doug Stephen

All of our research focuses around this concept of human and machine teamwork -- the machine doesn’t have to be a robot, it could be something like improving the display in a pilot’s cockpit or improving the user interface for social data acquisition software.

People don’t think of Florida as a technology hub, but there is a lot of technology innovation going on in Florida, a lot of that is due to the presence of the military and NASA. So between those two government presences, there is a need for a technology industry in Florida. And I think it’s all grown up around that.

One of the most difficult things in general was developing software that was good enough to do all of those things without falling down, especially as a walking robot, both Kaist and [Tartan Rescue’s] CHIMP relied on wheels and tracks most of the time to move around because it’s safer, and we walked everywhere. In general, the hardest thing is figuring out how to not fall down, especially with no safety lines.

When we think of robots, we tend to think of all of the big advancements coming out of Southeast Asia, and I don’t think it’s because they’re better at robots than we are -- I think they like robots more than we do and so they’re not afraid of them, i think the one thing that’s held back American robotics research for a long time is that in the West, we have this sci-fi culture of pretty scary robots, and so we have all of these horror stories of robots gone mad, and they don’t have that culture in Southeast Asia.

You got to do two runs and pick your best time. by Doug Stephen

You got to do two runs and pick your best time.