Re: NEWS: BBC: Table top tricks

[BERNARD LEVENTHAL <xithal@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

dear jane, Please take me off the list temporarily. Thank you...Sandi




>


>
> US scientists have invented a smart table that can sort and rearrange
> almost anything put on it.
>
> The development may lead to bar counters that take drinks to customers, or
> restaurant tables which automatically arrange cutlery, crockery and cruets
> into place settings.
>
> The ultimate result of the research could be programmable rooms that can
> rearrange furniture without the help of humans.
>
> PhD student Dan Reznik and Professor John Canny of the computer science
> department at the University of California, Berkeley, have developed the
> table.
>
> The pair has discovered that by vibrating a table many times per second
> they can move the objects sitting upon it.
>
> The device has been given the grand name of a universal planar
manipulator.
>
> Table-top tricks
>
> The table is shaken using motors positioned on two adjacent sides of the
> table, which move it in one of two directions. Anyone looking down on the
> table would see that the motors could vibrate it either North-South or
> East-West.
>
> The motors shake the table via small rods that touch it near three of its
> corners. By combining vibrations applied from the different directions,
the
> academics have found that they can shuffle objects placed on the table
> surface.
>
> The control system for the table uses algorithms developed by the
academics
> over the last four years. These reveal how the table should be shaken to
> move an object to a particular position.
>
> The vibrations whip the table out from under the objects that then, thanks
> to friction, come to rest a tiny distance away from their initial
position.
>
> By repeating this many times a second, focusing on a different object
every
> time, it is possible to move separate objects in different directions and
> even divide up groups of objects.
>
> Object lesson
>
> The researchers have demonstrated the table's prowess by showing how it
can
> make three pennies follow a bow tie shape, make another penny trace out
the
> shape of a plus sign and sort a random scattering of eight poker chips by
> their colour.
>
> Sitting over the table is a camera that records the position of all
objects
> on the table so the control system can work out how close they are to
their
> destination.
>
> Mr Reznik and Professor Canny have designed a graphical interface for the
> table which shows what is on it and lets people tell the table where to
> move the objects with the click of a mouse.
>
> The first prototype of the smart table was a baking tray, but now the
> researchers are using an aluminium honeycomb that transmits the vibrations
> better and is less likely to turn them into useless vertical movements.
>
> Future work will involve speeding up the movement of objects and making
> bigger tables.
>
> Mr Reznik has presented his work at several academic conferences over the
> last couple of years but news of the smart table was first reported on the
> US technology news site Wired.
>
> Related to this story:
> 'Smart scalpel' spots cancer cells (23 Mar 00 | Health)
> DNA makes tiny tweezers (09 Aug 00 | Sci/Tech)
> Robots rule OK? (20 Aug 00 | From Our Own Correspondent)
> Smaller is better (21 Feb 00 | Washington 2000)
> 10 ways Tivo will change your life (28 Sep 00 | UK)
> Thai 'Robocop' tools up (31 Aug 00 | Sci/Tech)
> Doom on wheels stalks slugs (02 Nov 99 | Sci/Tech)
>
>
> By BBC News Online internet reporter Mark Ward
> BBC News Online: Sci/Tech
> 
>
> janet paterson
> 53 now / 44 dx cd / 43 onset cd / 41 dx pd / 37 onset pd
> TEL: 613 256 8340 URL: 
> EMAIL: janet313@xxxxxxxxxxx SMAIL: PO Box 171 Almonte Ontario K0A 1A0
Canada
>