Thread: Machine Learning with Lego Mindstorms

  1. #1
    l'Anziano DavidP's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Location
    Plano, Texas, United States
    Posts
    2,743

    Machine Learning with Lego Mindstorms

    In my machine learning course, our professor wants us to kind of lead our own projects this semester in contrast to having given very specific assigned projects in the past. It is our task to come up with a cool machine learning problem and then go out and actually solve it.

    So, over the past few days I have had a lot of things run through my mind...a lot of different ideas. One of the ideas is Lego Mindstorms. I think it would be really cool to construct a Lego Mindstorms robot and do some machine learning with it, but for the life of me I can't think of a good problem to solve using a Lego Mindstorms robot.

    So I was looking for ideas, and I thought maybe you guys could help me out. What kind of cool machine learning problems could you solve with a Mindstorms robot? I'm not talking about the classic "follow a dark line" or "get all the cans out of the circle". Those can easily be done without any "learning" at all.

    I need a problem that requires the task of actually gathering lots of data, and then performing operations of classification, clustering, etc. Something that use perceptrons, decision trees, support vector machines, etc. etc. etc.

    Any ideas?
    My Website

    "Circular logic is good because it is."

  2. #2
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Posts
    4,912
    Make a robot that scratches a human's back, and then focuses on one specific spot and scratches harder when you gasp or moan... I'll buy it from you after finals...

  3. #3
    Hail to the king, baby. Akkernight's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Faroe Islands
    Posts
    717
    Oh hell yeah! Mass produce those o.o
    Currently research OpenGL

  4. #4
    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Location
    United States
    Posts
    9,613
    Build a robot that can find lost gloves.

    I lose mine every Christmas... I shall have no pie.

  5. #5
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Posts
    4,912
    Just in case you think I'm kidding, I wasn't. I mean it involves sound recognition, forming patterns, staying between a persons neck and belt, not going near ickly-tickly spots I have under my arms... That thing would be an engineering marvel! Plus it's funny.. You could seriously market that thing.

  6. #6
    l'Anziano DavidP's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Location
    Plano, Texas, United States
    Posts
    2,743
    Your right it would be Haha so far it's the only one on the list.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Little_Kittens
    Last edited by DavidP; 01-29-2009 at 03:14 PM.
    My Website

    "Circular logic is good because it is."

  7. #7
    Malum in se abachler's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Posts
    3,195
    Hmmm, lego mindstroms are pretty milited in capability. I would suggest a more developed AI platform. I mean an ITX board with a webcam gives you so much more to work with than the brick.

  8. #8
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Posts
    266
    Quote Originally Posted by abachler View Post
    Hmmm, lego mindstroms are pretty milited in capability. I would suggest a more developed AI platform. I mean an ITX board with a webcam gives you so much more to work with than the brick.
    According to my old robotics teacher(who gardens for a living lmao) they show more potential than a computer for programming. Strange.
    Fried chicken for everybody!
    -Kernel Sanders

  9. #9
    & the hat of GPL slaying Thantos's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Posts
    5,681
    Make a robot that can play the 3D chess game from star trek


    With real pieces that it has to detect and move

  10. #10
    In my head happyclown's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    In my head
    Posts
    391
    Quote Originally Posted by sean View Post
    I mean it involves sound recognition, forming patterns, staying between a persons neck and belt, not going near ickly-tickly spots.... You could seriously market that thing.
    I can imagine the marketing spin:

    "Engineered to stay between your neck and belt, but if it doesn't, satisfaction guaranteed!"
    OS: Linux Mint 13(Maya) LTS 64 bit.

  11. #11
    بابلی ریکا Masterx's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Somewhere nearby,Who Cares?
    Posts
    497
    make a robot that recognizes peoples feeling by observing their facial expressions!
    Highlight Your Codes
    The Boost C++ Libraries (online Reference)

    "...a computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are,in short, a perfect match.."
    Bill Bryson


  12. #12
    & the hat of GPL slaying Thantos's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Posts
    5,681
    Robotic cat petter. Will have to learn the many contridictory signals cats give and be able to defend itself

  13. #13
    Crazy Fool Perspective's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2003
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    2,640
    Build (various?) awkward shaped robots and make them learn how to move using reinforcement learning. Something like this. You give it some joints, you have some sort of roller that gives positive reward when it's rolled forward, and you use pretty much standard RL.

  14. #14
    Malum in se abachler's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Posts
    3,195
    Quote Originally Posted by lruc View Post
    According to my old robotics teacher(who gardens for a living lmao) they show more potential than a computer for programming. Strange.
    Well he would be 'wrong'. Robotics isnt the cutting edge science it was 20 years ago. It's a mature technology, the same as computers, more so in fact, since most of the new developments in robotics involve developments in computing power. Its still advancing of course, but there arent any unsolved theoretical problems left that arent specific to another discipline. As for programmability, The ITX boards support 2-4GB of ram and a quad core processor along with expansion cards like a GPU, I'm pretty sure the brick doesnt come close, its not even in the same ball park, hell its not even the same sport.

    The brick is a toy, or at best a siple prototype for teaching. You won't see the brick on a Mars rover or building cars in a factory, or piloting a UAV or in a Terminator.

  15. #15
    Dr Dipshi++ mike_g's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    On me hyperplane
    Posts
    1,218
    I still reckon you should go for the lego groan induced w... machine. Its the future!

Popular pages Recent additions subscribe to a feed

Similar Threads

  1. Replies: 4
    Last Post: 01-18-2008, 07:05 PM
  2. Need Help On a Simple Bank Program
    By oobootsy1 in forum C# Programming
    Replies: 9
    Last Post: 08-08-2005, 10:51 AM
  3. Porting from 32 bit machine to 64 bit machine!
    By anoopks in forum C Programming
    Replies: 10
    Last Post: 02-25-2005, 08:02 PM
  4. machine learning code in c/c++
    By nchauhan in forum Game Programming
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 11-14-2003, 10:26 AM
  5. machine language
    By SAMSAM in forum A Brief History of Cprogramming.com
    Replies: 3
    Last Post: 03-12-2003, 05:50 AM