In tonight’s show (May 7), Jon Stewart conducted a very interesting interview of Lee Gutkind, author of “Almost Human: Making Robots Think.” Gutkind had spent several years at Carnegie Mellon University (home of the CMU-Cam, and the “Red Team” DARPA Grand Challenge roboteers) while writing his book. The show discussed various autonomous robots, like the coal mine mapping “Groundhog”, “nurse robots” that deliver med’s to patients, and incredible soccer-playing dog robots. The show will rerun tonight at 10 pm PDT and several more times tomorrow on the Comedy Central. It’s a short, but entertaining interview about the future of robotics.
Thanks for the heads-up… I just caught it. This guy is a pretty good representation of pretty much anybody you’ll ever meet from Carnegie Mellon. He knows his stuff, but he’s just a little crazy. 
I’m really looking forward to the soccer robots in 2050… sounds like a project for future FIRSTers.
IM READING THAT BOOK 
wow…that is such a great book. There are so many things that our robotics club can relate to. Many things in that book sound so interesting to get into and judging by the ammount of sleep they get and by the ammount of work they put in, id say they relate to us more than we know it. Just think…in a few years, we will be doing things like that… anyway its a great book, you should all read it.
Our software mentor is a CMU grad - he certainly knows his stuff. I’ll reserve comment on the “just a little crazy” trait…
… sounds cool! I want to watch it but don’t have regular access to a TV here. It’s definitely great that CS is getting some mainstream media attention. The field has a lot more to it than “programming” or even building software.
We looked at his coal mine mapping robot in one of my classes… very interesting stuff indeed. They use a laser scanner to scan a cross section of the cave and by combining all of these slices create a full 3d model of the cave.
Robotics + The Daily Show = w00t!
The video’s currently on The Daily Show website, available for free for anyone to watch. 
You’ll have to scroll about a third the way down the list, where you can view the whole segment online. Just look for the segment titled “Lee Gutkind”.
http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/index.jhtml
I saw it last night. The guy was brilliant and I like how smart scientists and engineers have been on the line up more recently compared to how often they appeared in the past. The I think Stewart shares the need for scientists and engineers for our future…Only if we could get him to promote FIRST somehow. Maybe, just maybe, if the authors of FIRST Robots Behind the Design had an opportunity.