Research

In other news, my research is coming along a bit slowly, but surely. I'm working with Dr. Dana Ballard, a rather prominent computational cognitive scientist. Although his specialty is directed more toward vision, he still lets me work on motor control. Here's a short video of one of my efforts.

This little inverted pendulum has one degree of freedom: a hinge joint at the 'neck'. That turns out to be enough to let it get around (as long as there's enough friction in the world). Bending shifts the center of gravity in one direction but exerts a force in the other direction (if the foot is touching the ground). The agent has to jump with enough counter-clockwise rotation so that the center of gravity is just left of the contact point. If the center of gravity is too far to the right, it keeps getting faster and faster with every jump until it trips; if it's too far left, it loses momentum and falls over the other direction. If the agent lands correctly, the momentum carries it forward and then gravity speeds it back up as the foot falls forward. Straightening the head pushes against the ground and kicks forward a little. The push lets it jump. The kick starts it spinning counter-clockwise again. It's similar to a potato sack race. Timing is very important. The agent can also do flips, but I haven't been able to teach it to land and keep going.