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As a student of all t hings design, itfascinat es me when I encount er a sub-

ject t hat is technologically oriented,well-designed, and focused on help-ing people as well. When the subjectis as cool as somet hing like robot s,t hat rare intersect ion between design,t echnology, and humanit y, my excite-ment nearly doubles. Ron Rizzo repre-sent s t his rare breed of know-how

meets compassion. With knowledge ofrobot ics, comput er science, elect ricalengineering, and a passion for helpingpeople -- he has forged a path-- bot hfor his students t o learn, and t o helpt he communit y, t oo.

Ron is a man whose passion is to makerobot s, but really his passions runsmuch deeper t han t hat . As a staff en-gineer at Western, Ron helps studentslearn robot ics. But t hen he also makesrobot s t hat are used in many aspect s

f i i i f b h

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I

am someone interested in all things which touch our lives in the interface between design, t

ogy, and humanity, and Ron Rizzo was a serendipitous ind for an interviewer like me. With edge of robotics, computer science, electricity, and a passion for helping people, Ron runs th

of know-how meets compassion. After all, his projects are above all about helping people,

students and the world at large.

As a staff engineer at Western, he is both gregarious and eager to help students, not and lack

stuffy demeanor of someone who pursues knowledge to make himself bigger in others eyes

its own sake. This was one of the things about Ron that I enjoyed the most, that in helping ot

truly found his life calling. This story begins with an interview about a man who makes rob

its really much more than that.

So lets begin . . .

WK: This is Will Kotheimer at the EBS building with Ron Rizzo. And hes a staff engineer at W

Kentucky University in the robotics area. How are you doing today?

RR: Doing just ine.

WK: I just wanted an introduction to what you do with your students, and we can take this a

ing off point especially with what your vision is with robots and robotics.

RR: Okay. Im employed by t he Universit y. Iman elect romechanical engineering technologist .I received my four year degree from Western,was a project engineer at a local firm f or five

years then got t he opportunity to come t o theUniversity as a staf f engineer primarily in elec-t ronics and computer support but a lot of mypassion is in the field of robot ics, automation,and programming t ype applications. So for t hedepartment I support all of these projects thatwe have going on t he electrical side, from ro-bot ic competitions to printed circuit boards,t o creating visual basic code to anyt hing thatpertains on t he electrical side.

WK: So how does a robot w ork?

RR: First y ou have to get a definit ion of what it sgoing to do, because t hat usually guides howyou are going to design it. A robot can consistof something that m oves around the floor to

something that performs cert ain tasks forindividuals. A robot can be autonomous, it canbe RC cont rolled, it can be cont rolled by using

a push butt on, a joystick. . . t heres so many different applica-

t ions of a robot. So the first part of it is t o identif y what is yourtask, what do you want it to do, and from there you start t ogo t hrough your design. You look at your hardware, your soft -ware. The element s somet imes we deal wit h things wit hin ele-ments underwater, its in a cave it has to go along t he borderof Mexico looking for t unnels, the ambient t emperature being110 degrees. So thats a variable you have t o look into. Theend user, who is going to use this robot? How do you operat et he thing is also very important? So when you say robot t hereare so many possibilit ies for it, so you really just look at whatyou are looking for it t o do.

WK: You ment ioned soft ware programs, and I am learningVisual Basic myself. When most people think of soft ware itsrunning something on screen, but here its running something

out in t he real world. How is the interface bet ween that, and ist hat something t hat is easy t o explain?

RR: On the applicat ion side of t hings, and here in my lab I have

. . .sometimes we

deal with things with-in elements. Its in

a cave, it has to go

along the border of

Mexico looking for

tunnels, the ambient

temperature being 110

degrees.

Robotsare only

as smart a

the person

veloping

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I am someone in

in all things whic

our lives in the in

between design,ogy, and humani

Ron Rizzo was a

endipitous ind f

interviewer like

knowledge of robotics, computer science, electricity, and a passion for helping people, Ron r

gamut of know-how meets compassion. After all, hi s projects are above all about helping p

both his students and the world at large.

As a staff engineer at Western, he is both gregarious and eager to help students, not and lackstuffy demeanor of someone who pursues knowledge to make himself bigger in others eyes

its own sake. This was one of the things about Ron that I enjoyed the most, that in helping ot

truly found his life calling. This story begins with an interview about a man who makes rob

its really much more than that.

Photo by Will Kot heimer

robot s that run soft ware internally, so youhave to program it . And when you programit t o do a certain task thats using soft warelanguage that s then loaded to a micropro-cessor. From there it now cont rols eithert he turning of a wheel, t he flashing of a light,t he movement of an arm. So t he processorcontrols it , but you as a designer programt hat processor to do what it needs to do.

That is one application. Anot her applica-t ion is someone sitt ing behind a computer

screen and cont rolling, so we could do t hatt hrough radio frequency, we could do t hatt hrough infrared lighting, I could do t hatt hrough wireless. I have a robot t hat is actu-ally wi-fi controlled. So on a computer y oupush a joyst ick, the comput er then sendsout a code over t he Ethernet, and t he robot

detect s on it. Voice activated, theres textt o speech, theres so many variet y of waysto control a robot.

WK: So t he inputs are chosen, and t hey t ellt he robot, okay I want you t o move your armt o t hese coordinat es. . .

RR: You as a programmer t ell it. Robot s are

only as smart as t he person developing it,because AI hasnt been developed. Art ificialintelligence is coming around but t heres somuch that needs to be learned in that fieldt o handle all of t he vast variety of variablest hat it has to deal with.

So let s t ake a situat ion. . .something thatIm working with, and that s individualst hat suffer from rheumatoid arthritis. Fort hem to be able to negotiate t heir day today activit ies the v ariables in a persons

environment is ever changing, so as a pro-grammer you either have to deal with hereare variables that I can program around and

from t heir the robot has t o make decisionst o help negotiate t he movement of a table,t he individual moved a table from this loca-t ion to that locat ion, now the robot needst o deal with t hat, or you know, theres anobstacle in its w ay. So now, how do I negoti-ate around t hat, so as a programmer I canput variables that I know but t hen give it t heinstrumentat ion to allow it t o make somedecisions. Now how much of those decisionscan I make, so its not thinking on its own allt he time, theres still limits on what t hosedecisions can be. But it does have the abilityt o go hmm. . . theres something in my way,

maybe I need to t urn right.

WK: How can robot s help humans and whatkinds of human centered applicat ions aret here? Maybe just ment ion a few of t hemt hat you are working in specifically.

RR: They are everywhere. If you t hink about

it, your car has computers. You look atcars now that can detect cars behind you,objects t o t he side, park a car for you. Soindividuals use them everyday. A projectIm working on now is for the t ransport ationdepartment. We are using a robot t o inspecta cave. We use t hem for search and rescue,for body identificat ion and recovery fordrown vict ims, for people wit h disabilities,

for homeland security, f or entert ainmentsometimes. Sometimes even t he simplestt hings you can think of have it s own merit.So robot s are used in more places than you

can think of you dont t hink of well maybet hat car is making a decision I t hought Iwas in control. Well not always.

WK: Im not sure when this came about,maybe back in the fort ies or fif ties. But thewhole idea of t he robot was popularized by

Isaac Asimov and probably earlier thbut t he idea of cy bernetics, which cof needs creat ed by people who neeprosthet ic limbs and even now they robots in fact ories where if the workdangerous and maybe even just t ooing. In fact I read just checking Wiki name Robot came from t he Czech wdrudge work.

RR: Well Bill Gat hat here shortexpects robotsevery house.

WK: You meancartoon t he Je

RR: And unfortwhen most peoof robot ics, likemy robot s wheduce t hem as aliving devices f

viduals, first t hcomes to t heir Rosie. Oh, dlook like Rosie?not a humanoidrobot . That hasdifferent set of

of t o try to go upright. But it is a robhelps people wit h disabilit ies. So yeour cartoons and just childhood t hinof lend that but Bill Gates said that rwill be in every house very shortly.

WK: Maybe we should concentrate odisability quest ion. Because I am ve

ested in t his blog in how various tecgies can help people.

RR: Well t he company I got t o develoassisted living devices because therover seven million people last year wfered f rom simple arthritis. Who are

This robot was created by Ron to work in acave system t hat runs below a neighborhood.Phot o by Will Kot heimer

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t o bend, stoop, and pick up items, so in mymind how do they deal with t he day to dayactivit ies. We take f or granted I can bendover and pick up that tow el. In most sit u-atio ns people on disabilit y or who have adisability are either let go from their currentposition because they can no longer performt hat t ask which then puts t hem on some sort

of social securit y, medicare, or Medicaid, sot hey were not quit e ready for t heir retire-

ment is what Ive discovered. So they areliving in smaller environment s and are unablet o redesign their house. So if I am not able tostoop down t o pick up a can of f ood, how do Ideal with t hat? So a lot of times what t heylldo is that they will move it up to t he top oft he count er. They t ry t o use the house thebest they can, but t hats not the best or t hesafest environment f or them, so thats whatI focused on how to assist even the simplet ask on gett ing a glass of water.

WK: What considerations to you t ake int oaccount w hen designing a robot . For in-stance, you might t ell it t o go this far, butnot f arther?

RR: Some things are learned. And t hen someof it you just kind of learn t alking to t he enduser What do you need? and then you de-

sign around t hat you know, because maybeits somet hing as simple as grabbing a bot tled

water, t hat we take for granted because itssomething I can do everyday. I can walk to afridge and grab a bott le of water. But somepeople cant do t hat so, if that is the needthen t hat is what you start thinking about.Okay how does this robot get f rom A to B, Bt o C, C t o D? How do yo u open a fridge?

WK: A lot of st eps that you just t ake forgranted.

RR: Yes exactly ! Because when I am t hinkingabout t hose applications. I even talk to st u-

dents about t hat because our freshman haveto build an autonomous robot . Or we dealwith f ourth, fif t h, and sixth graders doingrobotic compet itions and activit ies. And alot of times I will say, okay boom, you are t herobot, walk from here to here now what didyou do to go from here t o here? So that isrobotics in a sense. In your mind, you do t hat

already. Now you just have to t ell that robotto do it. So that is the programming side, but

t he mechanical side is now how do you physi-cally design? Well that s years of using 3-Dpackages, Arduinos, learning how to ma-chine. Ive built m y own C and C devices, Ivelearned what I needed t o f abricate, becauseif I can think it , I can see it, I just can physi-cally make it right now . So then you start todo t he physical, the hardware side of it .

WK: How do y ou say t hat, Arduino?

RR: AR-duino? Ive used parallaxes, arduinos,HC-12s, HC-11s, At mel ATtiny, ATmega,sanguino, whats another arduino family?Again, if y ou are passionate about it, y ou

want t o explore them all.

WK: Ron, how did you get into t his field?

RR: What kind of start ed it . Several t hings.One of t hem is just being an electrical engi-neer. You always have t he passion to want t ocontinue educat ing. I started on one micro-processor and t hen got inspired by anot herand another and another, t o components, t oa variety of different motors, motor-control-lers. When I was a very young engineer, r ightout of college I was working with an oldergentleman, who was about to make a move,his division was being t ransferred to PuertoRico, and I got t he opportunity t o work withhim and meet t he guy. I said, you are about

to be phased out , but you are always a happyguy, how do y ou do it ? He said, just becauseI am not here doesnt mean Im still not go-ing to enjoy being an engineer. What youhave to do, you got t o love what y ou are

doing. And I kind of t ook t hat and gthat , because if I enjoy playing witprocessors, or building robot ic devwhatever it is. I also do woodworkibuilding things. You know. Its not ayour passion. It could be photogr ayou become good bec ause you enthat and you want to do t hat. So t h

of let me down the path of electrorobotics. Now t he assisted living d

was inspired by just t alking t o peounderstanding these people are sufrom t hese disabilities but y et t heing there t o assist t hem. If I had a bI could get a wheelchair, or use cruI have a broken leg, but if y ou are sfrom art hritis or loss of limbs, thering there for you. So that is a passt hese are real people, that I have swith. One gentleman in Houston Ttalk t o he has to stop m e half-wasome of our phone conver sations.Ron it just hurts me t oo bad, I canntinue t his. And t hats real world. Hyou live like that ? So t hat has insp

sion, you know, someones got t o people. Theres got t o be help for t

So that s whats t aken me down thassisted living devices and t aken medge of t en years in being passionelectrical engineering and playing micropro cessor and the wireless mand to incorporate t hat into a roboto hopefully help somebody that is

Ron developed this robot and gave it t o his wife to help with t he yard work. Photo byWill Kot heimer