The American Centre in Colombo hosted a webinar on robotics and automation as part of their Makerspace on 24 October. The webinar was conducted by mechatronics specialist and tech company Zone 24×7 Senior Designer Ranjan Kulathunga. The webinar was a platform conceptualised to provide young inventors, entrepreneurs, and educators with technology and resources to foster innovation and solve problems.
Makerspace conducts courses and public seminars on subjects like robotics and automation and fosters Sri Lanka’s makers’ community, hosting the first Sri Lankan Maker Fair in 2019 with the US Embassy.
The seminar, led by Kulathunga, who is also Makerspace Co-ordinator at the American Centre, dealt with the value of robotics and how it applies in day-to-day life, while also discussing trends in robotics in a Sri Lankan context.
Kulathunga shared that there is quite an active makers’ community in Sri Lanka, with the first Maker Fair being held last year, which attracted over 7,000 people over the course of two days. These Sri Lankan makers came together in the early days of the pandemic, contributing knowledge and expertise to design innovations like special robots to deliver things to patients and UV lamps to help destroy the Covid-19 virus.
Kulathunga explained that robots have a very special place in human imagination through their depictions in science fiction, inspiring potential makers in children to look at the world differently. Speaking on science fiction media like movies and television shows, Kulathunga shared: “People back then envisioned what the future would look like, and now, much of what they imagined is real and can be made simply nowadays too.”
Speaking on what separates a robot from a machine, Kulathunga explained that, basically, robots are reprogrammable machines, who also have the capacity to adapt to obstacles when performing tasks, while a machine can only do one thing under specific conditions. This is because of sensors, scanners, cameras, and other pieces of tech that allow them to be more flexible.
Kulathunga stressed that robots are not always necessary, but in certain situations can give humans an advantage. “If you assign a task to a human and if they do it the whole day, they will get tired,” Kulathunga said, adding: “Also, if it is something that requires great accuracy, over time, humans will find it difficult to maintain the same level of accuracy; these are situations where robots are an advantage.”
Robots are designed to make life easier by carrying out monotonous and high-accuracy tasks, leaving humans more easily able to pursue more creative and thought-provoking tasks.
Kulathunga also spoke about the present scope of robotics and the integral role that they will play in the future, explaining that even countries like Sri Lanka have great potential for contributing to the field of robotics, with companies like Zone 24×7 designing robots for companies in the US.
Kulathunga also explained that robots have different applications across all fields of industry, from exoskeletal robots that allow the differently abled to achieve unimpaired function, to commercial robots that can revolutionise retail processes like inventory to a myriad application between industries like education, entertainment, medicine, and the military to name a few.
Robotics is not all computers, numbers, and engineering, Kulathunga shared, explaining that it was very important for designers working in robotics to have a solid understanding of biology. “To design perfect robots, you need an understanding of biology because you are imitating human or animal actions. You need to understand skeletal systems and muscle structures and understand how muscles work and how movement happens. If you want to be a robotic engineer, you absolutely need to understand biology. Many robots feature algorithms based on biological processes. Even AI (artificial intelligence) requires working with artificial neurons and neural networks, which requires significant biological knowledge.”
Ending the webinar, Kulathunga posed the question that has been the subject of many a thrilling piece of science fiction – will our developing robots lead to a future where they become a problem for us? A complicated question, and one that Kulathunga left open for participants to ponder.
Makerspace at the American Centre was initiated in 2013 as a space to provide resources and nurture talent to design something new in the technical field. Makerspace conducts short programmes and public seminars on technology and advancement. All programmes are free of charge. For more information, please visit the American Centre’s Facebook or Instagram pages.
