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Quadriplegic Stuart Turner speaks at WIRED2014 via drones and robots

35 points by escapologybb 12y ago

Full disclosure: I'm Stuart Turner!

escapologybb 12y ago
Full disclosure: I'm Stuart! I thought you guys might enjoy this. :-)
- hanskuder 12y ago
  Hi Stuart! I'm an engineer at Suitable Technologies (makers of the Beam). Sorry to see the Beam didn't make it into the video, but it was really inspiring to see this talk. Thanks!
  - escapologybb 12y ago
    Hi! I've been using the Beam all over the world, it's amazing and I just wish I had one of my own. :-) (Probably need a ground crew and private plane as well!)
  - escapologybb 12y ago
    The beam was actually in the talk, but would you believe about five minutes before the talk there was a local problem with the Wi-Fi. Totally not on Suitable Technologies by the way.
    - tlb 12y ago
      To properly support people videoing in, conferences will need to provided dedicated WiFi on a separate channel. Current conference WiFi is reliable enough for checking email during a boring talk, but not for remote attendees. It's hard to get conference venues to care. It might require an interpretation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (in the US) to insist that reliable WiFi to support remote video attendees is as important as reliable elevators.
      - escapologybb 12y ago
        I agree with what you're saying in general. In this specific case, the venue WiFi was not the issue. It was human error on the day, but not something we need to rake over here. However, is a really interesting point about the reliable Wi-Fi in public spaces. If telepresence is going to be used as a viable way for quadriplegics like me to visit these public spaces, then we're going to need decent and dedicated Wi-Fi. Which in 2014 is both fairly easy to do, and not that expensive. But you're right, I do fear that it may need some Interpretation of legislation to make this work. In the UK we have to Disability Discrimination Act [0] which I think of is the same things as the ADA in the US. [0]:http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/the-disability-discrimination-act-dda http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/the-disability-discrimination-act...
        lyricalpolymath 12y ago
        Totally agree on the need of dedicated connections... for many reasons ;) however often a problem with conferences and large gatherings is that even if there are separate Wifis and on different channels the (constructive/destructive) interference is still bad enough that the connection slows down anyways. I know there are solutions out there, it's a matter of cost and time before they become widely available. (I'm hoping it will happen tomorrow ;))
        andrewnez 12y ago
        The drone was actually running on the same wifi as the beam and had no issues btw (I setup the drone at the event)
        escapologybb 12y ago
        Forgot to mention that, the drone works like a dream!
- tlb 12y ago
  I'm very happy to hear that this tech is doing something useful for you. We want to make it better. (I was the founder of Anybots, and know a lot of other people in the telepresence and drone worlds.) It's great that you're telling your story, because it's much more motivational for people working on the tech than some of the current popular use cases, like managers walking the cubicle farm while traveling.
  - escapologybb 12y ago
    It really is doing amazing things for me, is opening up places in worlds that would be utterly denied to me were not for these telepresence robots. For example, even if the museum has a ramp into the building, every single step between where I am and the Museum needs to be wheelchair friendly. One high kerbstone and that's me not visiting the Museum. Telepresence solves this problem wonderfully! If you know anyone looking for a freewheeling, quadriplegic, telepresence and drone-based beta tester just point them my way. :-)
lyricalpolymath 12y ago
Hi Stuart, thanks for sharing this and your experience. It's very inspiring to us as we are currently developing another "extensible self" tool [0] that will empower you to "remote control" real people (we call them agents) and show you around, even where drones are not allowed or there isn't someone who can set it up for you. Can we send you an email and ask you a few questions? Moreover, can you share a bit how the streaming feed is setup? [0] http://eyevel.com http://eyevel.com
- escapologybb 12y ago
  Sure, you can use: contact@robotsandcake.org. Edit: sorry, missed your question about streaming! All of the hard work on the streaming for the event was done by Andrew Nesbitt.[0] He's definitely the guy to talk to about this. [0]: https://twitter.com/teabass https://twitter.com/teabass
  - lyricalpolymath 12y ago
    thanks. I sent it to the email provided on https://escapologybb.com/contact/ https://escapologybb.com/contact/ if you want to antispam-edit this post with your email
tobz 12y ago
The part where you talked about using FPV goggles to control a drone was particularly interesting, and admittedly, hit me right in the feels. What's the current state of that technology? Last I knew/read, the latency between what the operator sees and what's actually happening was still high enough to make it disorienting. Is there anything you've seen / are working on that mitigates that? Is it even as much of an issue when your range of motion is constrained to your head?
- escapologybb 12y ago
  my friend Henry Evans at Robots for Humanity[0] has done some testing with the Oculus Rift, he has much more limited range of motion than me and he was able to fly a Parrot drone fairly successfully. But I think when she start moving higher speeds than I think the latency is still a problem, although I've not had chance to test it. At the moment I'm still trying to find people in the UK who can help me set up a similar sort of system, as at the moment I've been using the Parrot AR Drone coupled with NodeCopter[1] and the excellent ardrone-webflight plugin. FPV is my 100%, oh my god I'm flying from a wheelchair, ultimate dream setup, and I think I'm right at the beginning of that journey. [0]:http://r4h.org/ http://r4h.org/ [1]:http://ardrone2.parrot.com/ http://ardrone2.parrot.com/ [2]:http://nodecopter.com/ http://nodecopter.com/ [3]:http://eschnou.github.io/ardrone-webflight/ http://eschnou.github.io/ardrone-webflight/

35 points by escapologybb 12y ago

Full disclosure: I'm Stuart Turner!

escapologybb 12y ago

Full disclosure: I'm Stuart! I thought you guys might enjoy this. :-)

hanskuder 12y ago
Hi Stuart! I'm an engineer at Suitable Technologies (makers of the Beam). Sorry to see the Beam didn't make it into the video, but it was really inspiring to see this talk. Thanks!
- escapologybb 12y ago
  Hi! I've been using the Beam all over the world, it's amazing and I just wish I had one of my own. :-) (Probably need a ground crew and private plane as well!)
- escapologybb 12y ago
  The beam was actually in the talk, but would you believe about five minutes before the talk there was a local problem with the Wi-Fi. Totally not on Suitable Technologies by the way.
  - tlb 12y ago
    To properly support people videoing in, conferences will need to provided dedicated WiFi on a separate channel. Current conference WiFi is reliable enough for checking email during a boring talk, but not for remote attendees. It's hard to get conference venues to care. It might require an interpretation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (in the US) to insist that reliable WiFi to support remote video attendees is as important as reliable elevators.
    - escapologybb 12y ago
      I agree with what you're saying in general. In this specific case, the venue WiFi was not the issue. It was human error on the day, but not something we need to rake over here. However, is a really interesting point about the reliable Wi-Fi in public spaces. If telepresence is going to be used as a viable way for quadriplegics like me to visit these public spaces, then we're going to need decent and dedicated Wi-Fi. Which in 2014 is both fairly easy to do, and not that expensive. But you're right, I do fear that it may need some Interpretation of legislation to make this work. In the UK we have to Disability Discrimination Act [0] which I think of is the same things as the ADA in the US. [0]:http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/the-disability-discrimination-act-dda http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/the-disability-discrimination-act...
      - lyricalpolymath 12y ago
        Totally agree on the need of dedicated connections... for many reasons ;) however often a problem with conferences and large gatherings is that even if there are separate Wifis and on different channels the (constructive/destructive) interference is still bad enough that the connection slows down anyways. I know there are solutions out there, it's a matter of cost and time before they become widely available. (I'm hoping it will happen tomorrow ;))
        andrewnez 12y ago
        The drone was actually running on the same wifi as the beam and had no issues btw (I setup the drone at the event)
        escapologybb 12y ago
        Forgot to mention that, the drone works like a dream!
tlb 12y ago
I'm very happy to hear that this tech is doing something useful for you. We want to make it better. (I was the founder of Anybots, and know a lot of other people in the telepresence and drone worlds.) It's great that you're telling your story, because it's much more motivational for people working on the tech than some of the current popular use cases, like managers walking the cubicle farm while traveling.
- escapologybb 12y ago
  It really is doing amazing things for me, is opening up places in worlds that would be utterly denied to me were not for these telepresence robots. For example, even if the museum has a ramp into the building, every single step between where I am and the Museum needs to be wheelchair friendly. One high kerbstone and that's me not visiting the Museum. Telepresence solves this problem wonderfully! If you know anyone looking for a freewheeling, quadriplegic, telepresence and drone-based beta tester just point them my way. :-)

lyricalpolymath 12y ago

Hi Stuart, thanks for sharing this and your experience. It's very inspiring to us as we are currently developing another "extensible self" tool [0] that will empower you to "remote control" real people (we call them agents) and show you around, even where drones are not allowed or there isn't someone who can set it up for you. Can we send you an email and ask you a few questions? Moreover, can you share a bit how the streaming feed is setup? [0] http://eyevel.com http://eyevel.com

escapologybb 12y ago
Sure, you can use: contact@robotsandcake.org. Edit: sorry, missed your question about streaming! All of the hard work on the streaming for the event was done by Andrew Nesbitt.[0] He's definitely the guy to talk to about this. [0]: https://twitter.com/teabass https://twitter.com/teabass
- lyricalpolymath 12y ago
  thanks. I sent it to the email provided on https://escapologybb.com/contact/ https://escapologybb.com/contact/ if you want to antispam-edit this post with your email

tobz 12y ago

The part where you talked about using FPV goggles to control a drone was particularly interesting, and admittedly, hit me right in the feels. What's the current state of that technology? Last I knew/read, the latency between what the operator sees and what's actually happening was still high enough to make it disorienting. Is there anything you've seen / are working on that mitigates that? Is it even as much of an issue when your range of motion is constrained to your head?

escapologybb 12y ago
my friend Henry Evans at Robots for Humanity[0] has done some testing with the Oculus Rift, he has much more limited range of motion than me and he was able to fly a Parrot drone fairly successfully. But I think when she start moving higher speeds than I think the latency is still a problem, although I've not had chance to test it. At the moment I'm still trying to find people in the UK who can help me set up a similar sort of system, as at the moment I've been using the Parrot AR Drone coupled with NodeCopter[1] and the excellent ardrone-webflight plugin. FPV is my 100%, oh my god I'm flying from a wheelchair, ultimate dream setup, and I think I'm right at the beginning of that journey. [0]:http://r4h.org/ http://r4h.org/ [1]:http://ardrone2.parrot.com/ http://ardrone2.parrot.com/ [2]:http://nodecopter.com/ http://nodecopter.com/ [3]:http://eschnou.github.io/ardrone-webflight/ http://eschnou.github.io/ardrone-webflight/