Enlarge

A dentist from the Showa University Dentistry School demonstrates treating a robot named Hanako Showa in Tokyo. Doctors and robotics researchers have unveiled a robot that happily goes under the drill for orthodontics students and can also express pain, roll her eyes and even drool like a real patient.

Few people would want to be guinea pigs for aspiring dentists but Japan has found an always-willing patient -- a robot.

Doctors and robotics researchers on Thursday unveiled a humanoid that happily goes under the drill for orthodontics students and can also express pain, roll her eyes and even drool like a real patient.
"Hello," female-looking "Hanako" said cheerfully as an aspiring dentist closed in during a presentation in Tokyo. "Please take care of me."
But the robo-patient's mood can quickly take a real-life turn for the worse if the grinding and drilling get too much or the wrong spot is hit.
"It hurts," said Hanako, dangerously moving her plastic head while a dental student was grinding her resin teeth, which are designed to be taken out and examined later to assess the student's skill.
In the demonstration, under the watchful gaze of an instructor, the dental student reacted quickly, deactivating and moving the sharp-pointed grinding tool to avoid damaging Hanoko's teeth or gums.
"Please raise your left hand when it hurts because it's dangerous to move your mouth," the student told the machine lying in the dentist's chair.
To add to the realism, Hanako can also move her eyes and eyelids, jaw and tongue. She even discharges a saliva-like liquid and slowly slackens her jaw muscles to simulate the gradual "fatigue" of a real patient.
Hanako was developed by the medical Showa University and a research team led by humanoid pioneer Atsuo Takanishi, a professor at Waseda University, both Tokyo-based, as well as robot maker tmsuk based in southern Japan.
The price tag is confidential, the inventors said.
Japan already has humanoid robots for a variety of tasks, from receptionists to photo models, but the field of patient robots is still small.
Hanako is the world's first that has been used to evaluate the skills of dental students on a large scale, according to Showa University. This month 88 of its students trained and took clinical exams using her.
Koutaro Maki, vice director of the Showa University Dental Hospital, told a press conference that the use of the humanoid meant a vast improvement from the traditional method to teach and train young dentists.
"We still have a system where the 'apprentices' watch doctors with higher skills, borrow from them and copy them... This is not scientific," he said.
"Education in the medical and dental fields is underdeveloped. I wouldn't say it's the Galapagos islands, but it is undoubtedly a final frontier. The key to cultivating this undeveloped land is a robot."
The great thing about using robots, Maki said, is that it "allows students to make many mistakes" from which they can learn.
Shugo Haga, a 26-year-old dentist-in-training, said he had previously used a mannequin's head but said it felt like using a mere "object."
Sitting next to Hanako, he added: "This one isn't easy to cope with, but she is close to being a patient."
Reference

 

  Enlarge

This photo released by the state-run Korea Institute of Industrial Technology (KITECH) shows South Korea's android robot "EveR-3" (Eve Robot 3) wearing a costume for the play "Robot Princess and Seven Dwarfs" in Seoul. The lifelike EveR-3 is 157 centimetres (five feet, two inches) tall, can communicate in Korean and English.

A South Korean-developed robot that played to acclaim in "Robot Princess and the Seven Dwarfs" is set for more leading theatre roles this year, a scientist said Wednesday.

EveR-3 (Eve Robot 3) starred in various dramas last year including the government-funded "Dwarfs" which attracted a full house, said Lee Ho-Gil, of the state-run Korea Institute of Industrial Technology.
The lifelike EveR-3 is 157 centimetres (five feet, two inches) tall, can communicate in Korean and English, and can express a total of 16 facial expressions -- without ever forgetting her lines.
Lee acknowledged that robot actresses find it hard to express the full gamut of emotions and also tend to bump into props and fellow (human) actors.
But he said a thespian android was useful in promoting the cutting-edge industry.
"South Korea is an active frontier in developing robots and we thought that making it would be a good way to promote our technology," Lee told AFP.
And just as visitors to New York flock to Broadway, tourists in Seoul may be drawn by a robot actress, he said. "We will try more plays this year with help from the National Theatre and the government."
Robots in future could also play a role as stagehands controlling music and lighting, Lee said.
South Korea has in addition developed a walking robot maid, a robotic penguin, koala and rabbit, and a variety of other models.
In 2007 a robot named Tiro was master of ceremonies at the wedding of one of its designers.

Reference

 

  Enlarge

Visitors look at the football-playing robots at the world's biggest high-tech fair, the CeBIT in the northern German city of Hanover. With less than 100 days to the World Cup, four pint-sized robots wowed crowds in Germany Tuesday with their footballing skills.

Forget Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney or Lionel Messi. With less than 100 days to the World Cup, it was four pint-sized robots that wowed crowds in Germany Tuesday with their footballing skills.

The four robots, about 60 centimetres (23 inches) high, named Rajesh, Penny, Sheldon and Leonard, part of the team that won the Robot Football World Cup in Austria 2009, played out an exhibition match at the world's biggest high-tech fair being held in Hanover.
The white robots use colour and line recognition to "see" the ball (orange), pitch (green) and goals (yellow and blue), explained Wiebke Sauerland from the B-Human team, part of the University of Bremen, which developed them.
By "seeing" the white lines on the pitch, the robots can tell where they are and adjust their movements towards the ball accordingly. When they sense they are near the ball, they kick out towards the goal.
"You programme them and then they do what they have been told to do. Normally," said Sauerland from the sidelines at the CeBIT fair, echoing many a football manager's agony.
The team from Bremen is due to compete in the 2010 World Cup for robots, held in Singapore on June 19, right in the middle of the "real" tournament in South Africa.
"We are confident, but there is a team from the United States that is really good," she said. The last competition drew 23 teams from around the world.
And it's not just for fun, she added. "The line-recognition technology is being used for wheelchairs so they know where they are in case a disabled person has difficulties," she said.
Want one of these for your next party?
"It's yours for 10,000 euros (13,500 dollars)," she said.