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ICONs 3D Printed Homes

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According to YaleGlobal online, based on national reports, as of 2017 more than 150 million people which is 2% of the world’s population is homeless, but 1.6 billion people lack adequate housing which is more than 20% of the population. Causes of homelessness across countries are due to many factors and one of them includes shortages of affordable housing.

An affordable alternative for this issue is ICONs 3D printed single-story homes. They are made out of a cement-based mix designed to extrude without slumping while hardening quickly as well. According to Icon’s PR team in March of 2018, they can create 600-800 sq ft homes printed in under 24 hours for just $4000. Now with the new Vulcan II printer, they can print homes up to 2000 sq ft in under 72 hours. The portable printer is designed to function with near zero-waste and to work under unpredictable constraints like limited water and power in order to tackle housing shortages in underserved communities throughout the world. The three critical problems that icon is focused on are affordability, sustainability, and availability.

The Vulcan 11 stands 11.5′ tall and can print wall structures up to 8.5′ tall. Vulcan spans 33′ and can print on foundations up to 28′ wide. Print length is effectively infinite. The printer is completely portable and is transported by a trailer. Also, all of its controls are in an app that can be used on a tablet.

 

“As Cities Grow, So Do the Numbers of Homeless.” As Cities Grow, So Do the Numbers of Homeless | YaleGlobal Online, Yale University, 13 July 2017, yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/cities-grow-so-do-numbers-homeless.

“Introducing the Vulcan II Printer.” ICON, 11 Mar. 2019, www.iconbuild.com/updates/introducing-the-vulcan-ii-printer.

Amazon Prime’s Drone Delivery System

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Amazon Prime Air’s delivery system’s technology offers extremely fast delivery time for emergencies like bringing medicine to a parent who has a sick child late at night. Drone delivery is also better for the environment. A single, battery-powered drone traveling to bring your order versus a large delivery truck is a vast improvement when it comes to emissions and energy efficiency. The drone also wins out when comparing it to you driving your car to the store for the same items. Small aerial drones can also be used for many different things like instead of delivery it can assist in a search mission for a lost hiker for example. So overall, this technology is important because it’s creating a faster, more energy-efficient, and more convenient mode of delivery.

Customers choose from a selection of thousands of items. They receive the order in a prime air fulfillment center. Your order is placed into a box then an electrically powered amazon drone makes its way down an automated track then rises into the sky with the customer’s package on board. Once in the air, the buyer will get a notification on their phone, tablet or another device, and a timer will count down to their delivery. They’ll know exactly when their purchase leaves the warehouse, when it approaches, and when it lands. Within 30 minutes of placing their order, the customer receives their package. The drones are autonomous, so they operate completely on their own. They will also have what Amazon dubs “sense-and-avoid” technology, which will ensure the drones don’t hit birds, trees or other obstacles along the way. They cruise below an altitude of 400 ft carrying packages up to 5 pounds (which is 80% to 90% of all products that Amazon sells) and guided by GPS. The drones reach speeds up to 60 miles per hour in order for the deliveries to be in 30 minutes or less. 

There are some ethical considerations for this technology. One major concern society may have is the loss of numerous jobs due to the use of more drones than delivery trucks. This will leave a lot of people unemployed and looking for another job which will be a huge problem for those who need to supply for their families and other situations. Also, privacy will become a major concern with the use of drones because they use a GPS to locate a customer’s house. People may not feel comfortable about these potential issues, and they may strongly consider the negative aspects of this technology.

Treacy, Megan. “Amazon Drones: a Look at the Pros and Cons.” TreeHugger,  Treehugger, 11 Oct. 2018, www.treehugger.com/gadgets/amazon-drones.html.

 

Microsoft Creates an AI to Beat Ms. Pac-Man

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Pac-Man is one of the most popular and best-selling arcade games of all time and is simple to follow. The player is placed in a maze filled with food (depicted as pellets or dots) and needs to eat all of it to advance to the next level. This task is made difficult by four ghosts that pursue Pac-Man through the maze. If Pac-Man contacts any of the ghosts, the player loses a life. After all three lives are lost, the game’s over. In the making of Ms. Pac-Man, in order to increase the difficulty, the creators added in a few new mazes and decided to make the fruit, a high point item, and more of a challenge to collect by making it move across the field. Also, instead of having a set time when the ghosts switch between scatter and chase mode, they completely randomized it.

The ghosts in Pac-Man are always in one of three possible modes: Chase, Scatter, or Frightened. This is when the ghosts pursue Pac-Man, avoid Pac-Man, or turn blue and can be eaten by Pac-Man. In order to be successful in Pac-man, you must understand ghost behavior. The key to understanding ghost behavior is the concept of a target tile. Most of the time, each ghost has a specific tile that it is trying to reach, and its behavior revolves around trying to get to that tile from its current one. When approaching “intersection” tiles, which is indicated in green in the picture, the choice of which direction to turn is made based on which tile adjoining the intersection will put the ghost nearest to its target tile, measured in a straight line. The ghost will choose the path with the shorter straight line. However, this can result in the ghosts selecting the “wrong” turn when the initial choice places them closer, but the overall path is longer. Note that target tiles are only used in chase and scatter mode. In frightened mode, the ghosts pseudorandomly decide which turns to make at every intersection.

The ghosts’ AI is very simple, which makes the complex behavior of the ghosts even more impressive. Ghosts only ever plan one step into the future as they move about the maze. Whenever a ghost enters a new tile, it looks ahead to the next tile that it will reach and decides which direction it will turn when it gets there.

With the ghost’s behavior being more random in Ms. Pac-Man, Microsoft’s AI, the player, had to rely on assigning every object on the maze a priority which then influenced the player’s behavior as it moved throughout the maze. For example, the player knew how to avoid the ghost because of the huge priority it had the closer it got to it. When the ghost turned to frighten mode and could be eaten, the priority then flipped and the player knew to follow after it. With the use of priorities and a heat map of the game.

The AI was able to navigate through every level of the game while avoiding all of the ghosts and eating all of the food on each maze. This led to the AI being the first player to ever beat Ms. Pac-Man with a perfect score of 999990. However, because this wasn’t an actual person, the actual world record is held by a player who obtained a score of 933580 themselves.

https://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2015/11/03/inside-the-development-of-ms-pac_2d00_man.aspx

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpB1B9Tr_ck