Curiosity: Lego Robot Learns with Brain
How robots of the future will learn like humans of the past
The article, “Lego Robot with an Organic ‘Brain’ Learns to Navigate a Maze” in Scientific American details the recent findings from an experiment scientists performed using a toy Lego Mindstorms EV3 to serve as the physical body for an organic brain they had built to see if it could learn from its actions.
Curious to discover how scientists used a toy to demonstrate how the robots of the future will learn like humans from the past? Get your curiosity ready to go from What?! to Wow! on robots and your brain.
Curiosity-Based Thinking Activity: What? to Wow!
Get curious about robots, Legos, and learning with eight questions to ask about and eight responses from the article “Lego Robot with an Organic ‘Brain’ Learns to Navigate a Maze.”
What is a neuromorphic chip?
“… a carbon-based neuromorphic computing device — essentially an organic robot brain — that can learn to navigate a maze.”
Who is credited for being a leader in the field of using organic materials to build this type of technology?
“Paschalis Gkoupidenis of the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany, and his neuromorphic research team…”
When did “neuromorphic” computing first go from a curiosity to an idea on its way to action?
“In the winter of 1997 Carver Mead lectured on an unusual topic for a computer scientist: the nervous systems of animals, such as the humble fly.”
Where did the lego robot demonstrate its ability to learn?
“Once the team members had designed their organic robot brain chip, a maze seemed like the perfect real-world situation in which to test it. This is because success or failure becomes obvious immediately: if the robot finishes the maze, it has clearly learned something — and “if it doesn’t, then it didn’t learn,” explains study co-author Yoeri van de Burgt of Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands.”
How does a neuromorphic chip memorize information similar to how an animal does?
