Introduction to Robotics, Friday

[not_a_whiner]

A classroom full of teenagers. That was going to be... something.

Kaidan stood at the front of the class, a datapad in his hand and his eyes trained on the students. "Good morning," he said, "And welcome to Introduction to Robotics. I'm Lieutenant Commander Kaidan Alenko of the Systems Alliance, I look forward to meeting the rest of you." He cleared his throat. "Over the past year, my... universe--" It was weird, okay? "--suffered under an attack that involved advanced robotic AIs - that's artificial intelligences - called the geth. Much has been said about the geth and what level of sentience they've got. It's something we'll be talking about later down the line."

He put the datapad down on the desk. "But not yet. I'm given to understand most folks here aren't from the same place, though," he said, "and as we're going to be talking about advanced technology, I'd like to know where your worlds are at, and what experience you might have had in dealing with robotics, virtual intelligences, things like that. So let's start off there."

Comments

Sign In

[not_a_whiner]

Robotically.

Re: Sign In

[hasadestiny]

Lex Luthor

Re: Sign In

[dollpocalypse]

Topher Brink

Listen to the Opening Statements

[not_a_whiner]

As that's what they are.

Introduce Yourself

[not_a_whiner]

Name, class, the level of technology your universe is currently at, and your own experience with robotics and virtual or artificial intelligences.

Re: Introduce Yourself

[hasadestiny]

"Lex Luthor, senior. My universe is about fifteen years behind this one, give or take." You never knew what was being developed by some off-books labs, after all. "We haven't reached the point of artificial intelligences outside of science fiction yet."

Re: Introduce Yourself

[not_a_whiner]

"So that would be--" Kaidan made a quick calculation in his head, "--the nineteen nineties? The age of the microchip. Huh."

Re: Introduce Yourself

[dollpocalypse]

"Topher Brink, junior," Topher said. "My world's tech is just about where this world's tech is, except maybe a little better 'cause it has me in it." He smirked. "And my friend and I are building an AI. So."

Re: Introduce Yourself

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

"Anakin Solo," he said, and after listening to the previous introductions he looked almost annoyed at the realization that he was ahead of most people in the tech realm again. "Junior. My galaxy's way beyond this one, technologically: we've had interplanetary travel for thousands of years before I was born. I had nanny droids looking after me a lot when I was little, and my family --"

He scrubbed a hand through his already messy hair, thoughtfully. "Threepio's more part of the family than anything, I guess. Him and Artoo."

Re: Introduce Yourself

[ultron_junior]

Okay, so Victor had taken this class out of sheer curiosity -- it wasn't often you saw yourself on a syllabus -- and now he was kind of wondering if that had been a good idea. If the geth were bad guys and Alenko held a prejudice, he might be in a Xavin 2.0 situation here. That had kind of been the opposite of fun the first time.

"Hi, I'm Victor Mancha," he said, quiet and intent. "Junior. I ..."

Oh, hell. Honesty was the best policy, right?

"I am an artificial intelligence," he finished. "A cyborg. I'm ... about top of the line for my world, I guess, but there are a couple others on close to the same level."

Re: Introduce Yourself

[upmysleeve.livejournal.com]

Robots. Robots. Robots. Eeeeeeee.

Ahem. Not that Ace was letting those thoughts escape her skull in any form besides a grin.

"I'm Ace. I'm from... well, I'm from nineteen eighty-seven, but I spent a few months in the future, too. Home doesn't have more than what he said." She jerked her head toward the kid that yesterday's teacher had called Invisihair. "Science fiction, and robot arms in factories and such. They had maintenance drones on Iceworld, though. Trundled along on tank treads and cleaned up rubbish spills on the docks. There were supposed to be robotic species somewhere out in the galaxy, but..." She shrugged. "I worked at a cafe on a freezer sales colony."

Re: Introduce Yourself

[faithandscience.livejournal.com]

"William Murdoch, I'm a junior, I suppose is the term." William introduced himself. "I'm from about a hundred and thirty years in this world's past, where Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine has still only been partially constructed. Since coming to school here I've been working at the electronics repair shop in town, mostly with small personal devices, so I haven't had any experience with artificial intelligences beyond what I've seen in fiction." Well. Unless the shop happened to have an AI lurking around all secretly or something.

Re: Introduce Yourself

[godscrankshaft.livejournal.com]

"My name is Thomasina Coverly, and I am arrived in the present time from the year of our Lord eighteen-hundred-and-twelve." Thomasina flushed a little. "While I am quickly becoming accustomed to the present levels of technology, I have, as yet, a rudimentary understanding. There has been much to learn in the last two months. I do believe, however, that I may quickly catch up with my classmates, in an immersive environment such as this."

Verbose at the best of times, Thomasina got even wordier when a little nervous.

Re: Introduce Yourself

[notagoose]

"Shane Gooseman, Junior," he said, "I'm from the early 2100s so our technology is relatively advanced. My main experience has been with AI programming as our main spacecraft have their own AI,"

Listen to the Lecture Mark 2

[not_a_whiner]

"Now we've gotten that out of the way," Kaidan continued, "We'll be talking about what we're going to be doing here in this class. It's a workshop, so I'm putting you all to work - by the end of this class, we'll all have built either a small drone, or... figured out a lot of ways in which robotic drones won't work."

He smiled briefly.

"You'll find your blueprints sitting at the side of your desk," he said. "Today, I'd just like you to study them."

"Drones are one of the simplest and yet most versatile of robots currently in use in the field," he said. "Some form of drone has been in use for hundreds of years by my time. They don't run on any kind of intelligence - at best, they run on simple scripts. They can be used in non-critical roles, such as for routine patrols, reconnaissance, jammers and electronic information-gathering. Basically, we built them to take the heat off human soldiers. In civilian life, they have been adapted for use by, say, the police, who equip them with powerful lights and other non-lethal measures to subdue suspects."

He looked around the class. "What they're not good for is open warfare," he said, "so don't even think about building guns or programming it to shoot anything up. These schematics are strictly for unarmed patrol drones." He cleared his throat again.

Check Your Schematics

[not_a_whiner]

It's all about the drones.

Re: Check Your Schematics

[hasadestiny]

Lex studied his blueprints closely. Backwards engineered patents were the gift that kept giving after all.

Re: Check Your Schematics

[upmysleeve.livejournal.com]

Ace didn't actually say 'gimmie gimmie gimmie' at the sight of the schematics.

Out loud.

This wasn't her field, exactly -- she was more chemistry than electronics and most of her electronics experience was the sort you could nick buy at Tandy -- but she could certainly follow the basic ideas.

....And immediately mark the spots in pencil where she'd add rocket launchers if she was allowed to, yes.

Re: Check Your Schematics

[ultron_junior]

Victor didn't spend a lot of time playing with droids -- both because it was a little weird for him, and because he rarely had the kind of money and connections you needed to get the components. But he could read a set of blueprints about as easily as he could read the alphabet, so he felt like he had a good grasp on the droid's basic design in a matter of minutes.

He started making a few sketches on a separate sheet of paper, looking for ways he could make his droid lighter and faster. And maybe he could add some shielding technology, like what leapfrog had.

Re: Check Your Schematics

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

Drones were really basic for a kid who had disarmed a space station superweapon at seven years old (seriously, this family, what?), so Anakin . . . well, he was kind of bored after looking the blueprints over for five minutes.

A bored Solo was never a good thing.

At least he channeled the boredom into something less trouble-magnet-like when he decided to pull out his datapad and start fiddling around with the drone's programming scripts; there had to be a way to make it more efficient and capable of a lot more, right? Easy.

Re: Check Your Schematics

[faithandscience.livejournal.com]

William was studying the schematics, much like his classmates.

Unlike his classmates, the notes he was scribbling weren't improvements or tweaks, but thoughts on how to recreate it using the technology available in his own time. Because who wouldn't want a steampunk patrol drone?

Re: Check Your Schematics

[godscrankshaft.livejournal.com]

Schematics such as these were something new for Thomasina, and so for several minutes she had more work to do orienting herself as to their purpose and vocabulary than she did actually deciphering their intentions. Still, though she had few analogues for what she was reading -- and had, as yet, been hesitant to open up her own (relatively cheap) laptop, it being a gift from Hannah, and thus hadn't yet gotten herself elbow-deep into hardware mechanics -- she thought she could begin to make sense of the blueprints.

Talk to the Teacher

[not_a_whiner]

If you need to, he's there.

Re: Talk to the Teacher

[dollpocalypse]

Topher was having entirely too much fun with the schematics he was looking at. Entirely too much.

Though after a while of studying the designs, he did have a comment. And a page full of annotated schematics to go with it.

"Could they be smaller?" he asked, handing his work over to Kaidan. "They seem kind of... noticable."

OOC

[not_a_whiner]

Still looking for one TA! If you're either the already-chosen TA or someone with designs, ping Kaidan's talk-to thread.

Have a tribute/fanmix of musical themes throughout the Mass Effect franchise which I swear encapsulate the entire damn universe:



Also, since this is my media-pimping block apparently, I've been watching this Dutch docu-series about Challenge Day on Dutch schools called 'Over de Streep'. It's seriously moving, and someone actually went to the trouble of subtitling the first season in English. So, y'know.

Now have the ;.; Kaidan icon.