Technology reinventing nature
Technology does something to humans, multiple things, but
most of all we seem to use technology to enlarge what already exists. Mobile
phones offer ways to talk at a distance, planes bring us somewhere faster,
computers help us calculate more accurately, … and robotics mimic natural
motion. So, one could wonder how innovating humans are? Can we ever outgrow our
own world? Can we build things that are really different? Is it possible to
create something that one cannot imagine? I always wondered about this. Is the
fact that we do not see life in this universe because there is no life, or do
we not see it because we cannot imagine life that expands our known spectrum of
life? Whichever is the case, the urge to understand how things work or why we
are here (if we are here) seems to be one of the more attractive bits of
thinking and exploring. Maybe this is why the course which propelled the term
MOOC into the media was in fact on Artificial Intelligence.
Many of us are intrigued by the codes of life, by how things work, … by robotics.
Muybridge’s galloping horse after reorienting himself
One of those explorers of life, motion, technology was
Muybridge. As
he explored the static art of photography, he started to map the route towards
motion and … found it. With his pictures of a galloping horse he managed to put
photographs into motion (Btw he was very productive in his 50’s). And with his
motion pictures scientists could investigate in more detail what elements were
part of a seemingly fluent galloping motion. Muybridge was not a photographer
by trade, he simply turned himself
into one. He did this by traveling, hard work, trial and error.
MOOC to reorient or train
In our time and in the Northern/Western hemisphere, it is a bit
easier to retrain yourself by following MOOC, finding answers and ways of doing
stuff on the internet, or simply by the old trial and error. But if you scroll
through the courses that are available, I do feel there are more STEM oriented
courses than socially oriented courses. Especially in the advanced area. So I
wonder does this link to the fact that people want to understand their universe
through a technological lens, or is it because those STEM-oriented people use
technology more to send out their content?
In any case, if let’s say you would want to be a robotics
scientist, you can gather up some great courses, and in doing so build yourself
a network while collaborating with peers (I would think: learn, build, share in
core learning network, share in larger network via conferences: e.g. http://www.worldfuture2015.org/ ).
At the moment of writing this post, there are:
17 robotics related courses in Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/courses/?query=robotics)
25 related courses in EdX (https://www.edx.org/course?search_query=robotics
)
FutureLearn has several courses, but I could not find the
search all courses button. But this one is great ‘starting robotics’ https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/begin-robotics
.
In a way the above can be seen as curated courses... versus the open online courses you can build while roaming the internet.
When going through these courses, would you be able to get
into one of the more specialized robot-centers? I would like to think so. There
are some nice contemporary robot projects available. For example one on
galloping and jumping. I guess in the not so distant future more robot pets
will be living with us (no mess, they actually listen, they can help around the house or carry luggage...). I would like some fur on them though.
