Biofore Magazine 2022

By Ndéla Faye Photography LUT

TECH HUB

55

W hile telepresence robots are a well-estab lished method of communication, stu dents at Finland’s Lappeenranta Univer sity of Technology (LUT) have taken the innovation a step further by building one from plywood. The idea stemmed from Jamie Hyneman, Pro fessor of Practice at LUT, needing to travel between the campus andhis home over 8,700kilometres awayon theUSWestCoast. Now, a prototype is being built at LUT, with its sister ro bot residing at Hyneman’s laboratory in San Francisco – a third will be given to UPM once complete. “Our prototype is very nearly ready, aside from some minor adjustments," says Marko Kasurinen , Head of Development at LUT. "We have managed to form a remote connection to the robot, but we still needtoadjust theuser interfaceandworkonuser-friendliness." Telepresence robots have been on the market for about a decade, but they are often very expensive. LUT’s plywood robot will facilitate laboratory work and teaching at its J. Hyneman Center (JHC). JHC’s Associate Professor Markku Ikävalko explains: “We wanted to create a robot that would be relatively cheap and create a tool that would remove the need for our guest lec turers to travel. The robot can roll over to the students, and the guest lecturer can essentially have a face-to-face conversation with them.” Saving time, money and the environment The students are the driving force behind the project and are doing most of the legwork building what is familiarly called the ‘Hynebot’. Two of the students involved, Aditya Hosamani and Swapnil Baad , have been impressed with the inter- disciplinary effort that has gone into the project. “Jamie actively tracks the Hynebot’s progress and offers us

advice and guidance on the design and implementation aspects," Hosamani says. "During his recent visit to Lap peenranta, he showcased some of the work in robotics carried out by his company, M5 Industries Inc. This gave us an insight into the latest trends and inspired us to adapt some of those ide as for the Hynebot, such as the device being able to move on the floor in all possible directions." The Hynebot, supported by UPM Plywood, has a very simplistic de sign – and that is exactly the whole point of it. To keep costs low and to not draw away from the robot’s ac tual purpose, there was no need to create anything other than a robot that works. Ikävalko says: “Often, people feel that a robot should re semble a Transformer, or something from a sci-fi movie, and that a ro bot’s appeal comes from its looks. We, however, believe it really might look like a plywood box. As long as it does its job, the rest doesn’t matter.”

“Often, people feel that a robot should resemble a Transformer, or something from a sci-fi movie, and that a robot’s appeal comes from its looks.”