tofuwatch.com

Bean curd inspires MIT researcher (who studied in Seattle) to name robot “TOFU”

 

As that popular saying goes: Only in America.

If you’re concerned that the recession will bring this country to a complete halt, and I acknowledge it is causing genuine and serious pain, well, it’s time to rethink that thesis – at least for a moment.

I say that after coming across TOFU, a fuzzy, feathered owl-like robot from MIT graduate student and researcher Ryan Wistort.

Yes, he writes, his robot ”is named after the squashing and stretching food product.” Why? It also can “squash and stretch.”

And get this: He studied electrical engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle.

I point to Wistort because his work and outlook, as well as others from the MIT Media Lab’s Personal Robots Group, illustrate that innovation continues to prosper in the United States.

Yes, there is a litany of economic woes that is turning President Obama’s hair gray sooner than expected. Research and investment dollars are harder to find.

But as we know, computer companies that gained worldwide influence once started with people tinkering in suburban garages.

I like tradition. I also believe in innovation.

Take a look at Wistort’s other work. One of his projects is to turn a 1965 Vespa gas-powered scooter into an electric one. “Why?” he writes on his Web site. “Who cares, it’s awesome.”

There is the robot hand he helped develop while living in Seattle. He has posted other videos on Vimeo, including a recent clip of Mochi.

Economists often talk about the idea of a self-fulfilling prophecy – that we build our lives, to an extent, around what we believe will happen. So, if you think failure is in your future, you start believing it and living it daily.

Some people just give up.

One of my saddest moments as a journalist was interviewing people last year who seriously were on the brink.

After I heard their stories, I thought: “Thanks for talking to me on the record for my story. Good luck.”

I would have offered them advice. But I didn’t have any idea to offer at the time.

I like how Wistort has embraced the idea of “Why not?” as compared to “That’s impossible.”

Or, as he writes: “This crusade of eternal adolescence has most recently (led) me to MIT, where I am working on a masters degree in super cool robot technology.”

On his Web site, he has posted photos of TOFU and a nice sketch of the robot.

Yes, TOFU has received recognition on Boing Boing. Other media outlets have chimed in, too.

Anyway you look at it, though, TOFU is new, fresh. If you asked me how to build one just like it, I’d look at you and shrug.

When I was a graduate student in international affairs, one of my roommates was studying engineering.

If I recall correctly, he talked about “growing” cartilage in a lab and injecting it into parts of the body that needed it, say in the kneecap.

I just listened.

It’s too bad I don’t live in the Boston area, where I could just call up Wistort and the other MIT researchers and ask to visit their media lab.

Another thing: Tofu (the word) has now stretched from a province near Shanghai, across the Pacific Ocean, to the mind of a researcher who studied in Seattle.

Then from the West Coast, the word stayed with him in Cambridge, Mass. at one of the country’s most august universities.

Now, “tofu” is not only attached to vegetarian food. But it’s associated with a robot with eyes that can move and a body that can squish.

I’m sure TOFU makes kids and adults smile and say, “Wow.”

More importantly, though, TOFU prompts us to ask a basic but important question: “How did you do that?”

UPDATE: I’ve said before that I try not to link that often to The New York Times. It’s easy to find the company’s stories.

But the company offers up top-notch journalism, including this interesting look at robots who aren’t being put to use in Japan. The reason: The recession.