First Autonomous Non-Human Boards Airplane - gets window seat
News from our friends in Houston!
LARA (Lego Autonomous Robotic Android) developed by the RoboBuffs, the robotics team at Charles Milby High School in Houston - became the first autonomous humanoid ever to pass airport security and board a commercial airplane. On May 7, 2009, LARA flew from Houston to Michigan on Continental Airlines. Her seat was 5A. The team and LARA participated in the Robofest, where she came in 5th place in the exhibition competition.
Here are a couple of photos forwarded to me from the Education Foundation of Harris County, which funded this project. Thank you so much!
The reason they decided to get LARA a seat was because Fedex damaged her on the way to Michigan last year and lost her for two weeks after the competition.
This year, the lead teacher of the team Stephanie Hobbs explains in her email, "on the way back, (we) almost did not get her on the plane: sent to two different scanning sites, TSA inspected with x-ray, physical, photos, chemicals, bomb squad, extensive interviews with TSA and FBI and bomb squad...finally we were allowed on since one of the inspectors saw the robot on the news through a story on RoboFest and I was wearing a ST Lawrence RoboFest t-shirt. We learned, and trained underclassmen for next year, and made history."
According to this press release, LARA "is anatomically correct in that it has skeletal, nervous, and muscular systems. It also has arms and legs with moving wrists, elbows, and knees, and it is autonomous in that it can be operated using only verbal commands and gestures (independent of a computer or a remote control)."
Also with help from the foundation, the RoboBuffs will copyright and trademark their creation as an assembly kit complete with instructions that other schools can use as an educational tool.
what a awesome robot, it looks creepy but still haves some sympathy.
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