Thursday, April 26, 2012

LASR in the news

So a few weeks ago, NRL decided to show off its shiny new building, the Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research (that’s LASR, not LASER), and I was asked to set up a demo in the desert lab (so that the visitors would see something more exciting than a big empty sand box). As it turns out, I briefly appear in a couple of the videos that came out of that event, one from the local CBS affiliate and one from Wired.

I’ve run lots of demonstrations for various government folks, so I was mostly expecting this to be like that: some people in suits come in, the tour guide describes what they’re looking at while I sit in the corner and make it work, they maybe ask the tour guide a question or two, and then they leave to go look at the next thing. Once in a great while, I shake somebody’s hand as they’re leaving. I really wasn’t expecting to have people with video cameras wandering over to my side and peeking over my shoulder. Why are you filming me and my laptop when there’s a genuine robot doing roboty stuff in the room?! Look over there, in the sand! It’s moving at this very moment! It was really weird.

Well anyway, I guess what I’m really trying to say is I have terrible posture and now there’s video evidence proving it to the world. Hurray.