Hubots

August 1, 2018

Gr 3-5-The humanlike robots profiled here range from SAFFiR, a shipboard firefighter being developed by the U.S. Navy, and Valkyrie, a NASA project for performing maintenance and other simple tasks in a space colony, to the German NimbRo-OP, designed to play competitive soccer as a platform for studying robot movement and perception, and even Pepper, produced by the Japanese company SoftBank for human companionship. Each section about a particular robot offers a few paragraphs of description, followed by bulleted lists of specifications and applications, as well as a "status update," indicating where the technology stands in the development process and what organization is responsible for it. In addition to the robot profiles, a sidebar addresses the question whether "hubots" can think and introduces the concept of embodied intelligence, where robots collect data from their environment and learn from it. A later section presents "a closer look" at different models of hands, feet, and vision used by developers. Others address the "uncanny valley," the unease inspired by robots when they reach a particular stage of human likeness. Ries's illustrations range from bold, photorealistic depictions of the robots to colorful drawings of what they might look like in action. The text includes references to two recent books and two websites for more information, as well as a glossary and index, but no source notes or citations. VERDICT A light treatment of a very timely subject, recommended for middle grade independent reading and technology research.-Bob Hassett, Luther Jackson Middle School, Falls Church, VA

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 15, 2018
Introductions to 10 robots modeled on the human body, with thoughts on their current and future uses.Pepper, a robot designed by a Japanese firm "to provide companionship," is the only one of the gallery that is currently being produced rather than in a prototype stage. The other nine are mostly built for emergency or industrial work, such as SAFFiR, a "Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot"; Hubo, which can bend and also shift from legs to wheels; and Valkyrie, a NASA project intended for off-Earth work. For each, Becker offers very general physical specifications, a "Mission," a brief description of its "Superpower," and a bulleted list of possible applications. More generally, she also takes closer general looks at robotic hands, eyes, and other necessary components, glances at artificial intelligence and its corporeal cousin, embodied intelligence, and discusses the statistical "uncanny valley" or "ick factor" in observers' reactions to robots that look almost but not quite human. She closes by floating the notion of robots' rights, suggesting that it might already be too late to keep them from taking over the world. Depicted with glossy realism that fades at the bottom into sketches to show that they are mostly conceptual designs, Ries' robots--particularly the ones with light- or dark-skinned human faces--stare inscrutably out at viewers.Mostly speculative at this point, but the topic offers equal measures of promise and provocation. (index, resource list) (Nonfiction. 9-11)

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