Students from the James H. Law Elementary School in Houston recently visited TRACLabs to see robotics demonstrations and interact with TRACLabs scientists. Law Elementary is a magnet school for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Nearly 20 students participated. In the picture below, TRACLabs’ scientist Dr. Patrick Beeson demonstrates a thermal sensor to the students. The TRACLabs manipulator is in the foreground.
Students from James H. Law Elementary visit TRACLabs
Seth Gee, a recent graduate of University of Texas at Austin has joined the TRACLabs team. While at UT, he worked on embedded systems and control for autonomous aerial and ground vehicles before getting his degree in Computer Engineering.
He will be working on teleoperation software for NASA and GM’s R2. He is also working on dexterous manipulation for TRACBot.
NASA is conducting their annual Desert Research and Technology Studies (RATS) program. Desert RATS evaluates technology, human-robotic systems and extravehicular equipment in the high desert near Flagstaff, Ariz. TRACLabs scientists are working side-by-side with NASA researchers to explore time-delayed operation of robotic assets. You can follow the Desert RATS experiments over the next two weeks at the following sites:
Desert RATS website
Twitter
Facebook
The Habitat Demonstration Unit (HDU) and Space Exploration Vehicle (SEV) from Desert RATS
NASA’s Robonaut is undergoing testing on-board the International Space Station. During testing, Robonaut is tweeting:
http://twitter.com/#!/AstroRobonaut
TRACLabs researchers have worked with NASA on various generations of Robonaut over the past decade and continue to perform joint research with NASA on a variety of robotic technologies.
NASA's Robonaut on-board the ISS
TRACLabs was fortunate to have three excellent summer interns this year. These interns improved the capabilities of our mobile manipulation system and also built a high-fidelity Gazebo simulation of the mobile manipulator. Pictured below, left to right, are Ben Conrad from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Nicolae Stiurca from the University of Texas-Austin, and Jonathan Realmuto from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Ben will return to the University of Wisconsin for graduate school. Nicolai will start graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania in the fall while Jonathan will start graduate studies at the University of Washington in the fall.
TRACLabs 2011 Summer Interns
TRACLabs interns received a behind-the-scenes tour of NASA Johnson Space Center’s robotics facilities today. Including an upclose-and-personal encounter with the R2 humanoid robot. A duplicate of this R2 robot is currently on-board the International Space Station (ISS). TRACLabs scientists work side-by-side with NASA robotics engineers on a wide variety of robots for space applications.
Jonathan meets NASA's R2
TRACLabs is currently building out a new facility in the Clear Lake area of Houston. This 5000 square foot laboratory and office space will more than double our current space and will provide room for our growing company. TRACLabs scientists took a tour of the new site recently (see picture below). We are quite excited and will post regular updates as we move forward.
Looking in from our new front door
TRACLabs welcomes its newest employee, Jeremy Norman, who is a software engineer. Jeremy comes to us from Northrop Grumman in Colorado. He has a BS in Mathematical and Computer Sciences from the Colorado School of Mines. Proficient in Java, C++, Web programming and OWL ontologies, Jeremy will be assisting TRACLabs scientists in developing cutting edge information display technologies for NASA and other customers.
TRACLabs' newest employee
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