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Tag: Robots
Our robots are getting smarter. Should we be excited or scared? At the next STEM Café, “RoboRevolution: The Future of Sentient Machines at Home and in the Workplace,” two NIU thinkers will explore the many ways cutting-edge robotics and artificial intelligence are changing our lives. The free talk and discussion will be held from 6:30...
Ian D. Walker
Ian D. Walker, a professor or electrical and computer engineering at Clemson University, will visit NIU at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 29, to talk on “Biologically Inspired Continuum Robots.” Walker’s presentation will take place in Room 354 of the Engineering Building. His research interests are in robotics, particularly novel manipulators and manipulation. His group is...
Photo of a robot
For years, humankind has thought of capable, intelligent robots as the stuff of science fiction, from the friendly droids of “Star Wars” to the mechanical overlords of “The Matrix.” In fact, smart robots are already all around us – with more coming every day. The ongoing invasion of robots into our everyday lives is the...
STEMfest
NIU’s annual STEMfest will once again dazzle and educate thousands of visitors of all ages to the Convocation Center from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Oct 17. This free, family-friendly festival, attended by nearly 7,500 people last year, celebrates innovations in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math) and offers hundreds of hands-on...
Recently NPR ran a rather interesting competition of man versus machine. This 21st century version of the John Henry legend pit NPR reporter Scott Horsely against Automated Insights’ Wordsmith, an algorithm designed to assemble original news stories by accessing data residing in the cloud. What this little experiment demonstrated is not what you might expect....
A book penned by Northern Illinois University professor David Gunkel provided inspiration for a new featured video on the PBS Idea Channel. Hosted by Mike Rugnetta, the Idea Channel is a weekly web series with a focus on technology. Gunkel’s book, “The Machine Question,” helped inspire the July 2 Idea Channel episode, titled “When Will...
Daniel Wilson
Are you smarter than your smart phone? Can you outdrive a self-driving car? The technology we rely on is becoming more and more sophisticated. Could humanity survive if that technology turned evil? Daniel H. Wilson, who explores the possibility of a machine uprising in his novel “Robopocalypse,” will visit NIU and the Sycamore Public Library this...
NIU Robotics Club
For the second time in as many years, the NIU Robotics Club engineered the “Most Innovative Design” at the annual AMD Jerry Sanders Creative Design Competition. “NAI” – its name originates from the acronym, Northern Autonomous Intelligence – is a 145-pound ground robot designed to navigate through a series of objective-based challenges. In March, students...
Pettee Guererro
Through the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology (CEET), Huskie Pride is crossing borders and changing lives. Pettee Guerrero, a mechanical engineering graduate student and president of the NIU Society of Women Engineers, left the comforts of summer in DeKalb to bring the knowledge she has gained at NIU to Camp Eureka in Puerto Rico....
NIU Robotics
NIU’s new robotics team, having just formed in the fall of 2012, was eager to compete in its first challenge. And so it was Saturday, March 9, that NIU Robotics traveled to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for 26th annual Jerry Sanders Creative Design Competition. The rules are simple; teams must design, create, and...
Photo of a vintage toy robot
by David J. Gunkel,  NIU Professor of Communication Perhaps it is just coincidence, but there is an interesting convergence of apocalyptic thinking taking place in the final month of 2012. On the one hand, we are quickly approaching the “end of the world” as predicted by the Mayan calendar – December 21, 2012 to be...
As morning dawned Saturday, Oct. 20, on the NIU Convocation Center, thousands of spectators eagerly waited to see what the third annual STEMfest would have in store. Visitors from all over Illinois and Indiana traveled to DeKalb to witness a unique experience of science, technology, engineering and mathematics under one roof. STEMfest continues to grow...
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