Presenting Gemm at the Parque de la Innovación
gemm2 min read
Teleoperation worked at ORT and again when we arrived, but failed just before our pitch. We had tested the setup and recorded a backup. This is how the Community Meetup at the Parque de la Innovación unfolded.
On September 29, we presented Gemm at the Community Meetup at the Parque de la Innovación. We brought the robot, a rehearsed presentation and a teleoperation demo that had worked at ORT and worked again when we arrived at the event.
Just before we went on stage, it stopped working.
Before we left
I spent the day in ORT's AI and Robotics lab with Guido, trying to restore the robot's connection. We could not access it over the internet or Ethernet.
We ended up connecting a hub, a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse to get directly into its terminal. After several attempts, we restored remote access and could continue preparing the presentation.
The LiDAR was not working either, so we would not be able to show the dashboard with live data from the robot. For that part, we had a video prepared using data we had recorded earlier in the lab.
A few hours before presenting, I told Guido: “everything that could possibly break is going to break.” We needed to be ready to keep going if something failed.
After what happened at Bibi’s with Restoman, I did not want to rely only on something having worked up to that point. I had told Guido we should record everything working and recreate at ORT the setup we would need at the Parque de la Innovación.
We did. We tested the demo, rehearsed the full presentation and recorded teleoperation working a few hours before leaving.
Then we walked the few blocks from ORT to the Parque de la Innovación, bringing the robot and everything we needed to set up our own local network.
From ten minutes to three
We had prepared a presentation of about ten minutes. When we arrived, we were told we had three. In the end, we got seven.
We wanted to explain how Gemm had evolved: from a visual editor for programming a quadruped robot to a project focused on inspection and operations in refineries. The robot drew attention, but the important part was explaining what work we wanted it to do and why.
We set up the network and tested again. After a few adjustments, teleoperation worked at the Parque de la Innovación too.
While the previous group was presenting, we started powering up the robot and preparing the demo. This time, we could not get teleoperation working. The host even gave us a little more time, but it was not enough.
The robot stood beside the stage. Guido and I presented anyway.
We showed the video of the dashboard processing real data recorded by the robot: camera footage, a point cloud and map views. It was not a live run.
To explain the teleoperation we could not demonstrate, Guido went to get the VR headset. He almost fell as he stepped off the stage. Nothing happened, and we ended up laughing about it on stage.
We were nervous and forgot a few things, but I felt we got the central message across.
After the presentation
After we came off stage, people approached us with questions and interviews. One of them offered to put us in touch with someone experienced in robotics projects.
Later, Fabrizio Guaglianone spoke about building with AI and the importance of judgement. I liked the talk: being able to build something does not mean it makes sense to do it.
The demo was an important part of what we had prepared, and I wish it had worked. This time we had tested the setup and prepared a backup; even so, something that had worked in the same place stopped working just before we presented.
I cannot take away a technical explanation we do not yet have. What I take away is a presentation we managed to give with what we did have to show, and conversations about Gemm that continued after we came off stage.
More about Gemm.