I attended a webinar for Computer Science: Hardware Acceleration for Realtime Robotics, for my public science event. This seminar was held out of Colombia University, and was both an online and in person event, lead and hosted by Barnard Plancer, PHD, candidate at Harvard University, where he specializes and studies robotics, mathematics and promotes STEM education. Over the summer he hosted an introductory program into robots and computer science for youth at MIT.

During the seminar he spoke about his research in controlled algorithms and mathematical theory and how he applied it to his everyday work in education. I found his work ethic both fascinating and imperative to the development of robotics. He discussed the implications of being able to successfully create robots that could be used in the real world in ways such as disaster response, terrorist attacks and even be an aid in combating worldwide pandemics like the one we are currently experiencing. It would revolutionize the health care systems in major ways, perfecting prosthetics, and possibly contributing to the home health aide industry, and possible even in ways we cannot even fathom at the moment.

Brian went in depth and provided a crash course in Robotics. He explained how he used exercised data on logarithms and algorithms as a foundation to develop  formulas to be processed and  command, CPUs and GPUs of a given robot. He iterated the different types of robots, ( dual, tri and quadrupeds’) and how the hardware is just as essential as the software, and which combination of the two would work better for each type of robot. We were shown a video of  ATLAS, a quadruped robot (four limbs), developed at Boston Dynamics, who performed some parkour for us, ending with a backflip and a celebratory jump, proving how advance the technology is getting.

Brain’s goal is the help achieve an accelerated GPU, or CPU platform that is compatible with any form or format of Robot (be it bi-, tri, or quadruped , in order to perfect its computing time and create robots worthy of the implications he’s predicted for the real world.

This experience made me recall the conversation we had with Erika Nesvold, the Astrophysicist and co-developer for the Universal Sandbox. When she spoke about all the possibilities, and numerical models  and their implications on our everyday lives.

I personally think it is very possible in the near future to reach his and other computer scientist goals if they keep up the momentum. He really brought depth and definition to this subject for me, and my task as a citizen computer scientist would be to keep up the discussion and reroute interest in this type of science, because these types of developments can once again revolutionize the healthcare system, not to mention our everyday lives.